He’s decided to come visit me next weekend so we can talk about all this in person. The good news is he didn’t demand I get an abortion and he didn’t say anything about breaking up with me. Unless, of course, he’s going to break up with me in person! Which is, technically, better than ditching me over the phone. After five years in a relationship, a person deserves to be broken up with in person.
The unfortunate thing about knowing you are pregnant almost the second it happens is that you have to keep the secret for so long. It would have been so much better, I think, to not have known for at least a couple of months. I’ve heard stories of women who didn’t realize they were pregnant until they were in their fifth month. I am super jealous of these women, who could go on with their lives—drinking and partying—for more than half their pregnancies without consciously knowing they could be harming their offspring. I want to be one of those women. Instead, I worry that maybe something is going to go wrong and I’ll miscarry, which is even more depressing than knowing I’m pregnant. Already every time I go to the washroom I can’t help but look down to see if there is the slightest trace of blood on the toilet paper, proof that something may be going wrong. Ten percent of women miscarry in their first three months of pregnancy, I learned through my Internet research. I can’t think of anything worse than telling everyone I know that I’m pregnant only to miscarry two weeks later. Which is the real reason I told the fiancé we couldn’t tell anyone yet. I have already decided to keep this child, God help us all, but I am definitely not going to tell anyone until the three-month mark, which is in about sixty days. I still can’t believe that my period isn’t coming. Women’s intuition, four home pregnancy tests, and one blood test pretty much convince you that you are indeed pregnant. But for some reason it still feels as though my period is about to arrive any second.
I can do it. I can keep a secret for sixty days. I know I can. Easy. I am also going to quit smoking now that I know I’m pregnant. Right after this last goodbye-to-smoking cigarette. Quitting is going to be super easy now that I know I’m harming someone else’s lungs and not just my own.
FEBRUARY 22
I woke up with a wicked sore throat today. I think I have a fever. I need antibiotics right now. I know I do. I have always been a bit of a pill popper—not in a Stepford Wives kind of way, but when I feel the slightest headache coming on, I will take three Advils. For years, Advil has been my best friend. If I was wearing uncomfortable high heels—the kind of heels that are for standing around in, not walking around in—I would pop Advil before heading out for the night. Advil preempts the pain of wearing standing-only shoes. I would pop three Advils before getting bikini waxes, for the same preemptive powers. I have never been a good sleeper, so I often take sleeping pills— prescription, over-the-counter, the ones my friends get from their doctors and share with me, whatever. I will even take NyQuil, for that woozy high it gives you right before you fall asleep. I live for that dreamlike state. I know I can’t take any of that anymore.
I called Ronnie to ask her what I can do about my sore throat. The conversation was short. She was entirely unhelpful.
“Ronnie, I have a sore throat. What can I take?”
“Nothing.”
“But, can I at least—”
“No!”
“Can I have some—”
“No!”
“Should I call my doctor?”
“Don’t bother.”
“Do you really think if I just took one—”
“NO!”
“So you’re telling me I can’t take anything?”
“NO! I mean, yes. Yes, you can’t take anything at all now that you’re pregnant.”
“Are you sure I can’t even—”
“NO!”
And that’s pretty much how it went.
How does one get better without taking some sort of medication or popping some sort of pill? That’s, like, unheard of.
FEBRUARY 23
8:00 a.m.
I have never been much good at keeping secrets. My friends will say, “Can you keep a secret?” as they lean in to tell me something juicy. And I will say, “Of course,” but really I can’t. Few people are really good at keeping secrets. But I’m going to be this time. To keep my mind off this huge secret I am keeping, I am going to the bookstore. Pregnancy reading should keep me busy and my mouth shut. My throat is still sore and I have the sniffles. I think I’m allergic to being pregnant.
