The 7 Stages Of A Pregnancy Scare

The Holidays are over and it is time to face reality.

I can bet you loosened up during the festive season. Job related tasks were pushed aside, work out regimes were put on pause, some days the Lord blessed your heart and you reached out to people you hadn’t spoken to for a while and other days, you had sex with absolutely no form of  protection.

No judgement whatsoever. We’ve all been there, and it’s safe to say that it’s not the wisest decision.

Over the break, I read a lot of romance novels so I can vividly imagine how it went down: It was in the heat of the moment, Kranium’s ‘Nobody Has To Know’ playing softly in the background, he took of his trousers, revealing a hard throbbing suprise. Your voice, dripping with lust (not the only part of you dripping though), begged him to enter. But (assuming he has sense), he asked if you were on any hormonal contraceptive. Impatiently, you say no. He proceeds to bring the condom on the dressing table so close to you both. But you’re horny for the whole of Africa, and if he doesn’t fill you up in the next second, you might die. You are surprised at the undiluted pleading in your voice, unashamed, telling him to forget about the condom. We don’t need it, I want to feel all of you, you say. He doesn’t think twice about your request. His trusted pull out game which has seen him through 18 body counts and zero I missed my period texts, can never ever fail him. I mean, what really are the chances? Creeping on top of you, relishing the divine glory that is your body, he takes the first thrust and for the first time since this encounter began, you start thinking about it.

Omo, what if I get pregnant?

While he nibbles on your neck, you mentally count whether you’re currently on the fertile period in your menstrual cycle. You count nonsense, maybe because of the senseless pleasure you’re experiencing or maybe you just don’t understand the mathematics involved. You finally decide you’re on your safe day.

Right after he cums, you ask him more than 32 times, despite the fact he has assured you over and over again.

Are you sure you didn’t cum in me?

All of a sudden, the next nine months of your life is looking one kind. When you asked God to make 2021 a bundle of joy, it wasn’t a baby you had in mind. This is how the pregnancy scare cycle is set into motion.

Stage 1, The Awakening:

This occurs usually a week or some days after having unprotected sex. At this stage, the date you’re meant to see your period has not yet arrived. But you’re an overthinker so you don’t actually have to miss your period before you start getting scared. Few days ago you were naked, feeling funky, carpe diem, abi? But now, you are analyzing every single detail of the day you had unprotected sex. You text your girl gang asking them to help calculate your menstrual‏ cycle. You want to be sure that you didn’t fuck on the actual day you were ovulating. Mathematics you solved before oh, you’re now unsure of your solution. You might be lucky enough to discover that you had sex on a safe day and you may be unlucky to discover that you actually had sex on your ovulation day or the days preceding it.

This is when a sickening feeling at the bottom of your stomach begins to form. Your saliva becomes too thick to swallow. Your girlfriends advise you to purchase an emergency contraceptive, which doesn’t make sense to you because what if its too late? But just incase of incasity o, they advise you to get it even though they are very very sure you’re not pregnant, they say. So you visit a pharmacy, hoping to kill the sperm before it kills you.

Stage 2, The Seeking:

Here, you turn from a real hot girl (a status you owned a few days back), to Curious George. You have started asking Google Jamb question. Can I get pregnant on my safe days? Will I get pregnant if I didn’t use a condom, but he pulled out? What can I take to stop ovulation? You turn the internet upside down, looking for forums discussing sex and pregnancy.

As the legend of the seeker that you now are, you text the man you slept with.

“Guy (or his government name, you don’t have time for any endearments when your life is in danger) are you sure you pulled out on time?”

He might assure you that he did and allay your fears or he might start scratching his head, “er, now you’re making me scared. I’m not so sure again oh. Maybe you should get a pill?

All of a sudden, this man is suggesting emergency contraceptive about 2 weeks after he said he successfully pulled out, but are you not the one who wanted to have sex with no protection in the first place? You ask yourself this as your heart sinks.

