A Pregnancy Carol. Part the First.

Let me enthrall you with a tale as extraordinary as the power of a changed life. Do you believe in ghosts? Perhaps not yet – but you will.

My name is Maeganeezer Scrooge, and for the past two and a half years, all I’d wanted in life was to become pregnant and have a fat, blond baby who would lie on my living room floor and coo at the ceiling. I felt that nothing I had experienced up to that point – falling in love, building a home, honeymooning in wedded bliss – would ever compare with the ecstasy and delight that would be mine once that child lay in my arms. I knew it would be perfect. Oh! the adventure – the excitement – the luxury it would be to spend each hour with the baby I so desired!

In fact, I wanted this so desperately that I didn’t hesitate for a moment to pour out my rage and disappointment to anyone who asked me how I was doing or what I did for a living. In time, those who passed me in the street began to shy away from my dark form for fear that I would stop them and assault them with a long, sordid tale about the dreams that had been denied me.

“My husband,” I would wail, “is forcing me to wait five terribly long years to have a baby. He is withholding from me the one thing I’ve desired! And when I finally have that baby,” I would sob, “I will be an old, feeble mother.”

Those who heard this tale gave me pity and understanding. “How old are you now?” they’d ask me.

“Twenty-one,” I would answer with despair. “And only two years have passed since my husband issued that awful decree. My one dream – my only dream – the only thing that can make me happy in the entire world – is to see two precious pink lines appear on that stubborn pregnancy test. But alas! I must wait three years more.” And I would shudder with an inward groan.

At home, I continuously pelted my husband with pleas to change his mind. “You’ll be an old man when we begin a family,” I would taunt. “You’ll get selfish and settled in your ways,” I’d threaten. “By the time we try to have a baby, we won’t be able to get pregnant,” I’d warn. Oh, I pressured and cajoled, I begged and I argued! But my husband was as steadfast as the Great Wall of China. I would have more easily hefted it from its position and tossed it into the Grand Canyon than convinced my husband to cut short his awful sentence.

In time, I learned that the only thing that would change his mind was an unexpected pregnancy. And so I began to consider… a sabotage.

To be continued… !