Noon
Well, maybe I should at least tell my mother the news. She is my mother, after all. And I feel like I need my mommy right now, as though I fell off my bike and the only one who can make it better is her. I really do want to tell her, but I can’t get the thought out of my mind that telling your parents you’re pregnant is admitting to them you’ve had sex, and not very careful sex at that. My parents and I do not have that kind of relationship. We do not talk about sex at the dinner table. I still remember the one sex talk they had with me. I was about sixteen and doing homework when there was a knock at the door. Two minutes before, I had heard the same knock on my older brother’s door. They entered my room hand in hand. “We just want you to know there are a lot of bad diseases out there,” said my mother, my father nodding silently by her side. I knew immediately this was a talk about condoms. “Um, okay,” I responded. “Thanks, I know.” I was a couple of years away from having sex anyway. I didn’t even have a first boyfriend yet. Then my parents left my room, hand in hand. And that was that. That was the extent of my sex talk. Quick and easy.
I decided to pick up the phone and call my mother anyway. It was time to tell her that her daughter was no longer a virgin.
“Mom,” I began. “I have some news. I’m pregnant.”
“What? When did you find out?”
“Yesterday. I went to see Dr. R.”
“Ahhh. That’s so great. Congratulations. I’m so happy for you. Are you getting married now?”
I couldn’t deal with the when-are-you-getting-married lecture right now. “I guess we will. Maybe in the summer.”
My mother was clearly happy, probably because she could boast to all her friends that she was, finally, going to be a grandmother. For most mothers of adult children, this is a big deal.
“You can’t tell anyone yet,” I told her. “I’m only like a month pregnant. We have to wait until I’m three months, okay?”
“Okay, you tell me when it’s okay.”
The strangest thing, though—my father didn’t come to the phone, nor did he call me later. Perhaps it’s harder for fathers to accept the fact that their daughters have sex than it is for mothers. Who knows.
There is one other relative who will need to know: my ninety-year-old grandfather. No sense in telling him just now. He’s a pretty hip and happening man for ninety, but I don’t think he’ll approve of the whole getting-pregnant-before-marriage thing. I’m going to wait a bit before giving him his first heart attack.
FEBRUARY 24
I think my friend Vivian is pregnant. It takes one pregnant gal to recognize another. Vivian is thirty-five and has been married for about four months to a lovely man named Donald.
Shannon, Heather, Vivian, and I met at a hotel bar for an after-work drink today. I couldn’t drink, but I am not going to change my routine just because I’m pregnant. I’m still going to be a hip woman who hangs out at hip hotel bars, bump or no bump. I just won’t drink. Except for Perrier.
“What can I get you?” asked the surly waitress. You have to love hotel bars, with the middle-aged waitresses and the free nuts on the table.
“I’ll have an orange juice,” Vivian said, which I immediately found odd. It was 5:30.
“I’ll have a glass of your house red,” said Shannon.
“I’ll have the same. Red wine,” said Heather.
“Um, I think I’ll just stick to Perrier,” I told the waitress. I glanced at my friends, who, as I suspected, were looking at me in disbelief. “I’m not feeling so well today,” I s
aid, defensively. Why am I defending myself? Can’t I not drink in front of them? Is that so wrong?
They didn’t seem to give Vivian the same look. Maybe they all knew something I didn’t.
Shannon and I, who live in the same area, shared a cab ride home, while Vivian and Heather walked to their homes.
“Shannon, is Vivian pregnant?” I asked.
“How did you know? But you can’t tell anyone! She’s almost at three months, but she’s not telling anyone until then.” See? I told you none of my friends could keep secrets.
“I just assumed, because she was drinking orange juice at six o’clock in a hotel bar. That’s such great news for her.”
“Yeah, I’m so happy for them. But you weren’t drinking either. What’s up with that?”
“Well, it’s not because I’m pregnant. It’s because I’m not feeling well and need a little break from booze.” I could see how the next few weeks were going to be for me—lies, lies, and more lies.
