Birthquake

by B. L. Berry

  But I can’t possibly tell him about the poop. So I settle for some of the other nuggets of wisdom Tara has traumatized me with.

  “Thanks to her, I now know that post-baby sex is like throwing a hot dog down a hallway. And that I should consider keeping my placenta in my freezer after birth and have it dried out, pulverized, and encapsulated into pills to take. And after hearing her horror story about her kids’ births, I now have visions of my vagina turning into a clown car.”

  “Honey, she has triplets. Her vagina certainly is a clown car.” He leans back to avoid my fist weakly slugging him in the shoulder. “Besides, your vagina is magical. Or better yet, it’s like the Holy Grail. Except furrier and harder to drink wine out of. Though, given the chance, I’m fairly certain I could make it work.”

  I swat at his chest and laugh, electing to ignore the fact he called me furry. I’m half-tempted to call his penis cute in retaliation, but I bite my tongue.

  “Promise me you’ll stop listening to Tara.”

  “Only if you promise me you won’t ever attempt to drink wine out of my vag.”

  He extends his hand out to shake mine. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO SHAME

  I lie back on the table and push my ass to the edge, doing my best to relax. The speculum is excruciatingly cold against my skin, the stirrups are awkward, and there’s an uncomfortable draft breezing through my lady garden down below.

  “Henley, I need you to drop your knees out to the sides and take a deep breath.” Doctor Highman, whose ironic name is not at all lost on me, pulls a latex glove onto her hand and covers it with a lubricating gel.

  I take a deep breath and slowly ease my knees out to the side, doing my best to try and keep everything south of the equator relaxed. I turn my head toward Jeff, who has grown pale and has an obvious sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead.

  “You okay?” I ask him soberly.

  He swallows hard and shifts in his seat. “Yeah. I just don’t do well with doctors or any medical type things, really.”

  I smile reassuringly, finding humor in the fact that I’m the one on the table about to get to third base with her obstetrician and he looks like he's about to toss cookies. In the entire time I've known him, he's never once been sick, but the one time he nicked his finger slicing a zucchini, he couldn't even look at the cut. I had to put the Band-Aid on him … with the reaction he had, you'd think I was giving him a tourniquet.

  He’s a big ole’ baby.

  “Okay now, Henley. The internal should only take a moment. When we’re done, we’ll be able to get to the fun stuff — the sonogram to see how your baby is progressing.” Doctor Highman gives me a warm smile, and then I feel the violation of her hand.

  I wince at the pressure, and I’m glad that Jeff doesn’t have a front row view on the other side of my gown because as much as any man has a fantasy of seeing their girlfriend be touched intimately by another woman, this moment hardly constitutes as erotic foreplay.

  “What are you doing to her? You’re going to hurt the baby!” he demands protectively. He still looks ill, but I'm glad he's at least acting spritely.

  Doctor Highman stops mid-exam and smiles at him, brows knit with amusement. “You've got nothing to worry about, Jeff. This is all routine. I'm not touching anywhere near your baby,” she chirps cheerfully as she's elbow deep in my lady bits.

  She goes on to simply explain that she’s doing the standard pelvic exam and wants to ensure that both my vagina and cervix are healthy.

  But his expression doesn't waver.

  “Calm down, hon. It’s all right.” I instantly question if he actually passed his junior high sex-ed classes. Or maybe he just permanently blocked those graphic memories from his mind? Because that seventies birth video we were forced to watch left emotional scars that I still haven’t been able to shake.

  “Everything seems good,” Doctor Highman says as she takes off the latex gloves and wheels over the sonogram machine to the side of the bed. “Ready for the fun stuff?”

  I squeeze Jeff’s hand, and his face finally lights up. It sends flutters through my body. He's just as excited as I am to share this moment.

  First, we listen to the beautiful whooshing sound of the heartbeat. It is, singlehandedly, the most magnificent sound in the entire world. It nearly causes my heart to burst.

  “It’s still too early in the pregnancy for a traditional sonogram over the stomach, but we can get some pretty clear pictures using this guy.” Doctor Highman grabs the internal sonogram wand and gets down to business quickly. I don’t care that my modesty has gone out the window because I’m so excited about what’s to come for the pair of us.

  Slowly, but surely, a fuzzy image comes into focus on the screen next to the bed. “Huh,” Jeff says, confused by the indiscernible black and white picture on the screen in front of him.

  Doctor Highman moves the wand around, searching for a better angle, then clicks a few buttons on the computer. “There we go. There's a bit more detail now than you had before, Henley,” she says with a smile.

  The last sonogram she’d spent fifteen minutes pointing out a shapeless blob, trying to convince me that this thing was, in fact, a baby. Now I can actually begin to see the head and limbs taking shape … sorta.

  Jeff tilts his head and narrows his eyes, looking at the screen. “That’s it?” he asks, unimpressed. Jeff didn't accompany me to my previous doctor appointment, so the cluelessness he’s feeling now is what I felt the last time I was here.

  “See this right here?” Doctor Highman points to the screen. “That is your baby’s head.”

  “It’s so … big,” Jeff observes.

