Knocked Up

by Rebecca Eckler

  I tried not to let it bother me that after they all walked me home they were going out to a new club and didn’t really invite me. It was like a reverse hostage-taking. I was like, “Please take me!” and they wouldn’t. Whatever. I’m pregnant and they’re not. What’s one night of having friends ditch you?

  APRIL 17

  The weirdest thing happened. I just received an e-mail from Seth, asking me to go to a movie with him this weekend. I know a flirty e-mail when I receive one. He was flirting. I know it. The strangeness of receiving this e-mail from a cute, single, employed male was almost enough to make me forget that I am an unwed, pregnant woman with a fiancé who lives in a different city, a city that I will have to move to even though I have no friends there and it will probably ruin my career and my relationship because the fiancé and I don’t even know if we can live under the same roof without killing each other. Almost, but not quite. I had to call Heather to tell her.

  “Why do you think he sent me an e-mail asking me to a movie? Don’t you think that’s a little strange?” I asked her. “I think the guy might actually have a crush on me.”

  “God, don’t even worry about it,” said Heather. “Now that you’re pregnant, all bets are off. No guy is going to be attracted to you now. No way.”

  Heather can be malicious sometimes, without thinking about it. Is she trying to tell me, without actually saying it, that her life is more fun because she is not pregnant?

  But maybe, just maybe, she has a point. There’s no way an attractive, single, thirty-three-year-old, employed man would ever be attracted to an engaged, knocked-up woman when there are so many unattached, non-pregnant, younger women out there dying to meet a single, employed male. Or is there?

  “Hey, you know that new intern everyone keeps talking about at your work?”

  “Yeah. What about her?” I asked hesitantly.

  “I met her last night, after you went home.” I didn’t go home. They’re the ones who dropped me off at home.

  “You did? What’s she like?”

  “Well, I didn’t think she was all that much. But Charlie could not stop staring at her, and she was loving it. He even bought her a drink, the asshole.”

  “Is she skinny?”

  “Yep. But, worse even, she seems nice.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m going to make sure Charlie stays far away from her. You better watch it. She might be on the make for my man, but she’s definitely on the make for a full-time job. A man is always easier to replace than a job.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried,” I tell Heather.

  “I would be. Once you go on maternity leave, she can really make her mark.”

  God.

  I e-mail Seth back saying he’s on for Sunday night. Sunday night does not a date make. And he does know that I’m pregnant and that I have a fiancé. I’m going to a movie with Cute Single Man, if only to prove to Heather (and Sexy Young Intern) that I am still an attractive, sought-after woman, just like them. Except for the fact that my pants are a little tighter and that I’ll be drinking Perrier instead of Pinot Noir for a few more months, nothing is going to change just because I’m knocked up. Absolutely nothing. You can quote me on that.

  THE SECOND TRIMESTER

  a.k.a. The Fat Months

  APRIL 21

  Nothing is going to change, I swear, except I now have to fit things like obstetrician and ultrasound appointments into my schedule, as opposed to— make that, as well as—manicure and facial appointments. Where, oh where, do women find the time to have a full-time job, be pregnant, have a baby, and, all the while, worry about bikini and underarm waxes? After I have had an ultrasound and met my obstetrician, so he can tell me everything looks as it should, I figure I can tell everyone—the rest of my family, friends who don’t know already, my boss—The Big News.

  Nothing is going to change, except I found myself this morning—a Monday morning, to add to the pain—out and about at the crack of dawn. I usually don’t schedule appointments before 11 a.m. because (a) I know I will sleep through them and (b) I know I will sleep through them. I needn’t have worried. I couldn’t fall asleep last night anyway, for fear I would sleep through my alarm and get off on the wrong foot with my obstetrician, who would think I was flaky and irresponsible for missing my first ever baby appointment. I couldn’t have him thinking that I was irresponsible—at least, I couldn’t have him thinking that I was irresponsible before he even met me. Trying to fall asleep was like trying to fall asleep before a final exam. I was more worried about missing the appointment than I was about the appointment itself. Plus I had worked harder than I have ever worked at anything to get in to see the doctor in the first place.

