We're Going to Need More Wine

by Gabrielle Union

  Christ. First a stiff neck and then I have to have this moral code? Nobody said being a grown-ass woman was easy.

  fifteen

  GET OUT OF MY PUSSY

  I decided to finally go get this persistent pain in my hip checked. And my doctor in Miami, who happens to be a friend’s dad and one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons, told me to go for an MRI and X-ray at the hospital. Coincidentally, another fake round of “Gab’s Knocked Up!” stories was making the rounds at exactly the same time. The photo evidence was that I’d worn a coat. In Toronto. At night. In winter. For sure, knocked up.

  So here I am, walking into a hospital—right in the heart of Miami-Dade County—and everyone’s clocking me. By the time I get to the imaging center, I’ve run through a gauntlet of knowing glances and “I see you” smiles. I know exactly what all these strangers are thinking. And there, as I am filling out the forms, is the question: “Are you pregnant?” I check “No.”

  “Head to room two and wait,” says the lady behind the desk.

  I go in, disrobe, put on the tissue-paper-thin gown, and sit on the table, tapping my feet on the step.

  You know how, when you’re in the doctor’s office, each time the door opens, you think, This is it! and you raise your head expectantly, with a half smile that says, “I can make pleasantries but I will also take your role seriously”? This happens a couple of times.

  The first time, there’s a knock on the door and a nurse walks in. “I just want to double-check,” she says, studying me. “We ask all women this: Are you pregnant?”

  “Nope, it was on the form. I marked no.”

  “Okay. I just wanted to make sure.”

  Not a minute goes by before a different woman pops her head in.

  “Yeah, okay. So, just want to make sure,” she says, drawing out “sure” as she looks me up and down. “Um, you’ve got no hairpins in your hair, no metal on. Your earrings are out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “Nope. Not pregnant. Put it on the form.”

  “Well, hey, yeah, just making sure.”

  Finally, the X-ray tech arrives, and my hip and I are ready for our MRI close-up.

  Ah, but my uterus is not done stealing the show. Because two more women walk in. How many damn people work here?

  “Just want to make sure . . .” says the tall one. “You’re not pregnant?”

  Now I am just sad.

  “No.”

  The shorter woman pats my leg in a rocking, petting motion. “I just want to make sure you’re not pregnant,” she chimes in. “Because we really need to know. Because—”

  Then I am angry.

  “NOPE. NOT PREGNANT,” I say, loudly, my heart beating fast and my arms becoming numb from anger.

  “I filled out the form. You’re now the fourth person to ask me. I am not pregnant. I know what the Web sites say. I’m telling you I’m not pregnant. If I was, I wouldn’t fucking be here.”

  They quickly leave. And I lie there, thinking about how some Internet clickbait affected my medical care, thinking about what they will say about that girl Gabrielle Union, who came into the office today and is actually such a bitch.

  When it is over, I do my best not to look at anyone. I keep my head down and put my sunglasses on as protection. I am almost to the door of the waiting room when another patient looks up from her magazine. She smiles and I smile back.

  “You and Wade,” she says, “would have such pretty babies.”

  I am out of the office before the tears come.

  YES, DWYANE AND I WOULD HAVE SUCH PRETTY BABIES. BUT I HAVE HAD eight or nine miscarriages. In order to tell you the exact number, I would have to get out my medical records. (I am also not sure what the number is where you start to think I must be nuts to keep trying.)

  I never wanted children before Dwyane. I was afraid to be attached to a man for life if our relationship didn’t work out. After D got custody of the three children we raise, I was bursting with joy at every milestone—every basket scored and tough homework assignment completed. I was fulfilled raising children, a joy I never saw coming. Wanting to have babies with Dwyane was a natural desire built on that joy. Dwyane wanted children with me for a long time before I was fully on board. For me, it was just a maybe, but one day we were with a friend’s daughter and she smiled at me. My ovaries literally hurt. And I knew it was time.

