“You shouldn’t take the FITT class anymore,” the instructor told me. “There’s a lot of jumping around and your heartbeat shouldn’t go faster than 140 when you’re pregnant. But Sara, do you want to sign up for it?”
“Um, well, I can’t,” Sara said hesitantly, pointing at me. “Same as her.”
“What?” the instructor and I said in unison, looking at Sara.
“I’m pregnant too. Two months,” she said.
“Yah!” I screamed, giving her a hug. Trust me, if any of my friends told me they were pregnant before I knew I was pregnant, they would most likely have got a stunned silence out of me and maybe a “Way to go.” But now I need as many friends as possible to go through this non-drinking, non-smoking, going-to-bed-early experience with me.
Over brunch, I got the details. Sara is a couple of years older than me, has been married for three years, and recently started a new job as a publicist for a record company. I knew she wanted to get pregnant one day—that was never a question—but not three months after she got a new job.
“We decided I’d go off the pill a couple months ago. But then I got this job and we thought we’d put trying on hold for a while. I didn’t want my work thinking I took the job only for the maternity benefits—which are, I’ll admit, better than the benefits at my old job. Anyway, he came in me only once. I thought the pill would still be in my system. They say it can take a year to stop working and I’ve been on the pill for fifteen years. But all it took was that one time.”
“I know. One time is all it takes! Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Um, Beck.”
“Yeah?”
“You have, um, eggs Benedict all over you.”
I looked down at my shirt. There was egg dribble all over my breasts, and breadcrumbs down my new deep cleavage.
“Oh God. I’m not used to my new breasts being there yet. I spill everything on me now. Just you wait,” I said, mortified, trying to wipe out the crumbs that were down my bra.
“I can’t wait to get the breasts! I’m so excited about that.”
“Well, you won’t be too excited when it’s hot outside and you notice you’re sweating in your cleavage. It’s quite nasty. Also, I find myself opening doors and hitting myself in the stomach with the door now. I’m not used to my new stomach either. Anyway, how excited is your husband about all of this?”
“He’s so excited. He won’t let me smoke anymore and he even smokes his nightly joint outside the house now. Isn’t that nice?”
It’s amazing the things husbands will do for their pregnant wives.
APRIL 30
My thirtieth birthday is May 11, less than two weeks away. The fiancé has decided to come to town and throw a dinner party at a chic restaurant for me and thirty of my friends. Because my birthday falls on Mother’s Day this year—what are the chances?— I asked him if I will be getting two presents, one for my birthday and one for Mother’s Day. It made sense to me, what with me carrying his child and all.
“No. You’re not a mother yet,” he answered.
“But I am. Kind of. I’m pregnant. There’s an actual living thing growing in me. I’m supposed to be taking care of it, so I’m already kind of a mother.”
“I have to actually see the child before I will consider you a mother. And are you really taking care of it? Have you quit smoking?”
“Well, I’m down to one a week.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“Yes. But I am down to one a day. That’s pretty good.”
“Are you still lying to me?”
“Yes, but I’m down to three a day. That’s better, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s great.”
“So do I get two presents?”
“Do I get a Father’s Day present in June?”
“No. What have you done really? Except come in me? And in October, I’m giving you the most rewarding gift ever, as some have told you.”
“Well, if I don’t get a Father’s Day gift, then you don’t get a Mother’s Day gift.”
“Fine. It’s not fair, though.”
It hit me that this would be my last Mother’s Day ever as a non-mother. Well, at least next year I will get a Mother’s Day gift. But I think I’ll start saving the “I’m giving you the most rewarding gift ever” line for when there’s something really big that I really, really want. It’s too good to use liberally.
MAY 3
I think I may have started a trend. Joanne, a trainer at the gym, told me today that she is pregnant too. Maybe pregnancy is contagious. Joanne’s pregnancy announcement made me feel especially happy because Joanne is definitely a downtown “cool” type of girl. She has an eyebrow piercing and changes her hair color as often as most people change their bedsheets. Today her hair was blue. She, too, is not married to her boyfriend, but they live together. If a blue-haired, eyebrow-pierced gym trainer is ecstatic about being pregnant, I can be too.
