For most people, that weekend was unremarkable. In my house, however, it was dominated by one question, repeated several times a day: "How could a pregnancy test say you were pregnant, Sean?"
It was a good question. Unfortunately, none of us had an answer. And we couldn't get one until the doctor's office opened on Monday.
When Monday finally came, I spent fifteen minutes getting dressed. My problem was, all my T-shirts really bothered my nipples for some reason. I finally had to go with a Hawaiian shirt I had gotten for a party a year ago. Nobody understood when I explained what took me so long; well, Mom might have, but she just stood there with a weird expression on her face when she heard.
Anyway, once I had eaten, Mom called the school to say that I wouldn't be coming, due to medical issues. Then, once Nick was off to high school and Shelley in kindergarten, I went to see the doctor. "Well," he said, "what brings you in today, Sean?"
"Well," I replied, "the other day, I took a home pregnancy test - as a joke, you know - and it came up positive. I'm sure it's the dumbest thing you ever heard, huh?"
He shook his head. "Not even close. I did my residency in the emergency room; my first week, a guy came in, insisting that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the TV remote was lodged in his anus. By comparison, your story is simple and straightforward."
"Why do you think the test did that, Doctor?" Mom asked.
"I don't know," he replied. "I've read about a case where a man did the same thing, and got the same result; in his case, it turned out to be the early stages of testicular cancer. However, you're rather young for that, Sean."
Yikes. I really didn't need to hear that story.
"I'm going to order a series of tests," he said, "with instructions to double-check the results, just to be sure. We'll figure this out, Sean."
And so tubes of my blood were drawn, and sent to the lab. And we spent the rest of the morning waiting.
Just before I would normally sit down for lunch at school, the doctor came in. "I'd like to speak with Sean privately for a moment," he said.
Once my folks were out of the exam room, I asked, "What is it, Doc?"
"Out of all the tests I ran," he replied, "only one came back positive. When they double-checked, it came back positive again; as mystifying as it seems, that must be the answer." He sat down, and looked me in the eyes. "Sean,... you're pregnant."
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