FEBRUARY 27
The fiancé is coming to visit tomorrow. This week, a new fear entered my mind: I started to worry that the fiancé is going to think I tricked him into getting me pregnant. I didn’t. I just asked—rather, I begged—and he did. But still, occasionally in the past, my friends and I have joked about gals tricking guys into getting them pregnant. We joke about this in the same way we joke about our Plan B’s.
Having a Plan B is just good sense for women. What could be worse than to hit forty with no boyfriend and no sperm at your disposal just as your maternal clock is running out of juice? Having a Plan B ensures that this never happens. Shannon, Heather, Lena, and I spend a lot of time talking about the successful women we know who own their own homes, who have done wonders in their careers, but who have no family. We all agree that there’s something very depressing about this. I once left a job because I was working with a number of women ranging in age from thirty-five to fifty, not one of whom was in a serious relationship. Not one of those women had any children. They all worked twelve-hour days, and I used to sometimes wonder, Is this God’s way of showing me what the future has in store for me? So I quit.
My Plan B—which it seems is now obsolete—was my high school boyfriend, whom I dated for three years. He would have been a good sperm donor for the same reasons he was a good high school boyfriend: he has green eyes, curly hair, and musical talent. Our child would not only have been incredibly cute, but would have had a singing voice to die for. When I asked him a few years back if he would be willing to be my Plan B, he agreed eagerly. If I reached age thirty-five—my personal scary age—and didn’t have a man in my life to be the father of my child, he would have sex with me. But maybe he was just agreeing because he wanted to have sex. He would probably make an awful father. But that’s not something I worried about. He was just a Plan B, after all. No woman actually believes she will ever have to resort to using her Plan B.
FEBRUARY 28
5:00 p.m.
There are things I know about babies and a lot of things I do not know about babies. I know that I do not like sitting beside babies on airplanes. I know that I do not like sitting near babies in restaurants. I know that I want to yell at people who bring babies into movie theaters. But I do not know how to hold a baby. In fact, I have never held a baby. I do not know how to change a baby or how to feed a baby.
So, while waiting for the fiancé to arrive, I decided to flip through some of the pregnancy books I picked up the other day, so I can at least know something about being pregnant. The books were still in the bag, lying by my front door where I had dropped them. Obviously, I wasn’t as curious as I thought I’d be to find out what happens during pregnancy. Which is surprising. The only thing I know less about than babies is pregnancy.
6:00 p.m.
My God! Instead of using cutesy titles for pregnancy books, why don’t they just title them 101 Ways You Can Fuck Up Pregnancy? Or 101 Things That Can Go Horribly Wrong During Pregnancy? Or 101 Ways to Harm Your Baby, or 101 Things You Can’t, Under Any Circumstances, Do While Pregnant, or 101 Ways Your Body Will NEVER Be the Same? Awful, awful, awful things happen to a woman’s body when she’s pregnant. All the books keep welcoming me to “the mommies’ club” and to this “wonderful, joyous” time, demanding that I “enjoy every minute of this miracle.” How can any woman possibly enjoy the miracle of pregnancy once she finds out all the ghastly things that are about to happen to her body? As if gaining so much weight wasn’t awful enough, I learned about hemorrhoids, uncontrollable gas, and hair that grows on places that hair should never, ever grow. I hadn’t even known what hemorrhoids were. There are some things that no person should ever have to learn about. Hemorrhoids are definitely one. Flipping through those books was a big mistake for so many reasons.
I bought four books because I had bought four home pregnancy tests and thought I should have at least as many books. The first book I picked up had a catchy title. But before I even made it to the first chapter, I knew it wasn’t for me. The author, who already had four children and a husband, dedicated the book to her four kids—whose names all began with the same letter. Still, I began reading. It was a book that came highly recommended by Ronnie, after all. I threw the book down in disgust at page 22 after reading, “Sleeveless and pregnancy don’t mix” and “By throwing out all your sleeveless shirts, you will be gaining useful drawer space for your nursing bras and giant underwear.” Who is this author, with the four children whose names begin with the same letter, kidding? I have never worn giant underwear. I will never wear giant underwear. I decided to wear only tank tops and thongs for the next eight months. I also decided never to open that book again.