“So, are you still working out as much?” I asked her.
“Not as hard as I used to,” she told me. “I just listen to my body. You have to listen to your body and it will tell you when enough is enough.”
Huh? I hate when people say, “Just listen to your body.” What does that even mean? My body hasn’t been telling me anything, except to eat french fries every day. I have listened. I’ve eaten french fries every single day of my pregnancy so far.
“Do you have any cravings yet?” Joanne asked me.
“No, not really. Just french fries, I guess, and Big Macs. But I’ve always loved french fries. You?”
“Just mangoes.”
It just figures that the pregnant gym trainer would crave something healthy. It’s enough to drive an inherently lazy girl to super-sized fries to make herself feel better.
MAY 4
I’m starting to worry about not having abnormal cravings. I knew one pregnant woman who craved the smell of gasoline so badly during her pregnancy that she forced her husband to take her for drives to the gas station every night. I’m not sure how healthy that craving would be. Maybe it’s best that I’m not craving anything interesting.
MAY 5
11:00 a.m.
If I don’t get a Starbucks iced latte in the next five minutes, I. Will. Kill. Somebody. I will actually physically hurt whoever gets in the way of me and my iced latte.
11:25 a.m.
This decaf iced latte is the best thing I have ever tasted. I’ve never had one before, either. Interesting. Hey! The cravings are here! Yippee! The cravings are here!
4:00 p.m.
Cute Single Man called. “Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” he asked. “There are so many movies I want to see. And I got you a little something.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I think you’ll like it.”
Do I dare go out with him again? What else do I have to do? Shannon, Lena, and Heather haven’t called me all weekend, though I really hadn’t noticed until now. Why haven’t they called? What are they doing without me?
“Um, well. Okay, I guess I could see an early movie,” I told him. Why not? It’s not so wrong, is it?
“How’s the baby?”
“Um, good. Everything seems to be good.”
“Should I pick you up at seven?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Hey, I’ve kind of missed you.” Gaa! How to respond? How to respond?
“See you at seven,” I said, before hanging up. He misses me? He has a present for me? And he asked how the baby was? Either Cute Single Man is the best friend out there for a pregnant woman or this is going to lead to nothing but disaster. What the hell. It’s just a movie. And maybe we could stop for an iced latte along the way. I’d have to go out later and get one anyway.
MAY 6
Cute Single Man bought me a padlock for my back gate and a bar for my sliding glass door. I like Cute Single Man. Not in that way. But at least he seems to care. I can’t go out with him anymore, though. I love my fiancé and called to tell him s
o, right after Cute Single Man dropped me off from the movie. Okay, we also went for an iced latte. That was imperative.
“Hey, it’s me.”
“What are you doing?” the fiancé asked.
“Nothing. I went to a movie.”
“With who?”
“Lena. Hey, how come you never ask me how I’m feeling? It’s the least you can do. I am pregnant. Don’t you worry about me at all?”
“Beck, what’s going on?” Truth is, I had no idea where that came from. It just came out. I was angry at the fiancé for seeming not to care as much as Cute Single Man, though I know he cares more. Goddamn these hormones. It must be the hormones.
“Beck, I never ask you how you are feeling because you tell me how you’re feeling before I have the chance to ask.”
“Yeah. That’s true.”
“But I promise to ask more often from now on, okay?”
“Okay. That’s all I’m asking.”
MAY 7
Today, when I was rummaging through my washroom cupboard looking for some conditioner, an o.b. tampon fell to the floor and rolled toward the bathtub. That’s weird, I thought to myself. Just seeing the tampon made me pause for a moment. It’s strange not getting your period for so long. It’s funny how you can forget about something that basically has ruined your life each month for fifteen years. Seeing the tampon was like having a former high school boyfriend’s phone number pop into your head out of the blue ten years after you’ve broken up. It makes you pause—WHOA!— and question where the heck it came from and how you could have forgotten the number you once knew by heart in the first place.
