January 13, 2008

The first few days that Pam felt “off” at work, she chalked it up to winter blues, and maybe a touch of seasonal affective disorder. When the sun finally broke through the clouds the previous Saturday and the temperature rose above thirty degrees she still didn’t feel like her usual self, and she started to worry that maybe she was coming down with the flu.

She spent a lot of the time over the weekend, curled up in the bedroom watching chick flicks on television and she spent several hours painting in the guest room. She had Jim make her soup to ward off the inevitable illness. She made sure that they had plenty of vitamin C tablets and Ibuprofen and she took a couple of each daily to make sure that the flu didn’t get the best of her. She layered herself with unnecessary amounts of clothing when she finally did step outside in order to go to the corner grocery store for new carton of orange juice. Then at night, she made sure that she was plenty warm under many blankets and she snuggled close to Jim as she slept.

Her usual home remedies to ward off illness did not work though – if anything, they only made her feel worse. And the truth of the matter was she couldn’t even remember the last time she was really sick. Ever since her early twenties, she was immune to nearly every illness that struck the people close to her. She had always been teased out of jealousy about her ability to ward off illness. Some of her friends used to say that she could survive the worst plague if it hit her home. Maybe this was just her years of immaculate health catching up with her and laying it all on her at once.

It wasn’t until Wednesday that she started to wonder that maybe she wasn’t sick. Maybe it was something else. She still felt sick though. She wasn’t vomiting, although she wasn’t eating a whole lot either because her stomach was constantly in knots.

As the week continued to pass by, she felt herself becoming exceedingly emotional as well. Jim was leaving on Friday for San Francisco, and she really hadn’t expected to feel as bad about his departure as she did. She chalked that up to the two of them not spending any time apart since they had gotten married – perhaps even earlier than that. It was going to be weird spending five days without him, especially after not being apart for more than a day over the past few months.

But it wasn’t that either.

***

Jim left on Friday evening, and Pam begged him not to go. She needed him at home with her. She didn’t even care about the promotion of his that was on the line. She didn’t want him to leave. It didn’t help that her stomach was in even more pain than usual and she could feel a dull ache pounding against the small of her back.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get there.” Jim said as he kissed her forehead and rubbed his palm against the small of her back – right where the pain was.

“Keep doing that.” and she moaned quietly against his shoulder as the ball of his hand coaxed away the knot.

“Pam, I need to go.” he said and she whimpered quietly as his hand left her back for his bags next to the door and the pain instantaneously returned.

“I don’t think you should,” she said quietly, “what if something bad happens?”

“What’s going to happen in the next five days?” he teased. She gave him a look that said, ‘You never know, Jim…’ and he frowned a little. “You’re going to be fine. It’s only five days.”

“Five days is a long time when we haven’t been apart a day since October.” she mumbled.

“I’m only a phone call away,” he reassured, “and I can assure you, there will be no Armageddon.” Pam smiled weakly and nodded twice. As she opened the front door for Jim, she couldn’t help but feel her intuition kicking her from behind – right in the small of her back.

“This really hurts.” she said rubbing her back while she stood with Jim in the doorway.

“Me leaving? Or your back?” he asked.

“Both.” she replied.

“Five days,” he whispered as he bent low and pulled her into a tight embrace, “I might be able to weasel it down to three or four if I’m really lucky.” He kissed her on the cheek and continued to hold her close to his body.

“What about my back?” she asked.

“Go to the doctor if it gets really bad,” he replied, “we have good insurance. It’ll all be covered.”

“Okay.” she said with a quick nod, her chin bouncing off of his shoulder.

“I love you.” he said quietly before he pulled away. Pam quickly stood on her tip toes and kissed him on his lips.

“I love you too.” she said sadly.

He hugged her once more then quickly stepped outside and ran down towards the car the advertising company had sent for him that was awaiting him in the street. She waved meekly from the doorway, and she watched the taxi until it was out of sight. As she turned around to go back inside of the empty home, she felt her stomach turn into a tight knot and it felt as if someone stabbed her in the back with a hot knife.

