by Julia Kent
I mutter a long string of profanity.
“What about help for the real issues involved in pregnancy?” I ask, going entirely off script.
“Like what?” Toni asks.
I peer at her. “You ever been pregnant?”
“I have not been blessed yet,” she replies.
Ah. I see. We’re all on a script, aren’t we?
Amanda’s giving me a death glare, but I forge ahead. “How about panties that help when your crotch turns into Lake Pontchartrain during a hurricane?”
“Hmmm?” Toni’s looking mighty freaked.
“And itchy skin.”
“Oh! We have fabulous lotions for that.”
“Restless legs?”
She shakes her head. “Sorry.”
“Bleak hopelessness that sinks in when you realize that no matter what, an eight-pound thing has to come through a vagina the size of a garden hose?”
“Uhhh...”
“Forgive my melodramatic friend,” Amanda says through gritted teeth. “She’s–”
Flash! Flash! Flash!
Blinded by a series of camera flashes just outside the Roundly Ready storefront, I throw my arm up to cover my eyes, my dress ripping along the seam under my arm at the sudden movement, half my boob that overflows from my maternity bra suddenly chilled.
Amanda screams, “PAP!” Unlike other outings with her, we have no driver, and therefore no protection. The paparazzi have left her alone long enough for us all to lose our vigilance.
Bad, bad move.
The guy with the camera is cocky enough to keep snapping, giving Amanda time to run to the front door, yank it open, and chase him, with me jog-waddling behind, screaming “Don’t you dare sell that picture!”
“Who are you two?” Toni calls eagerly. “Famous?”
Amanda reaches the guy and does a jump tackle that would make Von Miller proud.
“CALL 911!” I scream to Toni, to people walking by, to anyone who will listen, as I watch my friend roll over and over in the arms of a freak who holds his camera up above his head, more worried about protecting it than his own body.
“OMIGOD! You’re the chick from that hawk video a few years ago!” Toni screams. “The one I saw on YouTube! Uncle Jordan talked about you the last time I saw him!”
Uncle Jordan? As in Jordan Montelcini?
My purse makes an excellent weapon as I bash the photographer with it. Some other man runs over, grabs the camera out of the paparazzo’s hand, and sprints down an alley, leaping over a recycling bin like a parkour champion.
“HELP!” I scream.
Ten people stop, the backs of their phones facing me as they videotape Amanda’s fight.
Not a single person actually helps.
Amanda stands up and slowly, like she’s giving birth, her pregnancy pillow slides between her legs, the peach-colored fabric making an inch or two of appearance, until Toni screams from behind me:
“She’s going into labor! She’s having her baby on the tree lawn!”
The pillow plops to the ground, lifeless, as Amanda watches the pap run off behind his camera-saving friend.
“DAMN! That picture will be everywhere in an hour!”Amanda yells.
“IS YOUR BABY DEAD?” Toni screeches. Finally, people put their phones down and start to recognize that there’s something going on here that isn’t about uploading to Facebook or laughing about it on Reddit.
Or, well, maybe...
Amanda picks up her “baby” and holds it in the air. “Baby’s fine! It’s fake!”
Cameras go up again. She runs back to me, looks at Toni, and says, “Bye!”
I waddle after her as she angry-texts, head down, mouth set with determination.
“What the hell was that?”
“A disaster.”
“No kidding.” I look back. Toni is being helped by a small band of the amateur videographers who couldn’t be bothered to help a woman in labor a few seconds ago.
Okay. Fake labor. But still...
Just ahead of us, a block or so away, I see Gerald running at full force toward us. Instantly relieved, I slow down. Yes, it’s paradoxical, but when you’re thirty weeks pregnant, seventy-five percent of what you do with your body doesn’t make sense anyhow.
“You two okay?” he checks in.
“Yes,” Amanda says, “but I’m pretty sure those assholes got pictures of me being pregnant.”
