She's Having Her Baby

by Lauren Sams

  ‘Great idea,’ said Meg. ‘Love it.’

  ‘Wait, wait – we have a tiny team, especially compared to the US mags you’re talking about. They have the resources to do this – we don’t. And I don’t want my features director so busy with a blog post on the top twenty signs you’re addicted to juice cleanses that she misses her deadline for an important story for the mag. The print mag always has to come first. We just need to think of a way to … integrate the online stuff.’ I paused, looking expectantly at my crowd of two. ‘Right?’

  ‘I think we can make this work, George,’ said Meg, ignoring me. ‘And we’ll be the first Australian mag to do it – that’ll make great PR. Let’s roll it out for the fortieth anniversary issue, OK?’

  ‘Roll what out?’

  ‘You know, the … integration stuff. Everyone working on print and online. I want to see exclusive stories online, celebrity interviews, all that jazz. Lucy, let’s see if we can get you some photography training for Instagram.’

  I sat there, rooted to my chair, not knowing how to react to all of this. I felt ancient, washed-up, like a sponge that had soaked up all the water it was ever going to soak up and was ready to be tossed out.

  ‘And let’s not forget the potential for advertisers,’ said Lucy, as if advertising were even part of her job. ‘We can add value via social media – tell them we’ll post about a sale on Facebook or post a picture of a product on Instagram. They’ll love it.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. No way. We are not doing that.’

  Lucy stared at me. ‘I think it’s a great opportunity to attract new clients.’

  ‘By giving away free advertising? No. That’s rule 101 of being an editor, Lucy. You don’t give away free shit. We’re not the goodie bag at the end of a party, OK?’

  As editor, it was one of my bugbears as editor – dealing with clients who wanted the world but only had enough money (allegedly) for, say, Cameroon. Just last week, a stationery company had asked if they could sample a hideously ugly notepad on the cover, despite not being advertisers and having no interest in advertising with us. Like they were doing us a favour! I very politely told them no, unless they were prepared to advertise and pay an additional cost to appear on the cover, we couldn’t do that. They were outraged. As was I.

  ‘OK, George – if you feel so strongly about it.’

  And with that, Meg and Lucy were barrelling on about the iPad edition, and talking about Lucy’s idea for a social media issue.

  ‘I’ve already thought of a sponsor, too,’ said Lucy, as Meg gazed at her with the kind of reverence teenage girls have for floppy-haired boy band members. ‘There’s a new phone that connects via bluetooth to all your friends’ phones, no matter where they are, so you’re constantly talking to each other. There’s no way to turn it off – it’s amazing.’

  It sounded terrible, actually – how would you ever be able to avoid anyone? – but it was becoming increasingly apparent that my opinions were a) irrelevant, and b) not being sought.

  ‘Love it, love it, love it,’ said Meg. ‘Lucy, these are all great ideas. Good job, pet.’

  Pet? I was Meg’s pet. Suddenly I had a flash of what it must be like to have a sibling.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’m just worried that we’re … dumbing things down a bit. I mean, our readers – they’re very intelligent. They’re managers, professionals. Do they want a whole magazine about Twitter? I really think we need to focus on the feminism stuff. That’s more relevant.’ I gave my best ‘nice try’ look to Lucy, but she wasn’t ready to back down.

  ‘Well, the women we’ll be profiling in the social media issue,’ she said, like it was a done deal, ‘will be the types of women that our readers look up to. So we’ll be able to touch on your feminism idea. Women who have created amazing apps, or who work in cutting-edge tech firms. Women who have launched their careers from social media, or used crowdfunding to get their companies off the ground. So, no, George, it’s not just going to be about Twitter.’

  ‘Right. Well, Meg and I will have a think about your idea, Lucy. Thanks for your efforts.’ I was trying to keep my voice as neutral as I could, but I knew they could both tell I was faking it. Big time.

  Lucy left and Meg got up to shut the door. She turned to me. ‘You need to listen to that girl,’ she said.

  I felt like I was back in the principal’s office, getting told off for something that wasn’t my fault.

  ‘She’s undermining me, Meg. Right in front of you,’ I said, not adding that Meg had also done me in.