  The process was more frustrating than getting an appointment at a trendy hair salon. At least at the most popular hair salon in town, someone always picks up the phone during business hours to tell you snottily, “Good luck! Roberto doesn’t have any openings until the New Year. But we can put you on a waiting list if you’d like, in case we have a cancellation.” But the doctor’s receptionist never even picked up the phone—not during business hours or after hours or before office hours. And she certainly didn’t return any calls either. The first five times I called Dr. G.’s office, over a two-week period at varying times throughout the day and night, it went straight into voice mail. Once the recorded voice mail message even had the nerve to tell me, “This mailbox is full. Please try again later,” making me wonder exactly how many pregnant women were out there leaving desperate messages for their obstetricians.

  “Ronnie! No one at Dr. G.’s office will call me back. I’ve left five messages in ten days. Why don’t they like me? Do you think they don’t like me?”

  “They’re impossible to get a hold of,” Ronnie acknowledged. “You basically have to be in tears for them to get back to you. Tears usually work, so don’t be afraid to turn on the waterworks.”

  I had decided not to do any research about obstetricians in town, just as I had decided not to read about anything to do with pregnancy. Why would I when I had Ronnie, my most neurotic, most obsessive mother friend? She talks to at least one doctor a day about something. If she wakes up with a headache, she’s convinced she has a brain tumor. If one of her kids has a mosquito bite, she assumes they’re going to get West Nile virus. If Ronnie thought Dr. G. was good enough to deliver her three children, then he was good enough for me. And compared to Ronnie, I would look like a sane and easygoing patient. Ronnie, after all, is the Cher of all mothers. She’s a diva.

  I tried Dr. G.’s office again. It became sort of a game in a “You’re not calling me back? Well I’m not going to stop calling you then” kind of way, much like when I need to interview celebrities for the paper and their publicity representatives don’t return my calls. I keep calling and calling until they do, even if it is just to get me off their backs. I was not going to lose this game of Getting a Hold of the Obstetrician. I can be stubborn. I’m a Taurus.

  Someone, finally, picked up! I was so shocked to hear a human voice at the other end of the line, I almost forgot whom and why I was calling.

  “Yes, this is Rebecca Eckler. Finally, you picked up! I’ve left half a dozen messages for you already,” I huffed to the faceless voice.

  There was no response. It was like this woman hadn’t listened to any of my messages, ever.

  “I really would like Dr. G. to be my obstetrician. I hear he’s the best. But I’m getting worried because I’m almost at three months and nobody has called me back,” I continued. “I’m getting really nervous. Should I find someone else?” I heard my voice crack. I didn’t have to pretend I was going to cry. I was so frustrated by that point, the tears were on the verge of coming anyway. But whether it was the “Should I find someone else?” line or the flattering “I hear he’s the best” line, something clicked. She booked me an appointment.

  Ronnie had also warned me to grab the earliest appointment available in the day, “or else you will be wa
iting for hours.”

  “Can I get an early-morning appointment?” I asked.

  Which is how I found myself at an ultrasound clinic at 7:45 a.m. After the ultrasound, I was to go straight to Dr. G.’s office, which was a five-minute walk away, to meet him.

  “And write down every single question you can think of,” Ronnie advised. “Because this is your chance to get all your worries out in one go. You already know how impossible it is to get a hold of him. And I’m sure you have a million questions for him.”

  “Right. Yes, of course I do. I’ll bring a notepad. I’ll probably fill it up, I’ll have so many questions by then.”

  I was shocked when I walked into the ultrasound clinic. There were already five women, in varying degrees of largeness, waiting. Ronnie was right. By noon, I imagined, this place would be as busy as a Kate Spade sample sale a week before Christmas.

