Chapter 1 – I could not believe it!

There are times in your life when you can visualise the scene in vivid clarity, especially when something momentous had happened. I had spoken to older guys who could remember exactly where they were and what they were doing the moment they heard that Elvis had died, or J.F.K, 9-11 and other huge events.

Finding out that you were pregnant would not figure as high as those world-shattering events to most people, actually, I doubt whether it would rate in the top one thousand unless you were a single female and was not expecting that sort of news. For me it was unbelievable and I denied it for an hour before they showed me the ultrasound picture and I could see the tiny figure that they said was growing inside me.

I still had to make certain that it was not all a joke and looked at the bottom of the picture to make certain that it was my name there. It was my name all right; Arthur J. Prendergast, D.O.B 7/3/1999, sex M; although someone had added a question mark there in texta. I had only gone to see my doctor about a consistent feeling of bloating lately and his eyes had glazed over as he felt my stomach. I had a quick thought that he may be on something but when he washed his hands he told me that he was going to send me to somewhere that has better equipment. He sent me to the local hospital with a note to give to the reception and the girl behind the counter had giggled when she read it.

The chap that did the X-ray was smirking when he sent me down to get the ultrasound and, after I had finally stopped shouting “No!” they sent me to a machine that frightened the hell out of me. I didn’t like closed spaces and lying in a very noisy tube and being told not to move was almost impossible to take. In the end they took me to a private room and gave me a cotton gown that would show my arse if I bent over. Finally, I had given up all hope of going home when they took my clothes away in a paper bag to be ‘stored’ and I was ornamented with a stent in each arm – ‘one for fluids in’ and ‘one for anything else we can think of’. Part of the fluids must have been a tranquiliser as I drifted off to sleep.

In the morning there was a flash and a shout as I was waking up. The sister was chasing some guy out of my room and I was still too groggy to know what was going on. Later, a nurse brought me a breakfast which I was not allowed to touch until she had taken a number of readings and what seemed like a couple of pints of my blood. I then had to stay in bed while I peed into a bottle. By the time I got to the breakfast it was a cold and soggy mess but I did eat some, just for the energy.

Mid-morning I had a visit; actually, I was the centrepiece of a conference at my bedside. At least a half a dozen eminent looking guys, most in white coats and bow-ties, gathered around and discussed my case as if I was a specimen in a jar on the shelf. I did find out that I was indeed pregnant to what they mostly decided would be a baby girl, although it was still too early to be sure. They were divided in their thoughts as to whether I should be given a C-section just before the birth time or whether I should be given an immediate operation to allow me to give birth naturally. There was no discussion on just taking it away now. Whenever I tried to ask a question I was told that I would get my chance later.

All I wanted to know was how such a thing could happen. I know that there had been a movie where some action star had been a mother but that was merely fiction, bad fiction at that. Finally everyone but one left the room, with the consensus that it would be easier to give me a birthing passage now so that it could be healed by the time I was due. As the discussion faded along the corridor the remaining specialist smiled at me and said “Mr Prendergast, I think it is time you knew the whole truth so that you can decide about your future.”

He pulled up a chair and said “I know that you have seen the ultrasound and have been told that you are pregnant. The last machine you were in gave us a much better look at your insides and we discovered an amazing thing. Tell me, have you had normal sex with girls?” I said that I had enjoyed a reasonable sex life with at least two partners. He then asked if I had been in any sexual encounters with men and I laughed for the first time in days and said “You’re not going to ask me who the father is so that I can tell you that I don’t have eyes in the back of my head!”

He smiled at that and said “No, not that one. Actually, it is impossible to be made pregnant through the anus.” I said “Well if that’s the case, how am I up the duff without a vagina?” “Ah!” he sighed, “That’s the sixty-four dollar question. I asked you if you had been in sexual encounters; have you ever felt that the resulting sperm was not up to the feeling of ejaculation.” I thought and said “Yes, sometimes it feels like the earth has moved and when I come to remove the condom it is hardly damp, let alone filled. I have even had a few wet dreams and when I woke up I had been dry.”

“Just as I thought” he said “Arthur, I can call you Arthur, can’t I?” I nodded. “Arthur, you have all the hallmarks, internally, of a ‘normal’ hermaphrodite; that is, you have both male and female sexual organs. Now, it looks as if you have a uterus and all the normal equipment of a woman but without the opening to the outside. I have to think that it all developed quite late as you would have experienced a terrible situation had you menstruated as there would have been no-where for it all to go. The odd thing that we found was a very small tube that led from your testicular sac to a spot near the uterus. I would hazard a guess that all the extra sperm went that route which is why you felt good but lacked an actual result.”

I felt as if the audience in my mind was laughing, ready for the punch-line, but this was serious. “You mean, Doctor, that I may be the first man in the world to actually fornicate with myself?” He said “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. The baby that you have made is a product of your own sperm and your own very first egg.”

I then surprised him by bursting out with laughter and it took a while before he could calm me down. The doctor then said “I must say I did not expect this behaviour from what is a very serious situation.” I said “Doctor, I am an insurance salesman, have been since I left school. Life, car, injury, pet, death – it’s all in a day’s work. I don’t think I have ever gone a day without someone I have called telling me to do exactly what you have told me I have actually achieved. All I need to do now is figure out what I do now.” He said that he wanted me to take a few days to think it over. I got the nurse to get me a phone so I could call work and say that I may be some time on sick leave and the wag on the other end asked me if it was ‘maternity leave’ and I said “yes”. He was laughing fit to bust when I hung up.

Luckily I had been very good at what I do and had a bit of a nest-egg which I had put aside for a flash car to replace my aging Toyota. I had also insured my parents in my first week at work and I had been paid out enough when they were killed in a car crash to buy my own place; a detached ‘character’ home – on the edge of a village with the required kitchen/diner and enough space for chickens should I ever get stupid enough to acquire any. It did give me a little wriggle-room to decide my future. Should I stay as Arthur and be the first man to give birth, even if it was a C-section; or should I get the opening made so that I could go natural. It then struck me that my pelvis may not have a big enough opening for my baby to pass through. ‘My baby’ how come I am thinking in that way? I spent the rest of the day listening to the radio and trying to make up my mind – will it be Arthur or Martha – and will they let me keep it. Then another thought struck me – how will I feed it, am I about to grow breasts as well. I will have to ask the medical guys about that one.

The other thing that occupied my mind that day was whether I would make a reasonable woman if I went down that road. I would need to get some proper advice on that one, maybe a session with a fashion guru and a computer program to see what I would look like. Then there would be all of the things I will need to learn about womanhood; from deportment and grace to make-up and sanitary towels. It would be a lot to take in and, if the doctors were right, I only had about seven and a half months to get up to speed. The only thing that I did not think about was getting it all removed now. I had made a baby, my baby, and I was determined, one way or another, that I will give it life.

The nurses were very good, making sure I was not about to cut my wrists every five minutes and then draining my blood anyway every hour or so. I was even starting to feel thinner from all of their ministrations and, when I asked when they were likely to stop, I was told that it would be ‘just another day and then we will only monitor you every six hours’.

I had a good sleep again, no doubt chemically assisted, which was handy because the brown stuff hit the wall next day. I think that one of the guys down in the radiography department must have made some money on the side with the local newspaper. The flash I had seen that morning must have been a photo being taken because the sister came in with my breakfast and the local paper. There, on the front page, was a picture of me in the hospital bed under the headline ‘Virgin Birth!!!! – Is a local man destined to be the mother of the new messiah?’

Marianne G © 2021