***

She knew pregnancy wasn’t supposed to feel like this – if she even was pregnant. She had been twice in the past, and it hadn’t felt like this. Nothing should feel like this. She spent the rest of that Friday evening in bed because she was hurting too much to walk around the house. She wasn’t hungry, and even if she was, pizza or Chinese sounded far from appealing to her sensitive appetite.

She fitfully slept through the night, only to wake up around midnight when Jim called her from San Francisco.

“Were you asleep?” he asked when she picked up the phone and he heard her groggy voice.

“Yeah.” she replied, her mouth was painfully dry and her stomach was still in knots.

“Are you feeling any better?” he asked.

“Worse.” she replied.

“Maybe you should go see the doctor tomorrow.” he said.

“Maybe,” she said, “if I can find a doctor’s office that’s open on a Saturday.”

“Oh, right, it’s the weekend.” he said.

“Jim?” she asked nervously, her voice wavering slightly.

“Yeah?” he replied.

“I think I’m pregnant.” she said softly. There was a pause.

“Really?” he asked, his voice hopeful, excited, a little wary.

“I…I really don’t know,” she replied, “it’s just…I kind of thought maybe…”

There was another painfully long pause before Jim spoke up, “Do you…what are you going to do?”

“I think I’m going to go buy a pregnancy test tomorrow,” she replied, “I really need to know…we really need to know.”

“Do you want me to come home?” he asked. She laughed quietly, but it wasn’t really a laugh, it was much more hollow than usual.

“Of course I want you to come home,” she replied, “I feel like shit.” This time Jim laughed softly, though he immediately realized afterwards that it wasn’t the correct response. “No, you need to stay out there in California. You want that position.”

“Yeah, but I’d kind of like to be with you when you find out whether or not…you know, if you are…” he said quietly.

“I’ll call you when I find out.” she said.

“Okay.” he said.

“And Jim?” she said quickly.

“Yeah?” he responded. She paused and ran her hand along her abdomen, as if her hand would quell the twisting knots deep in her stomach.

“Nothing, I just…” she stammered, she didn’t want to worry him, she didn’t want to tell him that the feelings tumbling around inside of her stomach were some of the worst that she had ever felt. Instead, she said, “I love you. And I miss you.”

“I love you, and I miss you too.” he said.

“I’m going to go back to sleep.” she said.

“Okay, you do that,” he said, “get lots and lots of rest, and take care of yourself and the potential little one as well.”

“I will.” she choked as he said his ‘goodbyes’ to her and she carefully hung up the phone. She reached over the side of the bed to set the phone back on the nightstand and as she recoiled, there was another cramp that twisted through her stomach. She whimpered from the pain and curled up in a fetal position under the covers. If this was pregnancy, she didn’t want anything to do with it.

***

Pam slept until eleven the next morning. When she finally re-entered the world of consciousness, she immediately realized that she felt a little better. Her stomach wasn’t tied up in knots and she felt…okay. She didn’t feel fabulous, she certainly didn’t feel like going out for a long walk or jog by any means, but she could stand up without feeling like she needed to immediately collapse into a chair or her bed.

She warily showered, dressed and ate a small bowl of granola and yogurt. She was out of orange juice again – she started to wonder just how much orange juice she had consumed in the past week – and decided that she might as well go outside and pick up a new carton of orange juice and a pregnancy test.

She felt cautiously optimistic as she walked into the Duane Reade around the corner. She grabbed a small basket and made a beeline for the refrigerator cases in the back of the store. She quickly grabbed a half gallon of her favorite brand of orange juice and then cautiously made her way into the aisle with the feminine hygiene products and the pregnancy tests.

She had only bought a pregnancy test once before. She couldn’t remember what the brand had been, but the thing had frustrated her to no end. It was cheap and she was convinced after using it that it was broken – if a plastic stick could be broken. When the results finally started to appear – a couple minutes later than they were supposed to – she hadn’t been able to tell whether or not the line was pink or blue. She had thrown it away in anger and frustration and she promised herself that she would work up the nerve to go out and buy another the next day. When she awoke the next morning, she had started her period and there was no need for her to return to the drugstore.

