Knocked Up

by Rebecca Eckler

  I’ve been writing a ton of pregnancy-related stories recently, including “Talking to Your Stomach,” “The Evils of Shopping for Clothes While Pregnant,” “Getting a Pregnancy Portrait,” and “Why Isn’t My Hair Shiny Yet?” I’ve disappointed some of my readers, who have e-mailed to tell me that my “stuff” is now “boring.” Am I? Worse, though, are the readers who write demanding to know when I intend to marry. Apparently they’ve been talking to my parents. On the other hand, a new audience of modern mothers have sent me their stories of being pregnant, and JPEG photos of their babies. Friends and colleagues, in pregnancy, it seems, come and go. So do readers.

  MAY 18

  I decided to get takeout sushi tonight. (I know, I know. I’m not supposed to eat sushi. But can I help it if my baby is craving sushi? Plus Ronnie told me I’m allowed to eat cooked sushi, so I ordered shrimp tempura rolls and a cucumber roll, even though all I really wanted was spicy tuna sashimi.) I had my first pregnancy sighting, ironically, in the sushi restaurant as I was waiting for my takeout order to be ready.

  “Oh, you’re expecting baby!” said the Sushi Man, who knows my face because I’m a regular. I hadn’t been there in a couple of months.

  “You can tell?” I asked, surprised.

  “Oh yes. You pregnant,” he said, rubbing his belly in circular motions (at least he didn’t rub mine!).

  I guess I am showing. I’m showing! I’m showing! I’m showing! Finally, I’m showing!

  MAY 22

  Oh my God, am I ever showing. On the way back from getting an iced latte this afternoon, I caught the reflection of a pregnant woman in a store window. That woman, it turns out, was me. I was momentarily stunned. I looked almost square, like a big-wheel truck. What happened to my hourglass figure? I used to have hips. I know I used to have hips. I raced home, keeping my eyes firmly glued to the ground. That woman in the reflection couldn’t possibly be me. I’m not ready for that woman yet. I won’t ever be ready for that woman.

  Cute Single Man called me. Somehow, over the past few weeks, we have become—gulp—friends. Tonight we had a nice conversation that lasted about an hour. I told him all about the Sushi Man, who could tell I was pregnant instantly upon seeing me.

  “Well, it had to happen,” he told me.

  “I just don’t want to look fat,” I said.

  “You won’t look fat. You’ll look pregnant.”

  We talk almost every day now. He calls under the guise of checking up on me, which is nice. Is he in love with me? Who knows? I do know he doesn’t seem to mind when I complain about my fat thighs for twenty minutes. At least he pretends not to mind.

  MAY 23

  The fiancé had warned me that a package would arrive for me sometime today. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but he did say, “Don’t worry if you don’t like what’s inside. I don’t expect you to like it.” The package did arrive. It was from my future mother-in-law, one of this child’s grand-mothers. I ripped it open only to see—GAA! What were those? Maternity clothes? Okay, maybe this wasn’t a bad thing. The woman does have good taste. (In the past she has bought me a Prada wallet and makeup case and some funky T-shirts and a Louis Vuitton bag.) There were two pairs of pants and one pair of shorts. What was with those super-thick elastic bands? I don’t care what anyone says. Maybe maternity clothes are better than they used to be. But slightly better than awful is still awful. I can’t wear them. No way. Nuh uh. No chance in hell.

  MAY 24

  Vivian, our pregnant friend, invited the “girls”— me, Heather, Shannon, and a couple others—over for dinner tonight. She and her husband have just finished redecorating their house, and she wanted to show it off. I was excited, not only to see the house, but because I felt like I hadn’t seen Heather and Shannon since my birthday party—and I hadn’t. Having another pregnant woman around makes things easier for me too. I don’t feel like the odd woman out. Vivian and I could bond over bottled water, I figured, while everyone else got drunk on wine.

  I was the first to arrive. “Would you like a glass of wine or champagne?” Vivian asked. “Are you drinking?”