  ‘She’s working to keep Jolie relevant. Alive. I know you don’t like change – we’ve had these conversations before. But get over it. Lucy’s not gunning for your job – she just wants to do her own job well. She reminds me a lot of you at her age, actually.’

  I stared at Meg, incredulous.

  ‘Lucy is smart. She’s a team player. Let her help you.’

  I nodded. Meg gave me a brief smile and left. Fucking fuck. I’d been backed into a corner – now what would I do?

  I took a deep breath and sat, trying to clear my mind. The better question, I thought, was: what would Lucy do?

  18

  Week 19

  My boobs had taken on a life of their own.

  They were like a shopping trolley I was trying desperately to steer, one that was intent on barrelling through the car park with all my groceries in it.

  I attempted to rein them in with my normal bras but these no longer fit, so this had the unfortunate effect of making my boobs look like pannacotta that wasn’t quite set.

  I wasn’t ready to accept that I was pregnant, but I was ready to concede that some retail therapy couldn’t hurt. And GreyBeard had started commenting on the fact that my shirts were tighter than usual. I refused to give him any more ammunition. After scoffing my fourth ham-and-cheese toastie of the week and about two litres of lemonade (a drink I hadn’t tasted since my eleventh birthday party but was now so obsessed with that I just accepted diabetes as inevitable), I made my way to David Jones. I hoped – presumed, really – that shopping would as usual give me a sense of calm and focus. Or at the very least, a few new pairs of undies.

  Pre-pregnancy, I was a 12D. I couldn’t get away without wearing a bra, but I wasn’t Kate Upton-ing my way out of my shirts, either. Nineteen weeks in and my bras had become uncomfortable to the point of redundancy. I would rather go braless and feel my twins swinging, sow-like, than have them squashed so tightly by my ill-fitting bra that my nipples were nearly at my neck.

  A motherly-looking woman named Grace guided me to the fitting room. ‘Looking for a maternity bra, are you, love?’ she asked with kind impartiality.

  I shook my head speedily.

  Grace looked sceptical and her eyes briefly scanned my belly full of baby.

  It was becoming harder and harder to conceal that I was pregnant. At work, people were pointedly asking me how I was feeling while staring at my midsection. I usually just nodded and mumbled ‘Good, thanks’ while I fished another packet of Smith’s Crinkle Cuts out of the vendo.

  Telling people I was pregnant would mean I had made a decision. And I hadn’t. Not yet. I had exactly six days left and I was planning to use every last one of them. I was on standby at the clinic, and Ellie had agreed to be my support person. Which, it turned out, was a good thing, because Ellie was actually very good at the whole nurturing thing. She’d even started sending me to work with freshly baked banana bread. Gluten-free, of course, but still.

  ‘I’m usually a 12D. But, um … I’ve gone up a size, I think. I’ve put on weight,’ I said, trying to cover the red slashes on my skin where my bra had been digging in all day.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Grace, nimbly ignoring the fact that all this weight I’d stacked on was in my stomach area. Which was shaped eerily like a pregnant belly. She disappeared to find some bras for my massive mammaries.

  She returned with just three bras. All various shades of beige and so big they could double as camp
ing tents.

  ‘This is a double D,’ said Grace, circling the bra around me and adjusting the straps. To say it didn’t quite fit properly was an understatement not unlike ‘the Jews were not fond of Hitler’. The triangles of beige material (apparently all big-breasted bras are beige, it’s useless to even look for another colour) were stretched over my breasts so tightly that the parts that weren’t covered spilled out like poorly cased sausages. I looked in the mirror. And immediately shut my eyes. This was not what my body looked like. The woman in the mirror? She didn’t even need a bra. She could tuck her boobs under her arms and call it a day.

  Grace sighed. ‘You’re not a double D. Hold on, love.’

  Grace returned with three even more hideous bras. They were all shapeless, beige (obviously) and absolutely huge. There is no way they’re the right size, I thought.

  And I was right. The E cups were too small, too.

  ‘Love,’ Grace ventured, calmly, ‘are you sure I can’t bring you some … maternity bras to try on? I think you’d find them a lot more comfortable.’

