In Continuum.

A friend of mine experienced a bloated stomach, a particularly sensitive skin, and joint pains right after a friend of hers suggested that she might have been pregnant. It was meant to be a joke, but she took it rather seriously at one point and was convinced that she was, indeed, pregnant. When asked if she is sexually active, her facial expression told me everything that I needed to know even before she answered me with a loud resonating "No". She wasn't lying about the sexually active part, and yet she was convinced that she was carrying around a fetus in her womb. She was either going to be the next documented case of a virgin birth, or she was suffering from an extreme case of self fulfilling prophecy. I'd like to think that it is the latter, and you can't really blame her for that I suppose. When a girl gets those kind of bodily signals, she cannot help but feel nervous about things. I think humans in general are terrified of things that we cannot see with our naked eyes. Like viruses and germs for example, the lethal ones that could kill us from around the house. Sperms work the same way, and we are terrified of them.

The topic of pregnancy scares came up a week or two ago with my friends and I, and I was surprised at how common it is to have pregnancy scares. I have some experiences with that, though it didn't directly involve me (for obvious reasons). The truth is, when I was freaking out about it, all I wanted to hear were facts, facts, and more facts. I wanted to hear the statistics of it happening to people, and I wanted to know what I could do in the shortest amount of time. I wanted to know my options, basically, or at least that is what a guy would consider when he is being told that his girlfriend could be pregnant. And as for the girls, they just want emotional comfort for the most part, and not the statistics at all. They believe that they just know it is real, and that they don't really need pregnancy test kits to confirm such a hypothesis. The truth is, our minds work in strange ways, and science has proven that women can induce pregnancy symptoms if they try hard enough to believe that they are pregnant. Of course, a miracle child is not going to miraculously form in her womb as a result. But everything else that leads up to the actual pregnancy, all those can be produced just by having a really good imagination and a really strong determination. It's true, you can feel pregnant when you are a nun.

So, this entry is for all of those who are freaking out right now, or will be freaking out in the future. I shall try to comfort both the male and the female in the relationship by giving you facts about the odds of you getting pregnant under normal circumstances, and what you could do when it does happen to you, knock on wood. And as for the ladies, I suppose I do have some advices to give you when you are going through the turmoil. I have been through enough on my part to know how it must be like for the ladies, and it is not easy to go through those couple of days after your period was supposed to come. If you are experiencing a pregnancy scare right now, read on through this entry and I hope that I will comfort you, somehow, after sharing some of my researches and my observations. The truth is, pregnancy scares are really what the name would suggest - it is just a scare. There are times when shit happens though, but it'd be OK if you have done the necessary precautions. By precautions, I mean protection of course, and that is the soundest advice I could give to the male and the female. Guys, please use those rubber things. Girls, please do not have sex without your partner using a condom. So, let's begin.

The first reason why any girl would think that they are pregnant is probably a delayed period. Suppose it should come on the 20th, and it is already the 21st. You start to think about it a lot throughout the day, and even more often by the time it is the 22nd. By the 23rd, you'd start to experience a bunch of symptoms because of all the worrying. You start to feel pain in your knees, you start to feel dizzy at times. You start to have a great appetite for things, and you start to feel bloated in the stomach. Yes, you are now convinced that you are pregnant, and that you are freaking out. But don't worry, you are going through a very normal process that a lot of sexually active girls go through. No, even the girls who are not sexually active worry about such things from time to time. After all, having your period come on time is probably a sure sign of you not being pregnant. Having it come late is the exact opposite of whatever that you want to happen, and it is natural to consider the worst case scenario. However, here's a sound advice: keep calm. More often than not, if you worry too much about the late period, it is only going to come later. Here's what it looks like in your head: Your period is not here yet, you start to worry if you are pregnant. The body reacts to the stress and messes up the hormones in the body, causing the period to come even later. When the period isn't here yet, you become even more scared and stressed, and you are now convinced that you are pregnant. The vicious cycle goes on, and piling on more stress is not going to help at all. So, try to calm down, because whatever happens, happens.

On the part of the guy, the best thing for you to do is to just be there for the girl when she needs you. It is OK to provide a few scientific and statistical evidence of how unlikely it is to happen if you guys have done the appropriate measures. Like, if you guys have used the condom, the chances are really really slim. But there is a line that you cross once you provide one too many statistic. Sometimes, girls just hate those numbers thrown at them from a distance. They'd rather have your silent presence rather than your distant verbal comforts. So be there when they need the comfort, and don't try to distract or divert the attention away either, though that is not to say that we should completely avoid the elephant in the room. It's just that, we shouldn't emphasize on the fact that the period hasn't come yet, but at the same time we don't have to completely ignore it altogether. Don't brush it away when she brings it up, and don't make it worse for the girl than it already is. She is going through a lot, and she is probably stressing herself out for the most part. Having you go on and on about how much you are freaking out is not going to work.

