Three things of varying consequence have been bothering me for some time now. The first one is the most recent. I’ve had a mild head cold for a few days now. I’m pretty sure it’s a lead up for a flu. So that’s going to suck.
The second thing goes back to this past April when I had unprotected sex with my girlfriend, which resulted in her becoming pregnant. Which was a dumb thing to do, but whatever, we both agreed at the time it was okay and now my DNA gets to see the future. So that’s cool.
Except… when we were in the hospital having tests done, because my girlfriend is considered a “high risk” pregnancy, the nurses kept asking her questions. Three or four nurses over four hours asked basically the same questions. But one of them, the last one, asked my girlfriend if she were on The Pill.
And my girlfriend answered “no, not since November”. So that’s been bugging me a little bit.
And, lastly, my toilet won’t stop running. It’s just a slight trickle, but it’s annoying because I don’t like wasting water. So I think I’m going to have to replace the plunger, plug and seals.
So, of the three, one isn’t such a huge deal I guess. I’ll have to shell out money for Tylenol and flu remedies at a time when I don’t have a lot of (or any) cash laying around. If it’s a regular flu I’ll be uncomfortable for a week, if it’s swine related I get a cool story to tell.
The toilet is a little more serious. It has been messed up for a few months now… I had someone stay with me for a week last fall and he broke the trigger-handle thing.
The real problem is I share a pipe with at least two other apartments, so when one of them blocks it up mine gets blocked up, and if someone in my apartment flushes without hanging around to make sure the waters not running, the toilet overflows and things get nasty in my bathroom.
It has happened twice, I don’t want it to ever happen again.
So that sucks. But it’s fixable.
The “pill” thing… that’s a bit of a mindfuck. I know, since I found out, I haven’t been as close to my girlfriend as I was. Although I think that’s starting to get better. Just leaving the baby out of it for now, she not only knew about the no-condom thing, she okayed the no-condom thing — I practically made her swear an oath of understanding about the no-condom thing.
I did not know — did not know — about the no-pill thing.
Nope, didn’t know about that at all.
I do know the risk of pretty much everything goes up when a condom is not worn during intercourse. But I also remember someone telling me at some point in my early adulthood that, when the parties involved are not using Any protection Whatsoever, the risks of at least one specific outcome become pretty much guaranteed.
So I feel I can say with near absolute certainty, knowing she wasn’t on The Pill would have changed the outcome of the evening.
And there’s the mindfuck, because the kid is in the picture. And I want the kid. But I feel like some of the decision as to when, and with whom, was taken away.
And that’s been bugging me.
The thing about number two is… as much as I do care about my girlfriend, in the beginning this wasn’t meant to be a longterm relationship. We dated for a few weeks, saw a few movies, talked for a little while, we had sex a few times, and bang there’s a pregnant woman in my life and — in one form or another — I’m spending the rest of my life with her.
Anyway. I also have a stress-blemish under my right eye that won’t go away, my beard is the fullest it has been in a year, and I haven’t combed my hair in months. So I guess I’ve got few things bugging me.
Which isn’t that many.
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...salted lithium. 
Um, the pill thing? That’s a HUGE one. Getting preggers by accident is one thing -been there-but one person labouring under the assumption that things are relatively safe, and then finding out they aren’t….heh. Not cool, in my opinion.
The toilet is easy in terms of replacing all that stuff. We’ve had to lift ours and do the seal a few times. Stupid house.
Buckley’s Nightime will help you shit the cold out. Oh lord it sucks, but it works.
Dude, I worry that this baby stuff is a little fast so soon for you, and that bit about the pill…sigh. I wish I could say I had never done that, but I know I had when I was younger. ANd looking back, it was so unfair and wrong, not to mention dangerous.
Sigh.
Yeah, the pill thing is huge. I don’t really know how to react or what to do other than just swallow it and move on — but it feels like I’m swallowing something huge… like my life. I’ve been living with this thing for a couple of months now… maybe six weeks. However long it’s been, it hasn’t been the easiest few weeks.
I kind of threw the other two things in here because I thought this post would be too short otherwise. I’ve installed a toilet before, maybe more than once, but not the internal tank stuff. I have to be careful about the cough syrup and anti-flu stuff… so do you, actually. I’ll talk to my pharmacist and find out what’s safe to take with the Lithium. But I think stuff without the DM is okay.
Did you ask about the pill? She should have thrown that very important piece of information in the mix, but you also might have asked. It doesn’t seem like trickery to me, just lack of full discussion on ramifications.
Not to sound like a parent or a sex-ed teacher, but if you wanted more input on when your DNA was passed on, you probably should have just worn a condom.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding. But it sounds to me like you didn’t ask her if she was on the Pill, you just assumed she was, and now you’re upset because you assumed incorrectly.
From the woman’s perspective, the assumption is that if the man doesn’t ask if she’s on the Pill, it’s because it doesn’t matter to him one way or the other. He’s prepared to accept the consequences of not using birth control.
The pill thing is a big one, and it’s going to need to be hashed out.
I’m sorry.
“He’s prepared to accept the consequences of not using birth control.”
I’m sorry bromac and Zoom, but has it seemed over the past four months of posts on this site that I haven’t been willing to live up to my responsibilities? Have I missed an appointment, have I not cared for my girlfriend, haven’t I supported her?
From the perspective of any sane person regardless of sex, I told her about my lack of contraception, I asked her if it was alright to continue, she said okay. She did not tell me about her lack of contraception. Knowing that tidbit probably would have changed things. Fine, under the best of contraceptive moments, having sex is an act of gambling. But she made a decision for both of us based on information I didn’t have that I’m living up to for the rest of my life.