  I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol since my birthday. I couldn’t believe pregnant Vivian was offering me alcohol. Was this a test?

  “I’ll just stick to water,” I said to her. “I’m still eating sushi, drinking coffee and the odd Diet Coke, and smoking the occasional cigarette. The least I can do is not drink alcohol. Are you still drinking?”

  “Not really. But I can’t say no to a glass of champagne every once in a while. It’s my one vice. I do love champagne.”

  While we were waiting for the others to arrive, I asked for the grand tour. The house was spectacular. The kitchen was fantastic. The guest rooms were charming. The bathrooms were luxurious.

  “This is the last room,” said Vivian, leading me to a closed door on the second floor. She opened the door and—Gaaa!—there it was, the baby room, all decorated in blue and white. Vivian already knows she’s having a boy.

  “I can’t believe it!” I screeched. “You’re having a baby one month ahead of me, which is still another four months away, and you’ve already done all this? This is amazing.” And it was. She had the crib, the change table, and the rocking chair. It was the Baby Room right out of the Pottery Barn catalogue. The crib was made up with sheets, there were stuffed animals everywhere, and a mobile was hung over the crib, ready to be wound up and played. Wait—were those diapers laid out? Vivian, apparently, is the Martha Stewart of pregnant women.

  “I’m impressed. I don’t even know what a baby room needs aside from a crib,” I told her.

  Unlike Vivian and her husband, the fiancé and I are both Jewish. We were brought up believing that you shouldn’t buy anything for the baby, set anything up for the baby, or accept any baby gifts for the baby before the actual birth of the baby. It’s one of those weird religious superstitions that I don’t really believe in, like I don’t really believe that if you break a mirror you’ll have seven years of bad luck. But because this no-planning-for-the-baby weird superstition allows me to be as lazy as I inherently am—“I can’t possibly spend time buying anything for the baby. It’s my religion” and “I certainly can’t set up the baby room! I have to go through labor!”—I have become a staunch supporter of the custom.

  “I’m thinking of putting duck wallpaper up as a border around the room. What do you think of ducks?” Vivian asked.

  “Um, I think ducks are good?” I said.

  Vivian, I should also mention, looks fabulous. While my ass gets wider if I even smell food, her butt looks the same as it always has. She still has stick arms and toothpick-thin legs. She was even wearing stiletto heels. The whole Vivian package was making me feel dreadful. How could we bond over pregnancy when Vivian is wearing it so well and seeming to love it? Like models, who can’t help but make you feel bad when you’re in the same room with them because you know they won the gene lottery, I suppose there are pregnant women out there who just make you feel less than perfect even if they don’t mean to. Some women, I guess, won the pregnancy gene lottery.

  The dinner was good. I mean, the food was good and the conversation seemed to flow. Although something strange did happen. Shannon and Heather left almost immediately after dinner, professing they were tired, and the others soon followed suit, leaving Vivian and me alone. Granted, my and Vivian’s pregnancies did dominate the conversation, and, granted, talk of the pros and cons of daycare and nannies isn’t as interesting as talk of new relationships or bad dates, which is what we usually talk about at dinner parties. But I couldn’t help but wonder if they thought we were boring. Best not to think that way. Best to think that they really were just tired.

  MAY 26

  10:00 a.m.

  After I got out of the shower this morning and had toweled off, I was walking naked into my bedroom when I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror. What the heck was that line running down my stomach? Oh my God. That must be a stretch mark. I had no id
ea what a stretch mark looked like before this morning, but that was the only explanation for the purplish line running from my belly button down to my pubic hair. It was hideous.

  I raced back into the washroom to find the vitamin A and E oil that Helena, my aesthetician, had made me buy from her at my last visit. “You have to put this on every day. Just rub a little along your thighs, breasts, and stomach and you won’t get stretch marks.” I had totally forgotten about doing that. I have, in fact, just got used to taking my Materna vitamin every night.

