Fear and Loathing in Mount Auburn
We were somewhere around Somerville, on the edge of a Trump presidency, when the hormones began to take hold.
It was enough to turn one pink line into two and it happened fast enough that I had to laugh at every other time I peed on a stick. Dan comes home and I show him the pink lines. We laugh like Wallace Shawn in the Princess Bride-right before he keels over. It’s been a 2 year lazy science experiment that finally has results. So we are going to do this. And some people will probably be excited. I find myself more focused on who might be disappointed. Like my neighbor, who started the Church of Euthanasia. I remember he’d stand across from the anti-abortion protesters in the Commons with a huge sign that said “Save the World Kill Yourself” That was 20 years ago. Now he has a bumper sticker that says “Thank You for not breeding” Why am I concerned about his reaction? He was once on the Jerry Springer show.
I am old. My medical record confirms this with the words “geriatric pregnancy.” I point out to the nurse that gets me the triple crown: Old, Fat and Crazy. She gives me the “oh no, dear” look and I show her each bullet point. Old. Fat. Crazy. Why would you give me a medical record app I can put on my phone if you didn’t want me to know this? I am old, fat and crazy in the 21st century. If at any point I am no longer old, fat or crazy, I’ll receive a notification. My phone will chime or honk like a car horn and I’ll understand. But for now I’m still all of these things. A woman at the reception desk asks when I had my last period and I open up another app on my phone to confirm that date. She types quickly and tells me the day I will give birth, like a Buzzfeed quiz. I am old, fat , crazy and overwhelmed.
I am nauseous. It appears just before the inauguration. The nausea is strong and consistent. “It’ll go away soon” says LITERALLY everyone. Deep down I know it won’t. And I’m right. I pretend to get the flu twice. At work I lay my forehead on the cool plastic of my ikea desk when no one is looking. I cancel plans with LITERALLY everyone. I’m convinced people will think Dan and I split up or that I have a terminal illness. I have the glazed over look of someone trying to maintain at all times and it feels very obvious that something has changed for me-something that would be easily perceived by others. Later I’m told no one had any idea anything was up. Hunter said the possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. At least Hunter got to eat sushi.
I am thin. Or at least my version of thin. It’s a ridiculous side effect of the nausea, but I start this whole growing a person thing by losing weight instead of gaining it. Two bizarre things happen in my world. First, I stop caring about what my body looks like. Second, people start telling me that I look amazing. The compliments feel complicated and I find myself responding with my best vocal fry: “All you have to do is get knocked up and sick-it’s like the best diet ever.” I try waddling while I walk to see what it would look and feel like. I imagine this would mean lots of open seats on the T and people at work will say “any day now!” so I can stop caring about projects and meetings. I could spend the summer with my feet up on that ikea desk while eating ice cream. This never happens. Public transportation continues to be a human nightmare. 2 people at work let me know that they need time to emotionally process my pregnancy. I assume they are joking. They are not.
Time goes by slowly until it doesn’t. And suddenly we are sitting in a full day of birthing classes surrounded by people excited about their baby. These people have themes for their nursery, themes that aren’t “this used to be a guest room.” They have fully assembled cribs and clothing that is freshly washed and put away and arranged by size. Dan leans over and says “all the guys are wearing Cargo Shorts.” He is horrified. We are excited by the tiramasu in the cafeteria. The nurse makes a joke about women yelling at men during labor and everyone laughs. We laugh because it’s easier that way. I am horrified.
I wonder who I am and who I will be after that due date the receptionist told me way back in December. I speculate wildly. I see a day where I desperately tell my daughter, “a long time ago, I performed at this bar. Years before that I used to see my boyfriend’s band play here-he had a green mohawk and we’d sneak cases of beer out the back door.” We’ll both be embarrassed by this story. But really, the ex-boyfriend with the green mohawk should be embarrassed because Jaya the Cat is a terrible name for a band.
And now it’s time for a good old-fashioned spiral. I wonder why anyone would do this. I lie in bed and think about why anyone would invite more vulnerability into their lives. Ugh and this year of years when people regularly use the term “dumpster fire” to describe how things are going. Why why why would we create more ways to hurt ourselves? To love things that could get sick and die, to love people that might resent you or blame you or ask you to drop them at the corner or roll their eyes when they see your name pop up on the phone when you call them just to see if they are ok because you haven’t heard from them in a while and you just want to make sure they got that t-shirt you sent that you thought was pretty clever because it reminded you of that time you went to Montauk together.
And then she hiccups. She gets the hiccups while she lies on her side inside me. And I laugh.
Hunter if you felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger, then maybe I’m a monster reincarnation of you. When I had bats in my apartment and the landlord told me not to be afraid of vampires, I got those bats out myself. Trust me when I tell you-these pregnancy hormones do shit to your brain and body that no amount of mescaline can touch. I got handed a mask with laughing gas at the hospital and then 12 hours later they handed me a baby. I bought the ticket and I’m on the ride.
We are women on the move, my daughter and I-and just sick enough to be totally confident.
