Aurora Gayle - The Pregnancy

Sadie looked disturbed, “Wait! Hold your horses! You really think that Aria’s been raped by an alien? This is crazy! You’re crazy! This is a real situation that our friend is going through, not the plot for a sci fi television show. I thought you could really help us out but I guess I was wrong”.

“I think hypnosis might be a good idea,” I interrupted. I might be able to remember something important in the process. I do agree with Sadie, that alien story is actually crazy. I’m pretty sure that’s not what happened.”

“Ya’ll bitches can say what ya’ll want, but If it turns out to be true ya’ll paying me $1000.00 and taking me to lunch”. We all laugh and bid each other farewell.

As I make my way home I decide that I will start my search for a psychiatrist in my area who would agree to hypnotize me. I think hypnosis is my best solution and even though it seems a bit un-orthodox; my fingers are crossed that everything will work out alright.

I am in bed with my laptop and a hot cup of chocolate as I begin my search for a psychiatrist in my area. From my search results I gather that hypnosis is quite in demand; who knew. I quickly find two highly rated doctors in my area; Dr. James Thompson, PHD and Dr. Monica Mc Daniel.

Dr. Thompson is quite accomplished but it costs $225 per session and only God knows how many sessions I will need. I decide to go with Dr. Mc Daniel because $120 per session is way more affordable and her patient reviews are just as good as Dr. Thompson. Plus from the picture on her website she looked more approachable and less likely to judge me. I know there isn’t much logic in choosing a doctor based on his/her profile picture but I just feel so ashamed and vulnerable; I need someone who won’t judge me or make me feel uncomfortable.

I make an appointment online to see Dr. Mc Daniel and I receive an email that someone will call the next day to confirm my appointment. I shut my laptop and I feel a sense of accomplishment.

As I lay in bed, I close my eyes and touch my stomach; wondering whose baby I am carrying and how it got there. This is not how I pictured my life. At 32 I imagined that I would be happily married to the man of my dreams. We would have a kid and I would be a working mom who has it all together. My current situation could not be any further from that. I wasted my years in my twenties on parties, clubs and alcohol induced hook-ups.

Nine years ago I moved to Atlanta from Brooklyn, New York. I was fresh out of Cornell University with a degree in Marketing and Business Psychology. My decision to move to Atlanta was due in part to my mother’s quest to return to her native homeland; Grenada. My mother had been an accountant for more than 20 years at a prominent firm in Manhattan but after 9/11 she began to lose interest in her job and living in the city. As soon as she had successfully put me through college without any debt and managed to put aside some savings; herself and my Trinidadian step father decided to move to Grenada. Mom decided that together they would run a restaurant and guest house on the beach. With no consideration for me, she sold our attached house and I was not about to pay ridiculous amounts of money in New York rent as a young woman fresh out of university. Plus, my mother’s zeal for a fresh start inspired me and so I started looking for work outside of New York City. A new start up company, “Oasis Media” was looking for an Assistant Marketing Manager and luckily I got the job and moved to Atlanta.

Moving to a new city was wonderful at first but then I started to miss my family and life in New York. I don’t know if this is what caused my life to spiral out of control but I suspect it did. I began to feel depressed and lonely; especially at night. To fight the loneliness I started going out at night to bars with people from work. Sadie and I were friends at the time but she was not as fortunate as I was to have parents who could fund her college degree; so Sadie had to work and study. She joined the company as a receptionist and worked her way up to a Production Assistant, eventually graduating with a degree in Economics and Marketing. I admire her drive and determination and we always look out for each other at the firm. There is no rivalry between us.

With Sadie working and studying; she was usually unable to join us whenever we went out at night. For the first year I was able to practice some measure of self-control and I would get a little tipsy but never drunk. Unfortunately things didn’t get better from there. Gradually our after work drinks turned into wild party nights at various clubs. And before I knew it I was getting wasted nearly every night and coming home with different guys. One night something terrible happened. I was so wasted and completely unaware of what was happening around me; four guys dragged me into an alley to gang rape me. Luckily a good Samaritan came to my rescue and called the cops just in time. Since that day I have not had a drink. It was the most terrifying thing that could have happened to me and I thank God that nothing happened. That experience opened my eyes to the fact that I needed to change my habits and so I channelled my energy into obtaining my MBA and becoming the Senior Product Development Manager at Oasis Media. I also decided to abstain from sex and focus on me. The theme on my vision board this year is “self love”, and it is typed in big bold font next to the year 2018. My energy and focus was to love myself more and focus on healing my spirit. Since I turned my life around, things have been marvellous, until now that I’ve discovered this apparent Immaculate Conception.

I think of all the Law of Attraction self-help books I’ve read, they all encourage you to think positive thoughts but I find this concept to be quite laughable now. I don’t even know what positive thoughts I can think up. “Okay, I’m alive that’s a positive thought”, I think to myself. “I have money, that’s a positive thought and I should be grateful that I have money and a good job. I have food. A brand spanking new Audi A6 parked in the driveway. I own my own home. I have good friends like Sadie and Monique and both my parents are alive and well”. I think all these positive thoughts but somehow it doesn’t seem to shake the frightening thoughts of what could have happened to me. “I’m losing my mind; I must have had sex with someone and forgot all about it. That’s got to be it. I pick up my laptop again and start frantically googling amnesia. One particular post on MayoClinic.com gets my attention.

“Transient global amnesia is a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that can’t be attributed to a more common neurological condition, such as epilepsy or stroke. During an episode of transient global amnesia, your recall of recent events simply vanishes, so you can’t remember where you are or how you got there.”

My blood runs cold and I lay in bed wide awake until morning comes.

“Hey you okay?” a voice I recognized to be Sadie’s asks. I raise my head from its slumped position at my desk and nod my head.

“You look tired, you want me to bring you some coffee?” she asks.

“Thanks but I’ll get it myself. I need to stretch my legs anyway. How’s the family?”

She beams. Sadie loves to talk about her beautiful family. “Lawrence and Travis are great. Lawrence is so excited now that Travis is playing soccer. And Travis is really good at it; Lawrence thinks he might have a future as a professional soccer player. I think he’s crazy, I don’t know if I want my boy playing soccer for a living.”

I smile, “the money’s real good though”.

“I don’t care how good the money is. I don’t want my son to grow up thinking that in order to make it he must become a professional athlete or rapper or singer. I want him to be educated and find success in other ways.”