Gerald does a double take. “You’re pregnant, too? Mr. McCormick didn’t mention it yet. Congratulations.” Eyebrows low and face severe, he looks like he’s anything but pleased.
“No, I’m not pregnant!”Amanda waves the belly in his face. “It was a mystery shop.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not exactly logical,” I say with sympathy.
Moving behind us, he acts as a human shield as Lance, one of the other “drivers” for Anterdec, appears. Soon we’re in the private entrance to the building, the two men talking on earpieces with someone.
I assume it’s Andrew.
“He’s going to kill me,” Amanda says softly. “I blew it.”
“She’s fine,” Gerald says. “They’re both fine,” he adds. “Conference room?”
We’re walking to the elevator as the door to the stairs bursts open, Declan’s suit jacket flapping behind him as he runs to us, Andrew inches behind him.
“What the hell happened?” Dec asks me, hands patting me down as if he’s searching for wounds.
“I’m fine! It was just a stupid photographer.”
“And you!” Andrew says to my bestie, half angry, half relieved. “Why are you mystery shopping? That’s not your job anymore!”
“It’s a test case for that assisted living project–” she starts before her voice is muffled by his embrace, her face in his shoulder, his arms crushing her out of worry.
“What’s your excuse?” Declan asks me, eyebrows up, sarcasm at full blast.
“The baby is eating my brain and I have no common sense?”
“I believe it. A better explanation, though, is best friend Stockholm Syndrome.”
“Let’s go with that. Then it’s all Amanda’s fault.”
“HEY!” she calls out, pulling back from Andrew. “You came along willingly.”
“Only because you promised me donuts.”
“I never did!”
“She’s a cheapskate.”
Gerald holds a smartphone up for Andrew to look at. The grimace on his face tells me the paparazzi got the photos online lightning fast.
Andrew shows the pic to Amanda, who frowns.
“Now I’ve got to get you pregnant!” he shouts.
“What? Why?”
“Because everyone thinks you’re already pregnant.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“Plus, I am really looking forward to the second trimester.”
Declan’s face changes from laughter to an animated horror I can’t stop watching, as emotion pours into his face like color on a blank canvas. Widening his eyes, he’s sending more signals to his brother than SETI.
“Why?” Amanda asks Andrew. “What’s so special about the second trimester?”
“Declan says you get to have sex ten times a day,” he says with a ferocious grin.
“Declan what?” I look to him for an explanation.
None materializes.
Andrew gives me a half-leering, half-impressed glance. “I have to hand it to you, ten times a day is quite the libido.”
“You told Andrew we were having sex ten times a day?”
“I might have exaggerated slightly.”
“Lied. The word you’re looking for is lied.”
“Blame Vince. I was joking. He turned it into a joke and made you the sucker,” Declan confesses to Andrew. I know this trick. He’s throwing Vince under the bus.
“Bullshit. Vince wouldn’t turn me into the butt of a joke.”
“Andrew, he’s convinced you to drink oil with d
rops of bleach in it. If you seriously think he isn’t screwing with you, you’re in denial.”
“The bleach kills microorganisms in our bloodstream. It’s prophylactic.”
“It’s an industrial toxin.”
“How often did you have sex?” Andrew challenges, changing the topic.
“I’m not sharing that!” Dec shouts.
Bzzzzz.
My phone and Declan’s both vibrate at the same time.
“Crap!” I groan. “Childbirth class.”
“Good. We have an excuse to leave,” Dec says out of the side of his mouth.
We flee as Amanda and Andrew start arguing about paparazzi.
And trade one form of pain for another.
* * *
It’s second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and without the hippie freak this time as Declan and I enter the classroom for our childbirth preparation course.
Military-straight rows of desks greet us.
“I liked the pillows better,” Dec confesses as we each take a spot, my belly barely making it in between the desk surface and the chair. A notebook and two pens are on every desk, lined up perfectly, as if a drill sergeant had placed them there in formation.
“This is a completely different vibe,” Vicki says to me as she and Ivan take their seats.