  I poured a handful of the oil into my palm and rubbed it into my stomach, all over the stretch mark. It seemed to work. Phew. Pregnancy Crying Disaster #153 averted. That’s the strange thing about pregnancy. You don’t really understand what a stretch mark is until you see one, because how are you supposed to know what one looks like?

  Varicose veins, however, are a lot easier to see. Helena, as she was giving me a leg wax the last time, was the first to point them out. “You’re getting varicose veins. For ten minutes a day, you should lie with your legs higher than your head. That way the blood will flow from your legs and you won’t get them.” Helena also told me that I must also get a pedicure and bikini wax right before I give birth. “I have a lot of nurses as clients,” she said, “and they do make fun of women who have ugly toenails and are bushy Down There. I’m just warning you.” I make a mental note to follow all of Helena’s advice from now on. I can’t have nurses making fun of my chipped pedicure while I’m in labor, that’s for sure. That’s one more thing I don’t want to have to worry about.

  5:00 p.m.

  The fiancé called and told me we’re going on vacation, and not just any vacation. We’re going on the best vacation ever, and it’s all because of this unborn child.

  “I think we should plan a great vacation, maybe in July for two weeks.”

  “I like vacations,” I told the fiancé. “Let me check my calendar. Yep. I’m free in July.”

  “It’s just that everyone has been telling me that we should go away before the child is born, because once the child is born we are never going to have the same kind of vacation again.”

  “Who are you talking to? Parents?”

  “Yes.”

  “See? This is why I don’t like talking to parents. They make everything seem so drastic. So do all these parents you’ve been talking to always take their children on vacation with them? Or do they just never go on vacation because they have kids?”

  “I guess both.”

  “Um, we don’t plan to take our kid on all of our vacations for the rest of our lives, do we?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Then why would it be our last vacation ever?”

  “I’m not sure. But that’s what everyone is telling me to do: go on vacation before the baby is born. So let’s do it. Let’s go on a relaxing vacation. I could use one.”

  “Okay, no arguments here.”

  “I’m thinking Hawaii.”

  “I’m thinking I love you.”

  “Okay, let me look into it.”

  Going to Hawaii for Our Last Vacation Ever. Going to Hawaii for Our Last Vacation Ever, thanks, apparently, to this unborn child who will make it difficult for Mom and Dad to go away until he/she is off to college. I don’t really believe this will be Our Last Vacation Ever, though. Why else did God invent grandparents and babysitters and nannies if not to look after your kids when you go away? Aloha. How do you say “mother” in Hawaiian?

  MAY 28

  My mother is turning into Martha Stewart. I went over to my parents’ place for dinner tonight, and my mother showed me how she’s been wasting—I mean spending—her days these last couple of months. She’s been knitting like a madwoman.

  “Wow, that’s amazing,” I told her, as she showed me this very detailed baby sweater she had finished, with cute little buttons shaped like stars. “But, okay, don’t get mad. Isn’t it a little, um, pink? I mean, what if it’s a boy?”

  I know people nowadays, it being the twenty-first century and all, don’t like admitting they follow the “pink for girls, blue for boys” rule, but I couldn’t imagine pushing a little boy dressed in a pink sweater in a stroller. It might be politically incorrect, but I don’t care—I can’t put my baby boy in an all-pink sweater.

  “Oh, if it’s a boy, I’ll save it as a gift for someone else.”

  Phew.

  MAY 29

  My stomach is so itchy. I can’t stand it. Why is it so itchy? Have I got fleas or something? Did something bite me? I don’t see any bites. God, can I not have one day where something doesn’t go wrong? I’m falling apart here. I really am. Is this what happens when your skin stretches? I . . . can’t . . . stop . . . scratching. Need to get my mind off this itchiness. Must think of something else.

  MAY 30

  Okay, I admit it. I’ve been thinking of baby names, basically from the moment I found out I was pregnant. One of the more fun things—possibly the only fun thing—about being pregnant is choosing a name for your child. This is a very important decision. Not only will my child be called whatever name I choose for him/her for the rest of his/her life, but I will also have to live with the choice for the rest of my life.