  Immediately, the one thing I noticed all these women had in common, aside from being pregnant, was a man sitting beside them. I hadn’t felt bad before about not having the fiancé at my side, but now I felt a little jolt. Where were all the single mothers I keep hearing about? Perhaps I should have rented a man for a couple of hours. I knew Cute Single Man would have come along if I’d asked him. Though, really, all the men in the waiting area did look bored. Waiting in any doctor’s office is always boring, unless the National Enquirer is on hand, which it wasn’t. I won’t demand that the fiancé come with me to any of these appointments. What’s the point? It’s not like he has to be there. It’s not like he has the uterus. Still, I felt underdressed without a man accessory at my side. It was like going out without a purse, or forgetting to put on your engagement ring. Something felt missing.

  After twenty minutes of waiting, asking myself if all the other couples were pitying me or wondering why I was all alone, I was called in.

  So far in this pregnancy, I’ve felt like I’m the first woman to ever get pregnant. But I realized immediately that I was nothing special to the ultrasound technician, who barely managed to grunt out a “hello” when she led me into the room. She didn’t even offer up her name.

  She told me to lie down on the bed, pull up my shirt, and lower my pants. (There’s a reason your mother always told you to wear clean underwear to the doctor. Note to self: At least wear a pair of underwear next time.) The technician squeezed some stuff on my stomach—yuck—and started rubbing an instrument over my belly while watching a 1985-style computer monitor I couldn’t see from where I was lying.

  “Does everything look okay?” I asked the second she began whatever it was she was doing.

  “Hmmm,” came the response.

  Three minutes later I tried again.

  “Does everything look okay?”

  “Hmmm.” Something must be wrong! Something must be wrong! Why wasn’t she answering me?

  “Can I see what you’re looking at?” I asked.

  “Hmmm. In a minute,” she mumbled.

  She worked away for ten minutes in silence, and then I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Does. Everything. Look. Okay?” I asked her— again—tersely.

  “I’m not a doctor. You’ll have to talk to your doctor.”

  Crap. Didn’t she understand what I was going through?

  “Here’s your baby’s head,” she finally said, in a monotone, turning the monitor so I could see what she had been looking at. “And that’s the heartbeat.”

  “Oh my God! That’s so amazing. There’s actually something growing in me,” I screeched. “Isn’t that amazing? It looks so weird. Doesn’t it look weird?” The thing growing in me looked, in fact, like an actual baby, albeit a bony, skeletal baby with a head the size of a watermelon. But the form was there.

  “Hmmm,” came the response. I think she could have at least attempted to smile at my awe. That would have been a nice thing to do. I mean, really, how hard is it to fake a smile? Had this woman never been to a cocktail party?

  I wanted a souvenir to take with me. What’s the point of having an ultrasound if you can’t carry a picture of it around with you at all times to annoy your friends and family?

  She printed off two photos and handed them to me. “Go to the front desk with these. You have to pay $10 for them. We’ll send copies over to your obstetrician now.”

  Gaaa! I had to pay for them? Shouldn’t the photos have been free—a perk for being pregnant? (Note to self: Next time you go for an ultrasound, wear underwear and bring your wallet.) I did what any other expectant mother would do upon being handed pictures of her child for the first time and knowing she didn’t have any money in her purse: I shoved them in my bag and ran like the wind, not looking back for fear that someone in a white coat would be chasing after me. Make no mistake, I don’t think stealing is right. I will not raise my child to be a thief. But it was a picture of my baby in my stomach. I deserve it. Especially after everything I’ve been through.

  I called the fiancé from my cellphone after leaving the clinic. He wasn’t picking up—he was probably still asleep like everyone else not getting ultrasounds—so I left a message. “I just saw our child for the first time at the ultrasound appointment. It seems to have an extremely large alien-like head, just like you! Going to the obstetrician now. Call me back.”

