[ WP ] A 25 year old reacts to his girlfriend admitting that she is pregnant . A true , honest-to-god reaction .

I was teaching when my phone made that annoying Whatsapp beepity-beep sound. Thought it was probably just an ad or some shit. Nope, the girlfriend saying `` I have something I need to tell you.'' My knee-jerk jokey reaction was, `` Are you pregnant?'' 
 
 Silence. 
 
 I assumed she had probably just wandered off to take a shower or something. So I returned to my student. I ca n't be sure if my memory is accurate about this, but in my mind, my student and I were analysing *My Papa's Waltz* by Theodore Roethke. But now there was a baby growing in the back of my mind, wrapping its little fingers around my concentration and pulling it apart like playdough. 
 
 Ack, why did n't I use a condom that time? I used to ask myself these kinds of questions almost every other month: no period yet, should I worry? Nah, it'll be fine. I always pull out. I did n't that particular month though. She said her period was almost on. Two weeks later, nothing. I'm not blaming anyone. We were both ~~fairly~~ irresponsible about taking the correct preventative measures. She never wanted to go on the pill and I ca n't say I blame her. Would n't want to take it if I were female, so. Still, condoms. Fucking condoms. Period. Fucking *with* condoms and *then* period, ideally. 
 
 I got home and she was sitting on the bed. By this point I had already rationalised away all possibility of pregnancy. It takes me twenty minutes to walk home, plenty of time to explain her silence away into insignificance. She was just sitting on the bed. Not reading, or using her laptop, or on her phone playing with'beebook', or whatever the hell that site is called. Just sitting. Quite normal. Nothing unusual about that. Nope. That's fine. Everyone sits. 
 
 There was something in her hand. She showed it to me, and before my brain allowed me to understand what it was, my hands were clenched around the lower half of my face. I'm pretty sure I swore. Although I wish I had n't now, but shock is a powerful thing. She started to cry. I was pumping with adrenaline. Part of me began to really panic and she notices. She starts to *really* cry and suddenly, out of some primordial part of my little brain, something said to me, `` You've just got to accept this. You've just got to deal with it.'' 
 
 So I exhaled. I relaxed my shoulders. I looked my girlfriend right in the eye and I said `` We'll be okay, we can handle this.'' 
 
 Her crushing credit card debt and the fact I am working six days a week earning a graduate wage does n't really agree with what I told her, but all that's just money. It's not and never will be as real as that moment was. I felt unbelievably alive. The possibility of fatherhood does some seriously weird rewiring of your brain. Change in perspective and all that jazz. Life had presented me with a surprise, one that I could perhaps have avoided with a little more responsibility and less of a sex-drive, but hey. It's happened. Go with the flow, do what you got to do, and other, surprisingly useful, cliches of that nature. 
 
 What I went through over the next few days was essentially a kind of grieving process. Actually, if I'm perfectly honest, I'm going through it right now. I've been oscillating between denial: `` it's not certain yet, we're only a month in, we ca n't get our hopes up'', anger: `` fuck my boss for not giving me two days off per week...'' 
 
 Actually, no fucking seriously fuck that man. I asked to reduce my hours by literally an afternoon and he says `` Okay, sure, but I'm taking the equivalent of two days per week pay''. Fuck you, man. Seriously. Throw me a damned bone, my girlfriend is pregnant, you almighty arse! 
 
 So I'm currently angry. 
 
 But what am I grieving about? It's not anything real, not really. It's a projection of myself. It's what I had hoped to do in the future. I was literally seven months away from having enough savings to live without working for 6 months. I was going to write for six, solid months. It was going to be glorious. But, a kid. I ca n't not work... My dreams seem to be sinking into a baby shaped hole. 
 
 I have to accept the loss of identity, the loss of a future projection. Life is what it is. Having a baby does n't mean I ca n't write. I just ca n't only write. I'll need to juggle my responsibilities for the baby alongside work 
 and writing. Writing wo n't be the forefront of my life until I can break through. I'm still young. There are advantages of being a young dad. It's going to be fine. I'll manage. We'll manage. 
 
 Even though my apartment is 300 square feet and my girlfriend's mother is expecting to come and live with us. It'll be fine, it will. At some point, I will have accepted this as true and wo n't have to keep repeating it. Until then: it will be fine, it will. 
 
 
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 All of the above is 100 %, well maybe 99 %, true. It's darn weird to see that prompt a few weeks after I found out. I'm 25 even. How weird is that?? 