  I shook my head, but couldn’t even convince myself this time. So I started crying, instead. Grace, in all her motherly wisdom, hugged me and patted my back, making a shushing sound while I sobbed just like Lucas did when he wasn’t allowed to watch Toy Story for the forty-seventh time in one day.

  ‘It’s alright, love,’ Grace said. ‘It’s just a bra. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘It’s not … just a bra … Grace … it’s … my … whole life,’ I said, between big gulping sobs. ‘Everything … is totally … fucked.’

  Grace nodded, patting my back a little more insistently and really ramping up the shushes. ‘I know, love, I know.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, Grace … really … it’s all so …’ I couldn’t finish the sentence (‘fucked’ is what I was going to say) before I collapsed on the change-room floor, naked from the waist up, my boobs spreading over my distended tummy for all (well, really just Grace) to see. Once the tears started, I couldn’t make them stop. It reminded me of when I’d seen Titanic seven times as a teenage girl in the nineties and every time I’d begun sobbing before the lights were even dimmed. I didn’t let up until the final credits had rolled. It was exhausting but strangely addictive.

  Grace had clearly seen this before, because she calmly sat on the floor next to me and placed her hand on my back, still patting away like I was a baby who needed to be rocked to sleep.

  ‘Alright, love, tell me everything.’

  I looked at Grace. My new friend-slash-mum-for-hire Grace. She wore regulation DJs navy stockings and a skirt suit that looked as if it had been purchased yesterday. Women like Grace made grooming an art form. I knew this because my real mother was one of them. Her hair was blonde and short and looked like it had seen its fair share of hairspray that morning. She was smiling gently, waiting for me to start.

  So I did.

  I told her everything.

  And when I’d finished and I’d cried all the tears I was going to cry that day, I sighed with a relief I hadn’t felt in weeks.

  The whole time she’d been listening, Grace was nodding along as if she’d heard all of this before. Nothing shocked her. She was the perfect sounding board.

  I waited for her to say something. To tell me what to do. You could trust a woman with a helmet of blonde hair. Everybody knew that.

  She stood up and held her perfectly manicured hands out to me, ready to help me up. I hesitated, because I was currently the size of a small-ish whale and Grace looked as strong as tissue paper, but she grasped my hands and, without waiting, pulled me to my feet.

  ‘We’re going to have to try the F cups,’ she said.

  ‘OK.’ What else was there to say?

  Grace brought back five bras – all of which looked like they could comfortably house a small kitten – and all of them fit except one. I was wearing it when Grace pulled at the straps and said, ‘Mmm … this one isn’t quite right. Let me find it in a G.’

  No effing way am I going higher than F, Grace.

  ‘No, Grace. That’s enough. I’m an F. I’m a 12F.’

  Grace raised her eyebrows at me and I detected the smallest hint of a smirk. I nodded and collected the bras that fit me.

  ‘Grace?’

  She turned back.

  ‘You didn’t say anything. After I told you everything, you didn’t say anything.’

  ‘What did you want me to say, love?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sorry, Grace … I don’t even know you and I just unloaded all of my awfulness on you.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, love, don’t you worry about that. I’ve heard it all. ‘My husband’s gay’, ‘I’m cheating on my husband’, ‘the man I’m cheating on my husband with is gay’ … Trust me, women come into these change rooms and they don’t know it, but they’re looking for more than just a new set of Simone Pérèle knickers.’

  I smiled.

  ‘As for you, love, there’s not really much I can say, is there? You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?’

  ‘Uh, no.’ That’s why I had a near-naked nervous breakdown, Grace. Because I haven’t made up my mind.

  Grace smiled knowingly. ‘Love, anyone who doesn’t want to be pregnant knows what they have to do. You could have done this weeks ago and you didn’t. You’ve made your decision.’

  And then she closed the door and I was left alone in a pile of bras. I looked in the mirror, wondering how the hell I’d be able to go back to the office looking the way I did: my cheeks lined with inky mascara, my eyes red from crying, my face generally telling the world ‘This woman is a mess’. Not even a hot mess. Just a mess.