MAY 9
The fiancé is arriving tonight and has rented the top floor of a restaurant for my birthday party tomorrow. All my friends are coming—Dana, Heather and her boyfriend, Shannon and the guy she’s seeing, Lena, Ronnie and her husband, pregnant Vivian and her husband, pregnant Sara and her husband, and a few of my colleagues from work—along with a handful of the fiancé’s friends. It should be a great night, a good mix of singles and pregnant women. I’m trying to bring everyone closer—like the United Nations—to prove that we pregnant women aren’t so different. No, I’m not really. But it sounds good. In fact, tomorrow night will be the first night I’ve been in the company of so many pregnant women.
Dana and I made plans to go shopping this afternoon. She absolutely needs a new outfit to wear to the party. Our shopping excursion didn’t last long. It was too depressing. I’m at the stage where some of my pre-pregnancy clothes still fit, and I don’t want to waste money on clothes that will fit for only another two weeks. I’m not exactly sure what is going to happen to my body. I do know that I will never buy maternity clothes. When I get bigger, I plan to buy normal clothes, in larger sizes. I’m going to remain a funky dresser, and I probably won’t need to go bigger than a size 12.
“I’ve only been to the gym five times this week,” Dana moaned to me as we were walking along the street. “I feel disgusting and fat.”
“I can’t have this conversation,” I told her. “I’ve been to the gym about two times in three months! You’re going to have to shut up with your moaning about only going to the gym five times in one week.” Dana was the one who introduced me to the concept of going to the gym twice a day, which she often does and which I used to do occasionally.
As we entered store after store, it became clear to me that, to the outside world, I don’t yet look pregnant. I guess I just look chunkier. Every time I tried something on, the salespeople would be all over me, like ants to crumbs. “That looks great on you,” they’d profess. “You should definitely get that.”
So I would tell them, “Well, I’m pregnant. Do you think these will fit me in a month?”
“You’re pregnant?” they’d respond, surprised. I suppose it should have made me feel content to still be able to pass as a non-pregnant woman. But then I thought, Well if I’m trying this on and they say that it looks great on me and that I don’t look pregnant, then what they’re really saying is that I look fat, because I know I’m not as skinny as I was. Which is why I didn’t end up buying anything. Watching Dana try on skin-tight pants became increasingly annoying.
“Maybe I should get a shirt printed that reads, ‘I’m not fat, I’m pregnant,’” I said to Dana, before claiming to need a nap. Pregnancy is a wonderful excuse to get out of situations you no longer want to be in.
MAY 11
The fiancé and I showed up thirty minutes late to my birthday party last night. Emily Post would have rolled over in her grave if she had seen what went down. The fiancé and I were, in fact, the last ones to arrive at the party thrown for me by him. It wasn’t entirely my fault. Whoever came up with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” must have been pregnant. I had my first pregnancy-related getting-ready nervous breakdown last night. Neither the fiancé nor I saw it coming. One hour before we had to leave, I jumped in the shower. I had made sure I had plenty of time to dry my hair, put on makeup, and get dressed so we would be the first to arrive. Fifteen minutes before we had to leave, however, I was still sitting on my bed, wrapped in a towel, my hair dripping wet, clothes strewn all around me, bawling my eyes out.
I had nothing to wear. I know women use the “I have nothing to wear” line all the time when they have a million outfits in their closets to choose from. This was entirely different. I really didn’t have anything to wear. Suddenly, as if it had happened overnight, nothing fit.
“What is going on in here?” the fiancé said, entering the bedroom. He had shaved and was dressed and ready to go. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong? What’s wrong. Tell me.” I was crying so hard, I’m sure he thought I had hurt myself or that someone had died. He looked quite frightened, the way men look when they don’t know how to deal with female emotional crises.
“I, uh, uh, I have, uh, nothing, n-n-nothing t-t-to wear,” I managed to get out, gulping for air. “N-n-nothing f-f-fits.”
