I didn’t start this day thinking I’d be handing over a Dixie cup of my own urine to a woman in lavender scrubs.

“What’s the verdict?” I ask about seven seconds after the nurse dips the stick into the cup on the other side of the exam room.

She is one of those ageless people whose fluffy gray-brown hair could have been that of an unfortunate thirty-five-year-old or a banging hot fifty-five-year-old. Her face gives away nothing as she looks up at me.

“The doctor will be in to discuss your results, Ms. Hatch.”

AKA, I’m not gonna be the one to tell you there’s an egg in your biscuit.

“Call me Eve and, look, you can just tell me. I’m sure you can read the stick as well as the doctor can. I know I’m pregnant anyways. I took three tests on my own. I did the research.” (On the train on the way over here.) “I know that false positives really only happen for women who were just recently pregnant or taking certain fertility meds. There’s no way I’m not pregnant.”

I’m telling her. I’m telling myself. I’m telling the universe, because the facts are grounding me. I’m trying to be realistic here. I refuse to be secretly hoping for either outcome.

The nurse’s face shows zero signs of life. Maybe that’s the secret to her ageless success. If one never, ever moves one’s face, one can look forty in one’s seventies. I make a mental note to start having fewer emotions. Probably a super achievable goal right at the beginning of an unplanned pregnancy, right?

“The doctor will discuss it with you. Now, I just need some basic info from you.” She has me hop on a scale and then takes my blood pressure. I’m shocked when I don’t blow up the machine like a desktop plugged in during a lightning storm. She confirms my family history. And then the fun questions begin.