And don’t give me this bullshit about the woman’s responsibility ending with her not being asked about her contraception. She should have been singing from the fucking rooftop. Are you seriously stating that a woman, if she’s not asked about being on The Pill, has no responsibility to bring it up before having otherwise unprotected sex? “Oh, well, I guess he wants a kid then. Here goes.” Holy shit.
She wanted to have sex, I told her I had no condoms left, she said “that’s okay”, I asked “are you sure?”, she said “yes”, later on I stopped again and asked “are you sure you’re okay with this?”, she said “yes”. I’m willing to live with the consequences of that night partially because my conscious is clear — I didn’t poke a hole in the condom and not tell her, I wasn’t using an eight-month old condom, I didn’t coerce her into having condom-less sex, I was honest and upfront about what was going on.
She’s an adult woman who had several opportunities to say “hey, by the way, I’m not on the Pill.” She made her choice based on more information than I had.
I never said you weren’t willing to live with the consequences. Obviously you are.
All I said was that by a) not wearing a condom and b) not asking her if she was on the Pill, you were saying (in the universal language of wordless implications) that it was okay with you if she got pregnant. You were willing to take the risk. And, in the same language, she told you that she was willing to take that same risk.
As for “bullshit about her responsibility ending with her not being asked about her contraception,” obviously nobody’s responsibility ended with the absence of clear communication. You both took the chance, and you’re both stepping up to the plate.
Zoom… thanks for coming back, I was editing my comment while you were writing yours. I don’t think I changed anything you responded to, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things. And sorry if I’m swearing a lot… I’m tired and I haven’t been able to deal with this properly.
ummm- am I missing something here? full disclosure: female, have been known to use sex as a tool to get what I want emotionally……OK, confession over.
I really don’t see how, assuming the conversation is accurately transcribed, it is his responsibility to explicitly ask about the pill. When asking, multiple times, about no condom use, he IS essentially, asking about birth control and STDs- he is essentially saying that to the best of his knowledge he is critter-free, and otherwise in reasonably good physical standing for sex, and that he is asking the same of her. No transmissable diseases, no mental health issues that may cause suicide attempts during copulation- the usual. Secondarily, the implication is that she has birth control covered. These two items are what condoms are for, so consent to sex without one IS a statement of preparedness on both fronts, and of trust in the other party’s statements for their part.
This is about trust, and, she blew it. Maybe not totally consciously, but still blew it. So now the problem is, what does that mean, and is there enough to build on moving forward.
My 0.02.
-A
And sorry for rudely injecting into perhaps a private conversation. My opinions are often showing….much to the dismay of many and delight of some others.
-A
Gabriel, I in no way see how it was implied that she had no responsibility in this situation or that you haven’t been living up to yours.
Frankly, you have gone above and beyond your responsibilities with all the hospital visits and court dates.
whoa, dude. sounds like a lot of plumbing issues.
if your cold symptoms aren’t accompanied by a fever, it’s still just a cold. http://www.flufacts.com/about/cold.aspx. fever is the dead giveaway for the flu. drink plenty of liquids.
i’d say jiggle the handle, but it seems a bit bigger than just a handle jiggle.
i don’t know what to say about the pill. that’s serious. she had all the knowledge and didn’t give you the choice.
masturbation is rad? i think that applies here 😀
Hmmmmmmmm I’m not going to get into the whole pill, I mean hell what can you change now.
Same advice from me as Yo is Me. I had the flu back when that whole swine thing was all anyone was talking about. I felt like hell but life was still doable and I have to little gremlins that required me to take care of them. You feel like hell for a bit but just take it day by day and don’t push yourself.
And Gabriel you obviously haven’t shuckered out on any of your responsiblilites so far when it comes to this baby. You are going to be a great Dad.
Wish I had some kind of great wisdom I could pass down to you but well I don’t. I’m here to support you though. 🙂
Hi again (again) Zoom… I’m 699.999% positive our blogationship will survive this rocky moment. I think I mostly got upset because the last thing I needed after writing this, and a few other things, was a lecture on condom usage. And I still don’t understand the idea my girlfriend, or any woman, has no — or a reduced — responsibility to inform her partner in a clear and direct way about her contraceptive situation in that moment. Especially if there is no contraceptive situation. There was no “wordless implication” on my part, I made damn sure she knew there was no condom.
Hello Amber, thanks for commenting. Blogging is all about interjecting into private conversations, so feel free to interject whenever you feel or see the need. I wasn’t transcribing at the time, but the discussion is as accurate as I can remember. This was only — maybe — the second or third time we had sex. I never feel comfortable having sex with someone until we’ve been together a bunch of times. So I have this weird habit of making sure the woman is totally sure she wants what’s about to happen, to actually happen. So “…are you sure?” is a fairly common question for me to be asking at that point anyway.
Thanks Bromac… thanks. I also believe within a 699.999% certainty our blogationship will survive this. We were at the hospital today (Tuesday) and my girlfriend and the baby are healthy, but the kid’s a full week bigger than expected. So… looks like it has my giant Scottish head. My girlfriend is starting to feel The Fear.
Hey, Yo is You… jiggling with the handle stops the crazy run-on water, but there’s a constant trickle that I can only hear when I’m in the washroom. It just drives me nuts knowing water is getting wasted. So far the cold / flu situation is limited to a runny nose and some sneezing. So I’m hopeful this just goes away.
And thanks Bats, I really appreciate the support. I actually started to teach my girlfriend’s son how to swim on Monday. He was able to leave his mom, he can jump into the water and can even doggy paddle now. He loves going in circles, like a washing machine. We’re going back to the pool on Thursday and I’m going to try and get him to jump off the low diving board.
See you’re not only a fun friend to kids but they can learn great things from you too. 🙂 Isn’t true unconditional friendship great?
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