A point to note, when a girl is experiencing her period, she pretty much displays similar symptoms as she would when she is actually pregnant. When she tells you that she is feeling giddy, that she is having abdominal pains, that she is having a strange appetite, it doesn't necessarily mean that she is pregnant - it could just mean that she is having a particularly bad period. That is a tricky business, because I think it'd be great if a woman's nipples turn blue when she is pregnant, and remains the same when she is just having a period. That is the surefire way of knowing if she is pregnant or not, instead of relying everything on the symptoms. You don't have to freak out when she is late and displaying the symptoms, because it could only mean that her period is about to happen. Also, there are perfectly rational reasons as to why it is coming late. Maybe she has been stressed out over school work in the past couple of days, or that she has been ill. Maybe she has been hanging out with a bunch of female friends, and that actually causes her period to shift, so to speak. At any rate, if you really are worried about things, go get a test kit. You don't have to buy the expensive ones at the pharmacies, because the cheaper unbranded ones work just as good. If you want to, buy a few more to have more results to compare. Keep in mind, however, that they are usually not a hundred percent accurate though, but they are good enough anyway.

While you wait for the period to happen, here are some of the things you could look into. First if all, you want to have options, and know what to do when shit happens. If abortion is what you choose to do, then here are a couple of things that you might want to do. It is probably wise to get yourself to a doctor as soon as possible, once you confirm that you are pregnant. Don't rush to a doctor after you are one week late without giving it a test though, because they are only going to laugh at you if it is just a minor pregnancy scare. In Singapore, there actually isn't an age limit as to when you can get an abortion, and neither do you need a parental consent at all. That is contrary to common beliefs actually, thinking that you need parental consent if you are under a certain age - you don't. However, you'd need to be accompanied by the police to the clinic if you are a minor, and you'd have to go through a special session of counseling that is on top of the normal procedure that others would need to go through. As a Singaporean citizen, you'd have to sit through a mandatory video about the risks behind abortion, the procedures and stuff like that. You'd be given forty-eight hours to think things over, and then you'd be administered the procedure.

Now, if you visit websites of local clinics, they'd probably quote you the price of the abortion. However, some clinics tend to leave out the consultation fees as well as the anesthetic fees. Those probably add up to quite a bit of money at the end of the day, so do take note what the quoted amount of money comprises of. You either go to a general or a private clinic, and the latter is oftentimes more expensive than the former. For general clinic like the KK Women's Hospital, they allow you to pay for the procedure through Medisave, which is pretty useful if you are tight on money. Private ones, however, they cost a little bit more. Of course, in both cases, your records are kept save and nobody would know that you've been there.

Anyway, the procedure actually isn't a very complicated one by the standard of most doctors out there. The earlier you get yourself in the clinic, the easier and cheaper the procedure. It will be completely within fifteen minutes, and you are given about two hours to rest afterwards before you can go home. If you are going in early, then you'd be going home without anybody noticing anything different about you. Perhaps you'd just feel extremely fatigued, but that's probably due to the drugs, and people would normally dismiss that as you being tired or something. If I am not wrong, some private clinics would require you to go back for a checkup a week or two after the actual procedure, but you'd have to check with the clinic. Most clinics in Singapore seem to provide a lot of information and avenues to contact the doctors, and they are always there to answer your questions.

Of course, prevention is better than cure. You don't really have to worry about all of the above if you have done the preventive measures. Use a condom, and that is probably the best preventive measure out there. I don't really trust in pregnancy pills because, just think about it, you are putting pills into your body! It messes your body up, and worse when you stop taking those pills. Other than that, condoms are probably your best bet, and don't reuse them either. It is not possible to get pregnant by sitting on a toilet bowl that has sperm on it, neither is it possible to contract STDs through the same method. Sperms die fast, and they need moisture to survive. After being exposes to the air for about five to ten minutes, they'd probably be dead or to weak to do any "swimming", so to speak. It is highly unlikely to get pregnant if you bathe with your partner, if you do anything but intercourse with your partner, and it is certainly unlikely if you just kissed him. If you have done all the necessary preventions, the chances of you being pregnant is very very small. Under normal circumstances, if a couple are trying to make a baby, direct ejaculation into the vagina (I can't believe I just typed that) is going to get about a quarter of a chance of pregnancy, on average. Having the condom decreases it to near zero, so always always always do it.

So, I hope this little blog entry would help you in knowing more about what goes on during pregnancy scares. More often than not, if you have done the preventive measures, it'd probably be a scare and no more than that. I have heard of periods coming two weeks later, and that is not unheard of. Women's body work in strange ways, and I think we all know that for a fact by now. As long as you have done the necessary things, mathematics and science is on your side. Unless, of course, shit happens. In that case, I hope this entry has also provided you with enough information as to what to do when it all makes the wrong turn. Stop guessing, make sure. Knowing that your girlfriend is not pregnant is probably going to be the best thing that'd ever happen to you.