  “And these little things here and here? Those are the arm and leg buds starting to grow. Right now your child is about the size of a jelly bean or raspberry.”

  My stomach rumbles at the sheer mention of food.

  “Wow,” he whispers, positioning himself closer to the screen.

  “And you’re measuring right on schedule. I’m showing eight weeks, three days right now which gives us a due date of October thirty-first.”

  Visions of a Halloween baby swell my head. I love the idea of birthday celebrations filled with pumpkins and candy and tiny kids in costume. If I wasn’t over the moon excited two minutes ago, I am now.

  “He’s so perfect,” Jeff says in awe, almost inaudibly, hands touching the screen.

  Dr. Highman eyes Jeff suspiciously. “Well, it’s too early to tell if it’s a girl or a boy just yet.”

  “No … it’s a boy.” He’s confident, and I don’t have it in me to argue or ruin this moment for him.

  When we make it back to the car, Jeff is holding onto the sonogram photos like a talisman. He hasn’t looked up from the images once, and I realize I’m witnessing him fall in love first hand. Most women would be jealous watching their man fall in love with someone else, but this is truly something special. The sheer adoration across his face, and the soft, proud smile playing at his lips, makes me a believer.

  He really is here to stay.

  This really is it.

  This feeling of love is so overwhelming, I almost don’t know what to do with it. Well, I know what I want to do with it, but that breaks some kind of social protocol for daylight and public places. And with our track record, we’d probably get arrested.

  As I’m driving back home, Jeff reaches over and lovingly puts his hand on my leg, softly rubbing my knee. And he must be some goddamned magician because this simple, innocent, loving touch sets my mind ablaze and wild images of me having my way with him here and now flood my mind. Damn. Tara was right, again. I didn’t believe her when she said I’d either want it all the time like a sex-starved nymphomaniac or be permanently closed for business like Sister Mary Prudence.

  I turn onto an empty side street in an undeveloped part of town and park the car. We’re surrounded by nothing but abandoned construction machinery and piles of dirt and rock. So I do wha
t any dignified, revved up woman would do. I crank up the volume on the MP3 player, set it to Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex LoveSound album and unbuckle my seatbelt.

  Jeff finally looks up from the photo and takes in his surroundings. “What are you doing, Henley?”

  “Shh …” I command, as I quickly reach over to undo his seat belt and crawl into his lap.

  “Hen—”

  My mouth is on his before he can finish my name, and the tiny ember I previously felt with his hand on my knee has ignited into a five alarm fire that I need put out immediately.

  What the fuck is happening to me?

  I’m pawing at the buttons on his shirt with my left hand and bringing his hands to my breasts with the right. And when I finally break the kiss his eyes are full of surprise. Okay, then. We’re doing this! his look tells me in unspoken words. I reach down and pull the lever on the side of his seat, reclining us back unexpectedly. I fall onto his chest, and a small laugh escapes my lips.

  “You’re crazy,” he says into my mouth just as he swallows me whole with a passionate kiss, turning the car into an inferno of lust.

  And I know I am. Crazy, that is.

  Because there are only two things in life that can make someone this crazy and this damn stupid.

  Pregnancy.

  And love.

  CONFESSIONS OF A MODERN DAY VIRGIN MARY

  Deep down I always knew that telling Jeff I was pregnant would be far easier than telling my parents. As an only child, there have always been unspoken expectations set upon me. Simply stated, it was to be the best at pretty much everything.

  Sell the most Girl Scout cookies in your troop, Henley.

  Don’t just be on the cheerleading squad, Henley. You have to be captain.

  Make the dean’s list, Henley.

  Don’t get drunk and have sex in a public place and get knocked up out of wedlock, Henley.

  Okay, maybe that last one wasn’t something they actually said, but I’m pretty sure it probably crossed their minds at some point. So when it actually came time to officially announce that I was more scandalous than the canoodling whore of Babylon and that I was, in fact, harboring a bastard child within my loins, I braced myself for the worst.

  Jeff’s parents took it surprisingly well. Mostly, I think they were relieved that they were simply getting a grandchild. They didn’t care which son gave it to them.

  Jeff wanted to break the news to them in some silly Hallmark-esque fanfare, with a cute puzzle they had to solve or with a matching set of “Grandparents in Training” tea cups or something equally absurd. I was so anxious about the entire situation I accidentally blurted it out in the middle of a FaceTime call.

  Jeff’s mom, Martha, wanted his opinion of a few potential wall colors for the downstairs bathroom. Why? I don't know, considering he has the home decorating sense of a drunk clown. But Martha had just finished showing us a dozen swaths of grey paint above the toilet when I blurted out, “I’m pregnant!”. Jeff beamed, and I had that pained, toothy, uncomfortable grin on my face. The kind of smile you get when you ask a toddler to say “Cheese!” for the camera and everything gets awkward.

  We both watched his mother in stunned silence as the world hesitated for one breathless moment.

  No, literally.

  Everything stopped.

  Technology failed, and the screen froze, distorting Martha into a kaleidoscope of pixels across the screen as a “Bad Connection” error message flashed. We could hear her flailing about, shouting for her husband to come join her in the bathroom on the call, but we couldn’t actually see her reaction. I could only hope that the tears we heard were tears of joy.

