I’m Pregnant 🤰

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The reaction to those words depend on who they’re said to, when you say that to a man who has got his life together with a steady source of income and is in a committed relationship his reaction will probably be excitement and happiness but if you say those exact same words to a man who is still trying to get his life together I can tell you first hand the dread that fills his spirit and a lot of young men have all experienced the terror that follows those two words.

I was sitting in the car with Maxwell when his girlfriend called him, like most of his previous girlfriends me and the rest of the boys didn’t particularly like her. Max was a softie and she was such a bully that she always had him anxious and agitated whenever she called, we had been begging him for months to break up with her but he claimed she was a nicer person behind closed doors. When he got off the phone with her he had a dazed expression on his face like he had seen a ghost, I tried to get it out of him but for over five minutes he didn’t say anything coherent and I kept pushing and prodding because knowing his girlfriend it couldn’t possibly be good news.

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After five minutes of incoherent mumbling he turned to me and said “Mimi is pregnant”. I am positive that the expression on my face was similar to his or worse even, I couldn’t believe it!!! I imagined my friend raising a baby with the dreaded Mimi, I would have to stop visiting him because I’m sure pregnancy hormones would make her much worse and she was already a dragon, i imagined her mother coming to his small apartment for “Omugwor”, I imagined my guy who didn’t even know how to be responsible himself being responsible for a whole human being.

“What am I going to do guy? She’s too far gone to do anything about it and I’m not ready” he asked burying his face in his hands. I did my best to assure him that he was equal to the task but in the back of my mind I was genuinely scared for him and the baby.

To get his mind off things we took a drive, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some drinks for a party we were meant to attend later that evening and after pushing the cart for a while I noticed that max had disappeared. I found him in the babies section gushing over the cost of diapers, formula, baby clothes and even a crib. “Guy!!!! Cerelac four thousand Naira as e small like this !!! And I dey chop well well!!! This pikin go chop my salary finish” he lamented as soon as he saw me.
Over the next couple of days he adjusted more to the idea and started to prepare for it, We picked out baby names, started looking for a new apartment for him and started buying stuff for the baby.
He went to doctors appointments, watched parenting YouTube videos and started to prepare mentally for the task at hand. I was proud of him and I became slightly more confident in his ability to be a good father. I was excited as well because we were really close friends and I couldn’t wait to help out with the baby whenever I was around, it’s amazing how the news of a baby transforms not only the lives of the parents to be but their loved ones as well.

I had to travel out of town for work towards the eight month of Mimi’s pregnancy and I couldn’t communicate with Max as often as I would have loved to. I was however looking forward to hearing the news of Baby Jerry’s birth. I eventually wrapped up the project I was working on and headed back to Abuja eager to surprise my family and friends.
I stopped at Max’s house early the next morning after I arrived and he greeted me with the news of his split with Mimi, apparently the baby had been born but Max’s mom had requested a DNA in exchange for her supporting Maxwell’s decision to marry Mimi and the test had come back negative, he was not the father.
As he explained the rush of emotions he felt from sadness and anger to relief I understood and I felt the exact same way.

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Two years later ,my girlfriend and I had been having one of our off periods where she would randomly go cold on me until I apologized for no reason. I was tired of it and was considering ending the relationship. I was getting ready to head out to a performance when I got a text from her “I’ve been looking for the right way to tell you and I’d rather do it in person but you’ve been so busy and I can’t wait any longer… I’m pregnant”.
I saw a ghost…the ghost of freedom past.