  I put my clothes back on, including one of the new bras Grace had picked for me. It didn’t have any underwire. She had picked out a maternity bra without telling me. But goddamn if it wasn’t the most comfortable piece of underwear I’d ever worn. It was the clothing equivalent of a big, cushy bed. I was in love, so I decided to keep it.

  Resigned to my new cup size, I paid for the bras and began to walk back to work, checking passers-by for any odd looks. My change-room makeover must have worked; nobody looked twice at me.

  I texted Ellie.

  Just got fitted for a new bra. I

  am an F cup. The F stands for

  ‘fark me, your tits are massive’.

  I felt like I had handled the whole thing quite well when Ellie, who, even post-pregnancy, had the bone structure of a swallow, texted back:

  Honestly, I didn’t even know

  the cups went that high.

  *

  The really convenient thing about living with a three-year-old was that you never needed an alarm clock. You could set your watch by Lucas: he woke at 5.50 am every single day, without exception. You also never needed to clean the house. There was literally no point because by the time you’d finished cleaning the kitchen or the bathroom, Lucas had managed to tear apart another area of the house while you weren’t looking. It was like washing down a doughnut with a green juice: utterly pointless. I couldn’t believe the way Ellie was able to laugh it all away, like it was completely reasonable that Lucas constantly disobeyed her and made her house look like something out of Mötley Crüe’s memoir.

  There was always, always an excuse for Lucas’s bad behaviour or poor sleeping or lack of eating. He was teething. He was ‘transitioning’ (from what or to where, I did not know). He was going through a growth spurt. He was a boy. He wasn’t a girl. He was a toddler. He was 156 weeks old. Whatever Lucas did, there was always some way for Ellie to explain away his craziness.

  I was beginning to understand why motherhood was called the hardest job in the world (though I could do without Ellie’s constant reminders of this). When I did something at work – set a meeting, look through cover options – I just did it. I wrote it on my to-do list, chose to do it, and then crossed it off that list.

  But when Ellie wanted to do something – and not even something fun, like paint her na
ils, more like wash the dishes or hang her clothes on the line – she had to corral Lucas into some activity that would be guaranteed to distract him for the ten minutes she needed to finish the job. Things that usually took three to five minutes without a toddler took three times as long with one. I was exhausted just watching her.

  But I was also over her tiresomely hypocritical attitude towards parenting. It was ‘exhausting’ and always ensured that her wine glass was half-full by 5.30 pm. It made her ripe with complaints that she shared, solicited or not, with the rest of the Playground Mums, who were ready with their own barrage of grievances. It made her fight with Simon over the tiniest of problems (like the time Simon gave Lucas seven millilitres of children’s Panadol, not the usual five Ellie gave him, or when Simon had suggested they all listen to some Coldplay and Ellie had thrown a fit because ‘Coldplay isn’t suitable for children!’). But she was also doing her darnedest to make sure I went through with having the baby because ‘it’s the most amazing bond in the world’.

  She always started the discussion the same way. ‘Sooo … how are you feeling?’

  I always had the same answer. ‘Fine.’ I was fine. Physically, I was fine. Physically, I looked the picture of pregnant health. But upstairs, where it mattered, I was still racked with questions. Nothing about this situation made any sense to me. Not to seem like a total wanker – although I know it will definitely sound that way – but I was very used to people sorting out my shit for me. Or at the very least, being able to blame someone else when things went belly up. Pun intended. I’d escaped the world’s worst room-mate by moving in with Jase. If an issue flopped, well, making a magazine was an art, wasn’t it? And art was subjective. And in my mind, Ellie wasn’t being a good friend to me because she’d had Lucas.

  ‘And how are you feeling about … you know, the baby?’ Ellie would ask, every time.

  I shrugged, like I always did. ‘Don’t know.’

  Why couldn’t someone else figure this out for me? I hadn’t given the baby an outright eviction notice, but something was still holding me back from a full, hearty yes. What would life be like with a child? Who would I be if I had a baby? And would I ever meet someone new if I had a baby in tow? Aren’t men biologically programmed to steer clear of other people’s DNA?