Most of my sexy, tight tank tops and shirts no longer stretched over my breasts. The ones that did no longer covered my entire stomach. My size 6 low-waisted jeans would not fit over my ass any longer. All my dresses were so skin-tight now I couldn’t possibly wear them out in public. You could see fat lines.
“Okay. Okay. Please calm down, Beck. Please. Let’s figure this out. What about those jeans you wore last night? They looked good.”
“Th-th-they’re dirty! I’ve been w-w-wearing th-th-them all week! They’re so s-s-s-stretched out, that’s w-w-why they probably s-still fit.”
“Ah, come on, Beck. No matter what you wear, you’ll still be the best-looking girl in the room,” said the fiancé, coming to sit beside me and giving me a hug.
“B-b-but it’s m-m-my party! I d-d-don’t w-w-want to look like sh-shit!”
“Like I said, that’s not possible. You could wear sweatpants if you wanted, and I’d still think you were the best-looking woman there.”
“Y-you mean th-that?”
“Yes! Now come on. Put on those dirty jeans, and what about that stretchy black halter-top thing? That probably fits. I like that.” I hadn’t remembered that shirt. The fiancé was right. It was very stretchy. That could work.
Sometimes the fiancé is the only one who can calm me down. Which is why I love him so much. I decided to take his advice on the outfit, slapped on some makeup, and half-blow-dried my hair. We raced for a taxi. Because of my pregnancy-related dressing nervous breakdown, we were already twenty minutes late.
“Are my eyes still red from crying?” I asked him as we raced up the stairs to my party.
“No. You look great. Plus, it’s your party and you can cry if you want to.”
“Ha ha.”
All of our friends were already there.
“Where were you guys?” they screamed out in unison.
“Sorry! It was my fault. Nothing fit me, so I had a crying fit,” I said, trying to turn it into a joke. I was embarrassed about the whole incident. No girl, pregn
ant or not, should ever let any guy know how much thought she puts into getting ready to go out. Preparing to be attractive is so not an attractive ritual.
It was an awesome night. Everyone got drunk, aside from me and the other pregnant women there. (I did have one glass of red wine, which was heaven. I sipped it slowly, as if it were my last meal.) The food was spectacular, and the presents were amazing. It was my best birthday ever.
But I can’t go through that kind of pregnancy-related dressing fit again. Mood swings are one thing, but that meltdown was entirely different. The fiancé and I are going shopping today. I’m buying shirts that are super long, and baggy pants with room to grow into. Actually, I’ll let him buy them for me. I’ll consider that my Mother’s Day gift.
MAY 14
Last night Heather called. “You know, we should all go to Italy for a month for a long vacation. Maybe by next year I could save the money.”
“That would be fantastic! Wait . . . next year I’ll have a child.”
“Oh, right. I forgot. But you just reminded me to take my pill.”
“Glad I could be of service.” Sheesh. Now I’m a reminder to friends to take their birth control?
MAY 17
I’m dreading the weekend ending. I’ve been working extra hard recently, to prove to everyone that I’m still a good employee and am not slacking off because I’m pregnant. Pregnancy, last I checked, is not a disability. And I can’t have Sexy Young Intern outperforming me. Not yet, anyway. No, not ever.
I’ve noticed when I go into the office to pick up my mail that many of my colleagues are treating me differently these days. Some of them, who are still single and whom I considered my friends, haven’t yet called or even e-mailed to congratulate me on my pregnancy. What is wrong with them? Have I shocked them into silence? Or can they no longer relate to me now that I’ve crossed to the “dark side”? Others, who do have children, who never before seemed interested in getting to know me, now want to talk to me and have e-mailed me advice on doctors and nannies. I asked one of my female colleagues, who is the same age as me and who recently got married, if she planned on having children anytime soon. “Oh, my in-laws are totally on our backs to get going on the children thing. But I want to enjoy life a bit more,” she told me. “There is plenty of time for children.” Ouch! Guess we won’t be joining the same mommies’ group anytime soon.
Knocked Up Page 11
