From The Time I Was A Young Child I Always Knew 1969 Was Going To Be A Special Year.
That summer there was lots of talk among my friends about a big event happening in New York state. It was called Woodstock. There were going to be many big name performers. The event was going to start on August 15th and last until my birthday on the 17th. What a great way to celebrate. I can’t remember how many of my friends were planning to drive down for the event, but my boyfriend and I decided to ride down on his motorcycle.
I was really excited.
Then I got a phone call from my Mum. She had decided to fly home for my birthday. Normally I would have been really happy about her coming home but this would mean I couldn’t go to Woodstock. In the years that my parents had been going away for the summer my Mum never come home for my birthday. Of course it would be this year that was different.
I was really bummed out.
A bunch of us ended up over at a friends when Woodstock was starting. We decided to party while listening to the radio, and catching news updates on the TV, about all that was happening down there. It was pretty exciting. So many people were arriving, in fact so many that there was a huge traffic jam. People were abandoning their cars and walking the rest of the way to the event. The only way performers could get in was by helicopters. It sounded wild, not as wild as it would have been had we made it there.
Life went on.
Towards the end of August my Mum came into my room. I was sitting on the floor going through some pictures I had taken over the summer. She asked me if I was feeling okay. I was puzzled by this, but told her I was fine and asked her “why?” She said something seemed different about me. I sort of shrugged and then went back to what I was doing. She then said “are you on birth control?” I thought it an odd question because she knew I was, but answered “yes”. That seemed to be the answer she was looking for so she just turned around and left the room.
I wondered why she asked that.
Then I thought back to that night that my friends came knocking at the door and woke me up, and how I felt different as I was walking back to bed. I do feel different, I thought. When I tried to put into words how I felt different I couldn’t come up with anything that really explained the feeling, other than maybe I was coming down with some sort of bug. I rationalized that it had to be that. I soon forgot the conversation with my Mum and my thought process.
Until a month or so later.
One Saturday morning my Mum came into my room and asked me if I was feeling okay. This took me back to the last time she asked me the same question. This time I said I was feeling fine, just a bit tired. She again asked me if I was on birth control. This time I told her “no”. You see my boyfriend and I had a falling out so I just went off them. I mean what was the point in taking them.
My Mum came and sat on my bed. The look on her face sort of alarmed me. I thought to myself “maybe she knows something about my health that I don’t know. So I asked her. She sat there silently for quite some time and then said “you were on birth control when you were with (the boyfriend) weren’t you?”. “Yes” I answered, “why?’ I questioned. Again she sat there quietly for what seemed like and hour, but was probably only five minutes. “What is it Mum?’ I asked her. “When was the last time you had your period” she said. I thought about if for a bit and then realized it had probably been a couple of months ago. So I told her that. She then looked worried and went to say something but I said “my period is probably messed up because I went off the pill”. She reached over and touched my hand and quietly, and slowly, said…
“I think you should take a pregnancy test.”