  The fiancé called while I was in Dr. G.’s waiting room. I had been trying to think of questions to ask Dr. G., just like Ronnie told me. On the back of a receipt I found in my bag, I had written down “So how much weight will I gain?” and “How long will it take to lose the weight after?” and “Any suggestions on how to tell my boss?” and “Do you think that Sexy Young Intern will get my job?” and “Do you think the baby so far is cute?” But I had scratched all of those out. I’m sure those weren’t the type of questions I was supposed to be asking my obstetrician. A shrink or a good friend, maybe, but not a baby doctor.

  “You didn’t tell me you were going to get an ultrasound or that you had a doctor’s appointment,” the fiancé said.

  “Yes I did.”

  “No, no you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Really? I think I must have.”

  “No, you think wrong. You never told me.”

  “I didn’t? Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Don’t you think I’d remember something like that?”

  I’m not sure how that happened. It’s true, I’m sure the fiancé would have remembered my telling him something like that. Perhaps I didn’t think he was used to the idea of me being pregnant yet and I didn’t want to bore him with every little detail about the pregnancy. Perhaps I thought he wouldn’t care. Or, most likely, I just totally forgot to mention it. I am pregnant. I do have Baby Brain. I’m amazed I can even remember my name.

  “Oh . . . anyway, I saw the baby alien thing growing in me. I saw the head! It’s so freaky weird. And I heard the heartbeat. It was beating so fast. But she/he is really, really cute.”

  “So I guess you really are pregnant then?” the fiancé asked.

  “Um, duh, yes. And I have pictures. Oh . . . they just called me in to see Dr. G. I gotta run.”

  “Wait. Who is Dr. G.?”

  “He’s my obstetrician. I told you about him. I must have. He was Ronnie’s obstetrician.”

  “You didn’t tell me that!”

  “Yes I did.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I promise to call you right after.”

  “Beck?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t forget, okay?”

  “Right.”

  Dr. G. is a very nice man. He reminds me of my grandfather, balding and soft-spoken, except he wears scrubs. My grandfather has never worn scrubs. First I had to get blood taken, a process which is never fun. I also had to pee, on demand, on a stick, which was okay because I always have to pee these days. Unfortunately, after I finished peeing on the stick, I dropped it on the washroo
m floor. What was I to do? I couldn’t pee again. I had used up all my pee. So I gave it to one of the nurses anyway, praying that Clorox, or whatever they use to clean the washroom floors, wouldn’t ruin the test.

  Dr. G. asked me a bunch of questions about my health and the health of my family. And, of course, he asked me the First Day of my Last Period. After I told him, he told me that my due date would be October 20.

  “But let’s say October 22nd. Because that’s my birthday,” Dr. G. said.

  Oh. Apparently, due dates really aren’t that scientific.

  I admitted to him, much to my embarrassment, that I was a smoker. I figured that he would yell at me about how bad it is for the child, about how it was a matter of life and death, and that hearing him insist that I stop smoking immediately would finally force me to quit once and for all. But that didn’t exactly happen.

  “Well, my mother was a smoker when she was pregnant with me. And I was a smoker for many years. I know how hard it is to quit. I understand that it really is an addiction. You should definitely cut back, though, and keep me posted on your progress. Whatever you do, do not tell anyone else that you are a smoker because they will lecture you,” Dr. G. said.

  Eeek! I had needed him—a doctor—to tell me I was an evil, evil woman who was weak for being a smoker in the first place. I wanted him to lecture me.

  “I know. I know. It’s so bad for the baby, right?” I asked, pressing him. “Right?”

  “There are studies that show smokers have babies with slightly lower birth weights,” he said. “I don’t need to lecture you on smoking, though.”

  Yes, yes, you do! Especially because I would rather have a seven-pound baby come out from Down There than a ten-pound baby, so the lower-birth-weight argument doesn’t really convince me that smoking is such an awful thing.

  “Do you have any questions for me?”

  “Yes. Do you think it’s weird that a Cute Single Man asked me to a movie and I went with him last night and I think he has a crush on me but how could he seeing how I’m pregnant and engaged to another man?” I asked. Actually, I didn’t say that at all. Though that was on my mind.