When I told him I had big news, his first
question was “Where are you going next year?”
to which I responded, hopefully nowhere, since at that time I had no
intention of leaving my position. When I told him that I was pregnant, his next
question—although seemingly in jest—was, “How could you do this to me?” I
recall laughing it off at the time and continuing the conversation, where he
congratulated me. When I thought about it further, I was a little more upset.
Since I hadn’t planned on getting pregnant, I wasn’t sure how or why anyone
else would take that moment away from me and make it theirs, but from that
point forward things started to get a whole lot weirder.
I went about my usual coaching duties—at the time
I was coaching speech, something I have done for the past several years—and
helped my students prepare for the upcoming tournament in Utah. During that
first week of school, I rode with the students and our other coaches to Utah in
a minivan—which isn’t exactly fun when you’re not pregnant, but having to pee
constantly and being incredibly emotional, didn’t help matters.
When we arrived in Utah we went to check into the
hotel—the day had already been long, as I’d found out that the girl that our
“friend” had said my boyfriend had been inappropriate with knew that I was
pregnant. I’d spent the majority of the day fighting with him via text message
and frankly I was upset that she knew anything about my pregnancy or me. By the
end of the day, I finally told her that I couldn’t talk to her anymore because
honestly I was worried that the stress of having to interact with her would
cause serious problems to the baby. Ready to turn in and prepare for the
tournament that began the next day, I lugged my things into the hotel lobby.
Upon check-in, we became aware that the rooms
that were booked only had one bed in them—yay more stress! As we scrambled to
call the head coach and try to figure out the situation, since we normally book
4 students per room, I learned that I was slated to share a room with the minor
on our team. For coaches, being in the same room as a minor alone or even
driving in a vehicle with them alone was against university policy, but for
some reason I was told I had to share a room with only one bed in it with a
minor. When I spoke up, I was essentially told, “too bad” because it would cost
too much money for me to have my own room, as I was the only other female
present.
You’re probably aware of this, but typically
graduate students do not have very much money—I fell and probably continue to
fall into this category. That being said, I couldn’t afford to pay for four
nights of my own room, nor could I afford to take a rental car across two
states, back to California (not that you’re supposed to take a rental beyond
the state or immediate bordering state to the one you rented it in anyway).
Having worked at a rental car company for almost a year prior, I knew that the
fee to one-way a vehicle from Utah to California would be almost as much as the
cost of the hotel room for the four nights and I was stuck.
Of course, I didn’t think anything would happen
or that the minor would lie and say something did, but I also really didn’t
want it to be on record that I was sharing a single with a minor—she was kind
enough to take the chair and give me the bed, but neither of us should have
been placed in that situation.
After that, a series of even stranger events
occurred. When the team had our first official practice after the tournament,
the girl who I’d asked not to contact me showed up—odd since she hadn’t showed
up before. When I first emailed our head coach about this I received no
response. I ended up going home early that night because being around her
causes me to have panic attacks. Probably a week and a half later, she showed
up again and I was told that regardless of whether I experienced panic attacks
or not, she—who doesn’t even attend our school—was a necessary presence.
Without getting too far into details, on two
occasions following, I was directly lied to by my superior, which to me,
created an unsafe work environment. As a result I elected to drop out of
graduate school and the job that I otherwise loved.
What’s worse is that shortly after all of the
students on the team seemingly turned against me—this isn’t the first time that
a coach or student for this team has had problems and been ostracized, nor will
it probably be the last. I’m not sure what the point of that is, but if you
compare motives, I have nothing to gain from withdrawing from graduate school
or not having a job. In fact, I kind of lost everything. For the last three
weeks, I have been desperately searching for a job and hoping that I find one, and
make enough money to move, before our lease is up at the end of the month and before I start actually looking
pregnant—which could probably happen at any time now.
I didn’t ask to be pregnant, and I know that the
situation could be much worse, but for right now, the immediate future is
looking pretty dim.
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