Stage 3, Paranoia:

At this stage, you have high blood pressure. You can no longer eat or sleep properly. You are just waiting for aunty flo to pop in. In your life, you have never ever wished so much for the arrival of your period. You crave to bleed, to stain your favorite sheets, even menstrual cramps suddenly seem appealing. You start to make promises to God that you will change your fornication ways forever if he bestows your flow onto you at that very minute.

God, I promise I will never ever have sex in my life, I swear. You cry in your heart.

Now, you’re so meticulous when it comes to observing your body that you start imagining things. You feel that your breasts are now heavier. Why are you feeling bloated all of a sudden? You even feel like you have added small weight, and your left leg is suddenly paining you. Immediately, you approach the one who has been with you throughout this ordeal: Google.

Five minutes into using your search bar, you want to die. Google has produced five trusted websites that pronounced the cause of your supposed weight gain and leg pain: Pregnancy.

Stage 4, Utter and Sheer Despair:

It is finished.

You’ve told your friends that your life is over. However, they aren’t taking you seriously because you’ve not even missed your period yet. They tease you for having unprotected sex and they make fun about the price of pampers and how they are/aren’t ready to be aunties. At the end of the day, they ask you to take a home pregnancy test to put your mind at ease because, they know you cannot be pregnant.

Ahn ahn, what are the chances?, they ask.

You too, wonder how possible it is that you’re so unlucky. You remind God about your readiness to desist from debauchery.

Stage 5, Confusion:

The pregnancy home test reads negative. You got 3 strips to be sure. Your mind is a bit calm. But because you like suffering, you ask Google about the accuracy of pregnancy tests. It present doom, as always; ‘Pregnancy strips are not so accurate during the early stages of pregnancy’.

And just like that, your BP is high again. All you want to know is if you’re pregnant or not. Is that too much for a girl to ask for?

Stage 6, The Climax:

This is the highest point of despair and hopelessness that your mind is capable of before you shut down. You have missed your period. You ask yourself; Why is it me God has decided to punish? Apart from pre-marital sex, I don’t even sin like that.

You curse yourself for even having unprotected sex in the first place. You’re not even sure again if the sex was worth the wahala you are passing through. If only, if only you can turn back the hands of time. You sit in silence, experiencing a ‘Had I Known’ moment.

You ponder. All those years in biology class, those years of watching 16 and pregnant on MTV. Even girls I knew who have had unwanted pregnancies. Why didn’t I learn from them?

It is at this stage you can fully know if you’re truly pro-life. A wise man once said, na situation dey make crayfish bend.

When you tell your girls about this new development (your missed period), it sends them into overdrive. They ask you to to calm down even if they are the ones talking frantically while you just sit and stare. They ask you to do a proper blood test.

Somewhere in your heart, there is a speck of hope because where is your humanity without a tiny bit of it? You humbly approach google thee omniscient.

What will cause a missed period? you input in your search engine.

Google, the bearer of bad news throughout the seven kingdoms, tells you that most likely:

You are pregnant.

You check out the other reasons outlined for a missed period and you try to think:

Did I experience stress these past few months? Might I just be having a hormonal imbalance?

You quietly hope that maybe it is a hormonal imbalance but deep down in your uterus, you can almost feel another life within you.

Stage 7, Surprise!:

Like a thief in the night, your panties are stained red. Aunty Flo is here !!!

So you’re not pregnant. After about 3-4 weeks of being depressed, you instantly snap back to your normal bubbly self. You do a little shimmy dance and report back to your girls.

The coast is clear!

The happiness everyone radiates is palpable. You all laugh at how scared you all were and you give a speech on the importance of protection.

Guys, value your peace of mind and use protection. What I went through these past few days, ehn.

It doesn’t take long for you to forget the godly vow you made. You book your next D appointment. The things this boy has promised to do to you? Whew.

An aggressive reminder that you have to always be sexually responsible. Hormonal contraceptives will only protect you from getting pregnant while condoms protect you from both; STI’s and unwanted pregnancy. You can use both, think of it as a two-factor authentication method.