“No vulvas?” I whisper, making her giggle.
“Ivan needed two beers to unclench after that class.”
“Declan threw himself into it a little too much.”
“Did not,” he says curtly from behind me.
I snort and try to twist in my seat but before I can turn, a uniformed officer walks into the classroom and stands before the group, her face a mask of restrained neutrality.
“Who’s selling weed this time?” Ivan hisses to no one in particular.
“Welcome to childbirth training. I’m Helen Lashman, CNM. That stands for certified nurse-midwife.” I peer closer and realize her uniform isn’t law enforcement or military. It’s just a suit that looks like a female Naval Academy cadet’s, minus any decorations.
“You are here because you have never given birth before. Birth is nothing more than a series of biochemical and muscular processes that require management. Proper management improves outcomes. Poor planning leads to poor outcomes. Raise your hand if you want a poor outcome.”
No one has the courage to joke.
“Good. Because if you don’t want a healthy baby, you can stand up and get the hell out of my class right now. Are we clear?”
Vicki’s wide-eyed look must match mine.
“I can’t hear you!” Helen shouts.
“Yes, ma’am?” Ivan says uncertainly.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” she screams.
“YES, MA’AM!” everyone except Declan calls back.
“Notice how I did that nice and low? You!” she says, pointing to Vicki. “Say ‘yes, ma’am’ nice and low.”
“Low?”
“Low,” Helen directs, using her voice as an example. “Lower registers are important for making sounds during birth. Helps to make the cervix open, reduces damage to your vocal cords. Even the best-trained woman will need to vocalize sometimes, especially if you accomplish the ultimate warrior birth challenge.”
Spine slowly straightening, Declan is almost Pavlovian as he hears the words “ultimate warrior birth challenge.”
Oh, no.
“Yes, ma’am,” Vicki says, sounding like Barry White talking into an empty toilet paper roll.
“Some of you,” Helen says, walking down the rows between the desks, “will emerge from your birthing experience with a healthy baby, no pain medications in its system or yours, and with the rigor and focus that will deliver you the best outcome possible. Others–the weakest among you–will not. Are you weak or strong?”
“STRONG!” Ivan shouts at the top of his lungs.
“I’m not so sure, Ivan,” Vicki says, her face filled with trepidation. “I don’t think I–”
“Childbirth is the single most athletic event you will ever experience,” Helen calls out.
“I thought that was the conception,” Dec jokes, winking at Ivan, who laughs.
“There is no laughing in childbirth,” Helen insists, walking over to our section of the classroom like a detention teacher working on crowd control. “It’s serious. It’s intense. And the final goal is survival.”
“I thought the final goal was a baby and building a family,” someone calls out.
“Can’t do that with a bad outcome,” Helen says fiercely. A ripple of fear spreads throughout the room.
“Come on,” Dec whispers in my ear. “I’ll take clay vulvas over this crap any day.”
“Your body needs to move forward on a timetable with your baby,” Helen starts, her laptop connected to a big television screen and a PowerPoint presentation titled “Calibrating Your Child’s Birth.”
For the next hour, we look at graphs of the Friedman curve and slides explaining how to dilate our cervixes a centimeter per hour and the role of Pitocin in helping us to dilate “properly.” We’re also made aware of every single nasty problem that can go wrong.
“Coffee break,” she announces, giving every pregnant woman a severe glare. “Decaf, of course, for the primigravida.”
“I’ve got some Latin for her. How about we start with the cruciatus–”
“She’s not that bad,” Declan soothes me, walking into the hallway and heading straight for the candy machine. One Reese’s Cup later, I’m a little calmer.
A little.
Clap clap! “Time’s up! Punctuality is very important for childbirth and delivery,” Helen informs us as we straggle in, half the women smelling of chocolate, all the guys reeking of boredom.
“Our next step is to perform a demonstration of the power of the uterus. Those muscles are some of the strongest in the body. Pregnancy and childbirth are not for wimps.”