  When the screen finally came back into focus, Jeff’s parents were gleefully jumping up and down and immediately began discussing the whereabouts of my boyfriend’s childhood toy collection.

  My folks, on the other hand, didn’t take the news as well—or at all.

  I learned early on that bringing guys home to meet my folks was a bad idea. No man would ever be good enough for me, at least according to my parents, so they tended to alienate anyone with a penis who passed through their threshold next to me. I think they accepted Leo as well as they did because his mere existence was confirmation that I didn't play for the other team.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so worked up about telling them, Henley. This is really exciting news. Any parent should be thrilled to learn their child is expecting. Mine were overjoyed beyond measure.”

  “Yeah. But you haven’t met my parents.” And this is hardly the ideal circumstance to meet them.

  Jeff sighs, dread slowly filling his eyes. “So what’s the likelihood of them believing you’re a modern day Virgin Mary? It worked once. Maybe it could work again?” Jeff massages my shoulder, trying to chase the building tension away.

  “Well, they’re Catholic, but that’s about the only thing that’s working in our favor.”

  “Aren’t Catholics supposed to be all super forgiving and what not?”

  “My parents have perfected guilt and judgment to an art form.”

  I spent the entire first trimester thinking through the scenario:

  Mom, Dad, this is my boyfriend, Jeff. And this is his unborn child I’m carrying.

  “Would you like to see my gun collection?”

  Mom, Dad, I know you haven’t met Jeff, yet. But we’ve decided to combine DNA and breed new life into the world!

  “Son, can I show you my Purple Heart?”

  Hey, guys! I slipped and fell on Jeff’s dick, and his man seeds ended up inside my flower, and now I’m carrying his spawn.

  “Let me tell you something … Whatever you have done to my little girl, I will personally do to you.”

  For weeks I played the prospective conversation over and over in my head, all with the same inevitable outcome: death and possible dismemberment of Jeff’s member.

  But what happened was worse.

  Much, much worse.

  Against my better judgment, Jeff came with me. I know we’re inseparable these days, but I had insisted that I do this alone. Give them a chance to get comfortable with the idea that their little daughter dearest was with child. But my boyfriend extraordinaire insisted that this was a we thing. We got ourselves into this situation, and we will take it on together.

  As he always tells me, “Where you walk, I walk.”

  And so together we would walk into the depths of hell and hopefully emerge out the other side together and in one piece.

  It was a Sunday afternoon. We had met my parents for brunch after they attended the ten o’clock service at Good Shepherd Church. My mother had worn a long flowery dress and ivory shawl while my dad picked his usual suit and tie. Nothing less than their best for an ordinary Sunday. But little did they know they were dressing for their funeral because I was sure this news was going to knock them over dead.

  The conversation over brunch went well. My parents used the opportunity to ask Jeff questions and learn about his upbringing, make sure he was well educated (or well enough educated for their only daughter), and dance around his career to confirm his financial stability. In short, they wanted to make sure this gentleman caller was an acceptable suitor. It took all the energy I could muster to bite my tongue instead of cueing a southern drawl and proclaiming, “Well, I do declare he’d make a fine husband for me, one day!”

  By the time we returned to my parents’ house, the nerves had taken over. I continually wiped my palms against my thighs and found myself concentrating on my breathing like I did when I went to yoga classes every Tuesday night before I traded up to participate in Taco Tuesday adventures instead.

  I took a large sip of water, and with a shaky hand set the glass down on the table. As Jeff squeezed my leg, my dad cleared his throat and shot him a cutting glare as if to say, “Get your hands off my daughter before I knock your ass back to fifth grade.”

  “Mom … Dad … I have something I want to tell you.”

  Jeff made som
e weird sniffling sound that rivaled my dad’s throat clearing as he put his arm around my shoulders, drawing me near.

  “I mean, we, have something to tell you.”

  My dad leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees as my mom smiled brightly at us, her gaze traveling to my left hand in anticipation of a proposal announcement.

  “What is it, dear?” Her voice was light and full of hope.

  Most parents would be ecstatic about their grown ass daughter having a baby. But my parents weren’t most parents. And I knew that this was going to smash that hopeful voice into a million tiny pieces.

  I paused, momentarily paralyzed.

  “Well …?” she begged.

  I watched her eyes drift to my naked left ring finger and then looked to Jeff. He proffers a timid but encouraging smile.

  “We … um …Jeff and I … are … um … ” I stumbled over every damn syllable. I knew that no matter how I scripted this in my head it would inevitably be a disaster.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Carson, what Henley is trying to say is—”

  “I’m pregnant!” I exclaimed.

  I knew Jeff was only trying to help the situation, but if I don’t own up to this in front of my parents, I would never live it down. I was a grown woman who made grown up decisions and was facing the grown up consequences of telling her parents. Even still, I couldn’t help but feel like a teenage girl confessing to wrecking the car on the way home from a party I never should have been at in the first place.

  My parents looked at me, then at Jeff and then each other in a terrifying silence. Then as if on cue, they both doubled over in laughter at the same time, slapping their knees, hemming and hawing over how hilarious our little prank was.