  For three years, my body has been a prisoner of trying to get pregnant—either been about to go into an IVF cycle, in the middle of an IVF cycle, or coming out of an IVF cycle. I have endured eight failed IVF cycles, with my body constantly full of hormones, and as you’ve probably figured out by now, yes, I am constantly bloated from these hormones. (It also means I have forgotten my normal baseline emotional reaction to any given situation, and have no idea whether it would resemble my I’m-going-to-hop-off-the-roof reaction.)

  For as long as I can remember now, Dwyane and I have lived in this state of extended expectation. Did it take? Is the embryo normal or abnormal? Will I stay pregnant? We are always in some stage, waiting for some news, some sign that we can move on to the next stage. This child we want to have has been loved even as an idea. Each attempt at IVF is a loving action. So we remain here, bursting with love and ready to do anything to meet the child we’ve both dreamed of.

  Many of our friends have had their marriages end with the stress that comes with fertility issues and the accompanying feelings of insecurity and failure, not to mention the testing and retesting, defining and redefining, of your identity as a woman. And this whole deal has wreaked havoc on my social life. I now hate going to baby showers, but the invitations are constant. I find myself making up excuses to avoid them. I hate hanging out with mothers who constantly talk about their kids—and what mother doesn’t love to talk about her kids? (Well, actually, I do have some mom friends who can’t stand their kids most of the time. Them, I like!)

  People who know about my fertility issues often hand their babies to me to hold, or text me pictures of babies (“to keep your hope alive!” they say). Nobody seems to think that’s insensitive, or maybe hard for me. So, no, I will not look at your Instagram if it’s full of babies. Though D and I did enjoy the video a friend sent of her toddler sitting on the toilet and taking a crap—her face wrinkling with effort, then suddenly melting into surprise and relief. Comic gold! We watched it seventy-six times.

  I did force myself to go to one baby shower recently, because I knew the woman had struggled with IVF. I wanted a winner’s insight. I wanted to know what had pushed her to the finish line. “I sat my ass down,” she said. “I quit my job and I stayed home and sat my ass down. That’s all I focused on. That’s all I did.”

  “That’s all?” I wanted to say. “You gave up the work that you love?”

  That’s all.

  Unfortunately, I kind of function as a single-income household. I may not support the family I’ve created with D, but I have several households of various family members I am alone responsible for. People assume I have a rich husband who pays for everything, practically giving me a salary. I don’t, and I don’t want that. So not working is simply not an option for me. And I know it’s not an option for many women who want an opportunity to be a parent. It’s awesome if that works in your life, and many people have assumed I can go this route, but the bank is weird about wanting their money. Those mortgages don’t pay themselves. Maybe not asking my rich husband to pay all my bills makes me selfish and not mother material. But if I did that, I’d already feel like I failed as a mother.

  DURING ANOTHER RECENT PREGNANCY RUMOR, I HAD TO DO A PRESS LINE, which is what you see when a celebrity is talking to a bunch of reporters at an event. Ocean Drive, a Miami-based magazine, was having a big party celebrating my being on their cover. I was happy to do it because I liked the article and the accompanying pictures. At the event, the editor of the magazine comes up.

  “Oh my God, I loved #periodwatch,” he says. It was
the hashtag I created for my bloating.

  I laugh. “Thanks.”

  He looks down. “I see you have a crop-top on tonight.”

  “This is my ‘I swear to you, I am not pregnant’ outfit,” I joke.

  It works. Reporters can tell I am not pregnant. Habeas corpus. Present the body. But it allows for a different question instead, posed by a gaggle of perfectly nice-looking people holding iPhones and tape recorders to my face: “Do you guys want to have kids?”

  To avoid getting angry, I pivot toward what I think is a joke. “Have you ever asked my husband that question? Or any man?” Crickets. So I keep going. “‘What’s happening in your uterus?’ ‘How do you balance it all?’” hypothetical Reporter Me asks Celebrity Me. I pause, less joking now, my brittle anger just peeking through. “Until you ask my husband those same questions, I just can’t answer them anymore.”

  But I can’t stop. I can’t help myself.