She had a lot of options to choose from as she looked at all the boxes in front of her. She looked them over quickly, her eyes darting back and forth amongst pink, blue and white boxes. She kind of felt like she was eighteen all over again and buying a box of condoms for the first time; there were so many options, which was the right one for her?

Her eyes settled on the digital test in the middle of the shelf. It was a lot more expensive than the rest of them, but there also seemed that a lot more of the digital ones had sold than the others. She picked the box off the shelf and quickly scanned it. At least this one would be clear – no vague lines or colors to read. She quickly threw it in the basket and on her way to the cash register at the front of the store, she grabbed a bag of dark chocolate M&Ms and a large bag of Twizzlers to soothe her nerves – whatever the result of the test might be.

***

It took her the entire afternoon to actually work up the nerve to take the test. Throughout the day she had repeatedly told herself what a life changing moment it would be if she was. The more she told herself that, the more nervous she became. She wished that Jim was home, she wished that he could be there with her while she waited for the results to appear.

Finally, after eating the entire bag of M&Ms and about a quarter of the bag of Twizzlers, she pulled herself into the bathroom with the pregnancy test and the phone and dialed Jim’s cell phone. She nervously tapped her foot as she watched herself in the mirror. The other end of the phone rang and rang and rang…

“You’ve reached the voicemail of Jim Halpert. I’m unable to come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon I can…”

Pam took a deep sigh. She was going to have to do this on her own. She looked at the small clock sitting near the sink; it was seven o’clock in New York, which meant it must have been four in California. He was probably in a meeting.

“Hi Jim, it’s me…Pam,” she said as she left him a message, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to take the pregnancy test right now. I uh…I was going to talk to you while I did it, but you must be off in a meeting right now or something. I don’t think that you’re voicemail can handle five minutes of me babbling while I wait for the results so I’ll call you back later when I find out whatever it is I’m about to find out. I really, really wish you were here right now. I love you and I will talk to you later. Bye.”

***

She sat staring at the “Pregnant” for a good five minutes before she gathered together any coherent thought. It took her another ten minutes to realize that she needed to call Jim and let him know. It took her another ten minutes after that to think of the right thing to say. She figured that if he had received the voicemail message from her that he would have had the decency to call her.

Somewhere in the midst of waiting for the results and gathering up the courage to call Jim again, the twists and knots in her stomach had started up again. As she thought about what she was going to say to Jim, she started to contemplate whether or not she should even call him and tell him the results. She was pregnant, the digital pregnancy test couldn’t lie, but there was just something deep inside of her that kept screaming at her that this wasn’t right.

She hung up the phone the first time she called him and it went to his voicemail. Did she really want to be the wife who leaves her husband a voicemail telling him that they’re going to have a baby? She thought of the future and she wondered what that story would sound like five years into the future, “I told your father I was pregnant for you while he was in a business meeting while in California!” But she had to tell him, and the little kicking feeling in her chest told her to do it soon, do it now.

She took a deep breath and bravely dialed his number again. As she expected, the ringing of the other line went to his voicemail and when she heard the quick beep to leave a message, she summoned all of the courage inside of her to speak.

“Hey Jim,” she said, her voice sounded foreign as she heard herself, “um…it’s me, Pam, again. I just, I wanted to let you know that I took the pregnancy test and…” she paused quickly, “wow, this is the worst possible way to tell you, through your voicemail and all.” She laughed a little to herself, but even her laugh didn’t quite sound right, “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I took it and…we’re going to have a baby.” Something immediately changed inside of her as she said the words. She felt happy all of the sudden. There were still jitters of nervousness fluttering inside of her, but it wasn’t the same as before. She was having a baby. She and Jim were having a baby. Together. Theirs. “So, let me know when you get this,” she continued. “I think that I’m going to go to sleep early again tonight. I’m not feeling so hot again, but…at least I know why now.” She nodded to herself and smiled in the mirror. “I’ll talk to you later, Jim. I love you. Bye.”