  I didn’t want to bring the whole baby-naming thing up too early with the fiancé. He’s still getting used to the idea of having a baby. Plus he’s now busy planning Our Last Vacation Ever, and I definitely didn’t want to interrupt that. But I did bring it up with him today. It was time. I was going to explode if I couldn’t run my names by him. I had a spectacular list of names, and they had to be narrowed down—with his help, of course.

  “I’ve been thinking of baby names. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Well, do you want to hear what I have so far?”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Okay, if it’s a boy, I like the name Lyon or Hunter. If it’s a girl, I like the names Farrah, Ivy, and Hazel, but I love, love, love the name Apple.”

  “Apple? Are you fucking crazy?” the fiancé laughed. “Apple? That’s a joke, right?”

  “No, I love the name Apple. It’s original and sounds delicious and it’s really pretty and I love apples.”

  “No way. We are not naming this child Apple. You want our child to go to school and have all the other kids yelling out, ‘Hey, Green Apple! Hey, Red Apple!’ And what if our child turns out to be a lawyer? Do you think anyone is going to take a lawyer with the name Apple seriously?” A lawyer? When did our four-month-old fetus become a lawyer? Just what the world needs: another lawyer. Sheesh.

  “Well, what if our kid turns out to be a writer? It’s a memorable name. Apple is a great name for a writer. Or an actress.”

  “Or a stripper. ‘Let’s put our hands together for . . . Apple!’” All of a sudden our unborn child went from lawyer to stripper? How did that happen?

  “Why don’t we just name our son Grapefruit or Mango then?” he continued. “What about Jacob? Jacob is a good, solid name. Jacob is better than Lyon or Hunter.”

  “Yeah. It’s okay. I just know so many Jacobs. It’s not very original.”

  It was clear we were going to need ground rules. “I veto Jacob,” I told the fiancé. “We’re allowed to veto each other’s choices as often as we want. Are you sure you don’t like Apple? Give it a couple of hours. It may grow on you.”

  “Veto! Veto! Veto!”

  “Okay, now you’re just making fun of this.”

  “Hey, it was your rule.”

  “I’m sorry. Apple is a fantastic name. But let’s not talk about this right now. What else is new?”

  MAY 31

  10:00 a.m.

  I decide to keep on the fiancé about names. I had no idea he had such strong opinions on the subject. I thought that since the baby was growing in me he would leave the naming up to me too. It seems fair to me. But it’s clear that that is not going to happen. It is also clear that this is going to take a lot longer than I anticipated.

  “How
about the name Lotus?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “You’re not even giving it a chance. You have to say it aloud a few times. Can I at least have a ‘Maybe’?”

  “Veto.”

  “Okay, have you given any more thought to Apple?”

  “NO!”

  “Ryan?”

  “I like Ryan.”

  “For a girl.”

  “No. Ryan is a boy’s name!”

  “No, Ryan can be a girl’s name.”

  “Goodbye, Beck.”

  10:20 a.m.

  “Beck? Is that you again?”

  “Apple?”

  Dial tone.

  10:30 a.m.

  “What? I’m trying to work here, Beck. Come on!”

  “How about Jagger? After Mick Jagger. I love the Rolling Stones, so the name would have meaning. And it could be a girl’s or a boy’s name. It’s perfect. It solves all of our problems.”

  “I’m on to you. I know what you’re trying to do. It’s not going to work.”

  “What? What am I trying to do?”

  “You’re trying to think of names even more weird than Apple so that Apple will start to sound good to me. It’s not going to happen. Apple is not going to happen. And don’t you remember what Jason Biggs did to that apple pie in American Pie?”

  “I am not thinking of weird names for weird names’ sake.” Though that really wasn’t such a bad idea. But I have a better idea: I’m going to wait until I’m in the throes of labor, when I’m in so much pain I’m digging my fingernails into his palms, and then scream out, “I want Apple! I want Apple NOW!” He’ll have to say, “Yes. Whatever your heart desires.” There’s no way he’ll be able to say no when he sees me in excruciating pain. It would be so rude of him.