One of the co-authors of the second book I picked up gave birth eighteen years ago, which means I am closer in age to her child than I am to her. When this author was giving birth, I was eleven. This, I thought to myself, will be like taking advice from my mother. I gave it a chance. “The results are back,” it begins. “Excitement is growing. So is your list of concerns. Will my age or the baby’s father’s age have an effect on my pregnancy and on our baby? How about chronic medical problems or family genetic problems?” Jesus. I hadn’t even thought about that stuff. The author is right, though. I do have growing concerns. But they mainly have to do with whether my child will get my nose and my personality. I can’t have that. I want my baby to be smart and laid-back, like its father. But I do not want my child to get his hairy back. The child can have my skin and my hair. The child can have his eyes, but not his eyesight. I put the book down.
The third book I flipped through is filled with questions from concerned pregnant women. “I became pregnant again just ten weeks after I delivered my first child. What effect will this have on my health and on the baby I’m now carrying?” And “I’m pregnant for the sixth time. Does this pose any additional risk for my baby or for me?” None of these women ask the questions that haunt me, like “How long before my pants don’t fit?” and “How long after I give birth will it take for my pants to fit again?” and “Exactly how fat will I get?” and “Is it wrong to ask the father of my child 1,735 times a day if I’m fat?”
The fourth book I perused is a little too scientific for me. I did learn, though, that the most common concern brought to doctors by pregnant women is alcohol and if the few glasses of wine enjoyed before finding out they were pregnant could have harmed the baby. I learned that after the first month, the baby in my stomach is a tiny tadpole-like embryo, smaller than a grain of rice. Though far from looking human, the tadpole already has a head with a mouth opening, a primitive heart that has begun to pump, and a rudimentary brain, and arm and leg buds will appear soon. There was something about the word “bud” that kind of made me sick. I mean, it’s just so freaky weird.
I put the book down and instead decided to watch television to kill time before the fiancé arrives. I wonder if I can go through my entire pregnancy without ever finding out what exactly the placenta is. Or, for that matter, where the uterus is. I t
hink it’s entirely possible. I am never studying another pregnancy book again until I absolutely have no choice. It will be just like high school. When I start having contractions, I’ll cram.
MARCH 2
6:15 p.m.
The fiancé just left. The fiancé has not reacted to this pregnancy with glee, excitement, or anger, but I expected as much. The fiancé’s favorite word to describe pretty much anything and everything is “fine.” He could have just eaten the best dinner of his life, prepared by the most talented chef in the world, but ask my fiancé how dinner was and he’ll answer, “Fine.” His stock could go up $10 in one day, but ask him how this makes him feel and he’ll answer, “Fine.” He could go on the most exotic, relaxing vacation of his life, but ask him how his week went and he’ll answer, “It was fine.” So, I suppose, if you were to ask him how he’s feeling about impending fatherhood, he’d most likely answer, “Fine.” It’s not exactly how most women would hope the father of their child would react to such big news. But “Fine” is better than “Fuck. That sucks!” “Fine” is fine by me.
We actually had a pretty relaxing weekend, all things considered. This morning, over eggs Benedict for me and a cheese omelette for him, was really the first time we discussed the pregnancy in great detail. Well, not great detail. But some detail. We’re moving in the right direction. The fiancé has decided that we, in his words, “have to get our shit together.” I agree. We do have to get our shit together. We have about seven months to get off our asses and get our shit together. There is nothing like a deadline to force people to get moving. We have decided that I should probably have the baby in his city. My job allows me to work pretty much anywhere as long as there’s an outlet to plug in my computer. It’s much easier for me to take a laptop in the overhead baggage compartment than it is for him to pack up his law office. We have also decided, however, that I will keep my apartment so that I can come back whenever I want. After all, my life, my friends, and my family are here.
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