  “Do you know why no one asks men how they balance it all? It’s because there is no expectation of that. Bringing home money is enough. We don’t expect you to be anything more than a provider, men. But a working woman? Not only do you have to bring home the bacon and fry it up, you gotta be a size double-zero, too. You’ve got to volunteer at the school, you’ve got to be a sex kitten, a great friend, a community activist. There are all these expectations that we put on women that we don’t put on men. In the same way, we never inquire about what’s happening in a man’s urethra. ‘Low sperm count, huh? That why you don’t have kids? Have you tried IVF?’”

  I have no takers on my rant. I am off the script and there is no editor alive who will use those lines in a caption or post about “Gabrielle’s Baby Dreams.” It reminds me of the time I did another press line with an actress who happened to know one of the reporters pretty well.

  “How do you stay in such great shape?” asked the reporter.

  “You know I don’t eat,” cracked my actress friend.

  “No, I need something I can use,” said the reporter.

  “Oh.” The actress thought for a second. “I eat broiled salmon and chicken with a lot of steamed veggies. After a while, you just really crave healthy food.”

  There you go: There’s a script. You follow it. I mean, can you imagine if I said I didn’t want kids? Say I answered “Do you and Dwyane want kids?” with “No.” A woman in the public eye who doesn’t want kids? She-devil. You probably kick puppies. And if you say, “Yes, I would like to have kids,” they ask, “When are you starting? Have you had trouble? Are you facing infertility? What’s wrong with your uterus? Do you have vaginal issues?” Wanting and not having opens you to all these rude, insensitive, prying questions that people ask. And if you do a full open kimono and say, “Here’s the deal. I am doing IVF,” the questions just get more personal, deeper. “Are you pregnant this week? This month? How did this cycle work out?” “Is your estrogen rising?” “How can I watch you on Being Mary Jane if I don’t know the plans you have for your uterus?”

  It’s as if the whole world has a form, and they just really, really need to know if I am pregnant.

  I want to scream, “Get out of my pussy! Just. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

  That’s the real story. Gabrielle Union’s Baby Hopes: “Everyone Needs to Get Out of My Pussy!”

  sixteen

  AND GABRIELLE UNION AS . . . THE STEPMOTHER

  My husband Dwyane has three sons, and in our home we are raising his two older sons, Zion, nine, and Zaire, fifteen, and also Dwyane’s sixteen-year-old nephew, Dahveon, whom we call Dada. I am freakishly devoted to these boys. Zion is a fourth-grade genius and a born entertainer. He’s me after a couple of drinks, making smart-ass comments and entertaining people. Dada and Zaire are both freshmen and girl crazy. Dada is Mr. Cool, letting friends seek him out, while Zaire is hyperconscious of the people around him. He is receptive to kindness and he is the one who will call you out if you’re dismissive. He is desperate to make us proud, and one of my jobs as a stepmother is to remind him how smart and amazing he is. These boys are totally worthy of all the devotion I can offer.

  When I first met the boys, I just wanted to be authentic. “I’m a cool motherfucker,” I said to myself, checking my teeth in the mirror in the minutes before the introduction. “People like me.” It was like we were all on a blind date. “Where are you from? What are your hobbies? What are your favorite movies?” And on we went.

  As our relationship grew, I was determined to never try to be BFFs with the boys. I did my best to be a cool, reasonable, consistent adult. That’s my advice to you stepparents out there. Whatever it is that you are, just be consistent. You can’t be the cool permissive hippie one day and the disciplinarian the next. And to all current or potential stepmothers: unless the mother is dead or in jail—and even then—it’s just a mistake to even try to scoot into her place. No one wants their mother replaced, whether she’s Mother Teresa or a serial killer.

  The boys were in on it when Dwyane proposed to me in December 2013. We all went to brunch in Miami and then the guys told me they wanted to go on a tour of our new house, which was still under construction. I say under construction, but it was more like a few pieces of wood and some nails.

  “Are you gonna do your hair?” Dwyane asked me several times. “Are you gonna put on makeup?”

  “To go to a construction site?” I asked. “No.”