Vicki looks at me and whispers, “But what if you are a wimp? We signed up for this class because it was called Hypnotic Childbirth, not Camp Lejeune for Birth.”
“Vicki?” Helen barks, the class going silent. “Do you have something to share with the class?”
I rescue the poor woman, who starts to shake. “She needs to pee.”
“Ah,” Helen says, as if that’s on a government-issued set of standards that meet talking-in-class guidelines. With a wave of her hand, she dismisses Vicki.
Ivan starts to slink out after her.
Declan watches with eyes like a special ops-trained soldier, memorizing their path.
“You need to pee, too?” Helen says to poor Ivan, who halts in place like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He practically crawls back to his desk.
“So close,” Dec mutters to him out of the side of his mouth.
Ivan shrugs, defeated.
Helen spends the next twenty minutes explaining pain levels during childbirth. Words like “horrifying,” “excruciating,” “cataclysmic,” “torturous,” and “agonizing” come out of her mouth.
And that’s just to describe the hospital admissions paperwork.
“We need to invent an emergency,” Declan says to me, phone out. “I can’t take this.”
“She’s teaching us important details,” I counter.
“Like what?”
“How to endure pain?” I grimace.
“Now! Everyone take a balloon and a ping pong ball from the boxes being handed out,” Helen says, shoving two separate boxes at surprised partners on either side of the room. Green balloons, thick and industrial looking, land on desktops, the ping pong balls floating around, bouncing here and there as partners jump up to retrieve them.
“Every person! Not just one per couple. No, no, I want you all to experience this.” Helen holds a ping pong ball up. “This is your baby.” She does the same with the balloon. “This is your uterus.”
“Who knew uteruses were green?” one of the partners, a woman with an undercut, calls out.
Amid titters, Helen informs us, “These are government surplus. Toughest uterus replacements you’ll ever find. Now, you need to get the baby in the uterus.”
“Already done,” Ivan boasts, rubbing Vicki’s belly.
Everyone laughs nervously while Helen does her best imitation of every angry drill sergeant in every Hollywood movie.
“None of this is a joke. I’m sure that the original instructor for this course turned it into a touchy-feely, crystal-filled room of nothing but emotions, but that’s a big load of horseshit. Feelings might have gotten you pregnant,” she announces, eyebrows up, eyes full of judgment, “but they won’t help you when you’re at a pain level of nine out of ten and your perineum turns into a flesh zipper.”
Everyone, even the guys, tightens their hoo haws.
“Get that ping pong ball in the balloon,” she instructs. With remarkable dexterity, Declan widens the balloon’s opening and swiftly inserts the ball, shaking the contraption until the ball’s floating around in the loose balloon.
The rest of the couples take longer to figure it out, but soon everyone’s ready for the next step.
“Now, blow the balloon up. Move the ping pong ball away from the neck of the balloon.”
Every man in the room hands the balloon to his partner. Every single one.
“Why do I have to do it?” I ask Declan. Murmurs of similar conversations ripple through the room.
“Because you’re–because you... you know.”
“Do I blow on your penis when I do that?”
“That’s a really personal detail that we shouldn’t talk about.”
I shove the balloon back at him. “I have the lung capacity of a chihuahua right now, Dec. The baby is crammed so far up against all my organs, I’m a clown car.”
Dec takes the opening and blows hard, turning a lovely shade of red that makes me giggle.
He tries again.
And again.
“This balloon is incredibly thick,” he grumbles, but slowly calibrates it until the thing is half inflated, the ping pong ball rolling around inside.
Helen helps all the couples to get their balls in place.
I know what she’s doing. I’ve seen the video online, too. The balloon is the uterus. The ping pong ball is the baby. And if you put your hands on the round top of the balloon and slowly pull back, the ping pong ball emerges from the neck of the balloon, achingly close then withdrawing, until finally the ball “crowns” and the “baby” is born. The video shows how powerful the uterine muscles really are.