  When we got there, the boys ran ahead of us to stand by what would eventually be our pool. “We want to do a presentation for you,” said Zion. I thought they were going to do some kind of skit.

  “Turn around,” said Zaire.

  So Dwyane and I faced away from the boys.

  “Okay, we’re ready,” they said in unison.

  The boys were all there with a sign. “Nickie, will you marry us?”

  “Oh God, D,” I said, thinking the boys were doing this on their own. They had been after us to get married for two years. “This is awkward,” I said, turning to Dwyane.

  He was down on one knee with a ring.

  “Will you marry us?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh. This is a thing. You guys are serious. Yes. Of course, yes!”

  I love that they had agency in asking me to join the family. I never wanted to be the party crasher. The boys would have been especially vulnerable to someone trying to manipulate them because, as kids being raised by a male figure in a world that valorizes mothers as the sole models of nurturing, they all love the idea of “moms.” If “traditional” moms had trading cards, they would have all of them. “The Cookie Baker.” “The Classroom Volunteer.” I don’t fit into a traditional role, and I have too much respect for myself and these boys to attempt to fake it. They worship my mom, who they call Grammy, and my dad’s wife, Nana to them. These women take being grandmothers very seriously, going to every school play and recital they can. They don’t miss many.

  But I do. A lot of events happen when I am literally out of state, at work. It doesn’t matter why—all kids know is that you’re missing it. It’s even harder for D. He misses things because it’s a game day, or he has practice. Even if he is in town, his work hours are not like anybody else’s. He doesn’t have the luxury of taking off early or having someone cover his shift. There are periods of time when neither of us is present, and this is not what either of us wants. As much as I try to be consistent, I’m often just absent. It’s shockingly easy to parent by text or apps like Marco Polo or WhatsApp. But that feels lazy, and the whole time I’m using any of them I am thinking, I’m failing them. I’m failing them. I’m failing them.

  I wish I had a job where the boys could see me leave for work in the morning and come home at night. They could watch me work on my lines and be a producer. I film Being Mary Jane in Atlanta, and I do movies wherever the good work is. I’m gone for a week, then swoop in for thirty-six hours of in-your-face time before flying out again. Even when I do get an extended break, they have the real lives of teenagers. They have family to visit and
tournaments to play.

  As I beat myself up about this, I realize that society does not provide great models of black women as nurturers of black children. Maybe as caregivers to white children, or the sassy, sage, asexual sidekick to a long-suffering white woman. Or maybe the “beat some sense into you” black mother we’ve seen in viral videos, but never as loving, kind, sensitive, or nurturing to black children. Recently our family was in our living room in our new house in Chicago. I was on the cream couch with my feet up on D’s lap. He was just home from practice and telling a story about the ride home. It was a brutally cold day, about five degrees below zero, and his driver stopped at a light. They watched a woman get her toddler out of the car and put him out on the street while getting her stuff out of the trunk. The kid was basically standing in traffic, and without a coat. The light changed, but D’s driver wouldn’t go until the kid was safely out of the street. D nearly got out to help.

  The woman then put on her own coat, finally took the child’s hand, and proceeded to walk down the street still holding his coat. Now, I think we’ve all been with small children, and yes, getting them in and out of cars is a pain in the ass, but still. It was freezing—put the coat on the kid.

  Zaire and Dada both said at the exact same time, “She was black, right?”

  D paused. “Yeah.”

  The positive vision of motherhood, of nurturing love, is white. And I worry that my presence, flying in and flying out of their lives, is not offsetting the overriding schism between black womanhood and black motherhood. I can’t catch up enough to undo the daily damage, and I hear that familiar mantra resounding in my head: I’m failing them, I’m failing them, I’m failing . . .

  My very existence as a stepmother is a sign of failure and loss. Because, frankly, nobody likes the stepmother. The resounding message out there is “Bitch, sit down.” I get that the idea of a stepmom is terrifying to a lot of biological moms. It can be hard to take the idea that somebody else is helping to raise your kids. Somebody else is at school on behalf of your kids.