Maternity Leave

by Trish Felice Cohen

  After work and my bike ride, I went over to John and Julie’s with Sonny for dinner and to watch a movie with Julie. We turned on the DVD player and television and heard grunting. I immediately averted my eyes in order to avoid the possibility of watching a home movie starring my brother. I hit “eject” and removed what turned out to be Hardcore Fucking #9.

  I turned to Julie and said, “Don’t you have the Internet? Where do you want me to put this? I don’t see the box.”

  “Oops, sorry, I’ll take that.”

  Julie opened a cabinet stuffed with sex toys. Real ones, not peanut butter jars. Sonny poked his nose in and grabbed a dildo and ran outside.

  “He can have that now,” said Julie with a tone that suggested it was one of her favorites.

  “That’s not necessary,” I replied, “his elephant keeps him satisfied.”

  A few seconds later, Sonny ran back in with the dildo and dropped it at my feet. Julie picked it up and threw it. She continued to play dildo fetch with Sonny throughout the two-hour movie. When it was time to leave, Sonny grabbed the dildo. I told him to drop it, but he wouldn’t. My other alternative was to pry it out of his mouth, but that involved touching my brother and sister-in-law’s dildo. I told Julie to grab it, but she just laughed and said, “No way, he gets to keep it.”

  Finally, I gave up and let him take his pre-owned nine-inch cock with him to my house. I figured I’d pick it up with a plastic bag, like I do with his poop, while he slept.

  * * *

  In April, things were still going smoothly. I had a meeting with Human Resources in a few weeks. Our HR woman was a mother of six, so I decided a little preparation was in order. I Googled the Family Medical Leave Act and came up with a bunch of articles about laws concerning pregnancy in the workplace. Unfortunately, they all dealt with the rights of pregnant women and none focused on the necessary paperwork to prove pregnancy. The related searches at the bottom of the site were titled, “Pregnancy Do’s and Don’ts,” “The Pregnancy Diet,” and my personal favorite, “How to Make a Belly Cast.”

  According to my search, hair dye was a “don’t,” but nail polish a “do.” Hot tubs and saunas were “don’ts” because they raised the body’s temperature, increasing the risk of a miscarriage. Lying in the sun was a “don’t” for pregnant women as well, but the reasoning was different. Evidently, if a pregnant woman tans in the sun, it could cause skin cancer; not a unique side effect. Alcohol, cigarettes and fish were “don’ts” for pregnant women, in that order, but tap water was a “do.”

  I clicked on a few belly cast photos. The process seemed time consuming and messy, not to mention unnecessary considering that the new kid would be enough of a souvenir at the end of the pregnancy. The only useful purpose I could think of for one was for me to wear it for the next three months instead of the cumbersome Empathy Belly that had been created solely to scare teenagers into safe sex.

  While researching FMLA, I got an email from David. My secretary had sent him an email with “The Martin Case,” in the subject line. In the body of the email, she wrote, “Mediation on Tuesday, June 9th at 9:00 a.m.” David’s email to me said, “What case is this?”

  Someone was not focusing today. I replied, “The Martin Case.”

  David responded, “What is it? What’s going on?”

  I toyed with writing “see supra,” but opted to be cordial. “There’s a mediation.”

  “When?”

  Was he fucking kidding? “Tuesday, June 9th at 9:00.”

  “Will you still be here?”

  “Yes, I’m due in July.”

  When I was certain David was out of stupid questions, I printed out our email correspondence and put it in my “An Attorney Actually Said That,” category along with the following:

  –Please join us in congratulating Jason Voss in his hard fought summary judgment award he received today in favor of his client, a night club that served alcohol to an underage individual who later drove his car home in an intoxicated state and killed a husband and father of four young children. Our client inspected his identification, which was fake and made him 32 instead of 16. This is a tremendous result and Jason should be congratulated. (Brought to you by Johnson Smith’s patron saint, Satan).

  –Will the person who took my newspaper please give me the classifieds back. I’d like to do my daily crossword. (At least I’m discreet about my time wasting.)

  –Confidential High Priority Email: A couple of employees have been diagnosed with the contagious eye disease, “pink eye.” Please wash your hands frequently and avoid excessive rubbing of your eyes. If you contract this, get the proper medicine to contain it prior to coming back to work. (Um, can I work from home until this blows over?)

  –If Capital One Financial is the adverse party, is it a conflict of interest that I have a Capital One Visa card? (Yes, change banks immediately or find a new job.)

  –Does anyone have any case law to support our client’s position that a 13-year-old plaintiff would be held to the same legal standard as an adult in regard to appreciating the danger of walking onto a street in front of oncoming traffic? (Patron Saint at work again.)

  I put the folder away and looked up the weeks 31 through 34; the bottom of the third trimester of pregnancy.

  Week Thirty-One:

  Mom: You may feel as if your internal organs are crowded. They are.

  Good time to donate a kidney.

  Baby: Try monitoring the baby yourself by using fetal kick counts.

  That sounded like a chocolate bar. I looked up fetal kick counts and found that the baby should move ten times in four hours, significantly less than the ten-second intervals at which my Empathy Belly was kicking me.

  Week Thirty-Two:

  Mom: Posture is very important to your comfort.

  I’m thinking Xanax would go a long way as well.

  Baby: The baby’s irises can now dilate and contract in response to light.

  Great, what time does the sun set in my uterus?

  Week Thirty-Three:

  Mom: Rib cage and pelvis may be sore.

  The bag of horrors continues.

  Baby: Baby is very aware of the surroundings. We tend to think of the uterus as a dark place, but it can be light and dark depending on the mother’s environment.

  I stand corrected, maybe the sun does set in my uterus.

  Week Thirty-Four:

  Mom: You may start noticing contractions.

  What? I thought contractions started the day of delivery, not two months prior.

  Baby: Baby is urinating a pint a day.

  I’ll never look at a pint of beer in the same way.

  In May, I met with Janice Robinson of Human Resources to discuss my pregnancy leave. Crunch time. She gave me some forms to take home and fill out, then spent the rest of the meeting trying to pry information from me. Excessive gossiping is an integral part of Janice’s position. Essentially, her questions focused on learning information about my mysterious baby-daddy. I gave her nothing.

  Janice’s other focal point was my wardrobe. Johnson Smith had a very strict and absurd dress code that each employee received on their first day. Thongs were not permitted. Enforcement of this rule made me nervous until I realized Johnson Smith referred to flip-flops as “thongs.” The rest of the dress code was not as clear as the “no thongs” rule. On Monday through Thursday, business casual was acceptable. Friday was casual day. Capri pants were considered casual rather than business casual, and were allowable only on Fridays, as were jeans, provided they weren’t blue. The dress code specifically states that pink or yellow jeans were acceptable, but not blue jeans.

  The problem was that my meeting with Janice was on a Wednesday and I was wearing a pair of Jessica’s maternity capri pants. This may have seemed like a flagrant violation, but in my defense, Jessica was approximately five inches taller than me. Thus, her capris fit me like regular pants, which was why I dared to wear them on a Wednesday. Janice did not understand my logic, let a
lone agree with it.

  “I know you’re pregnant, and it’s tough, but you have to obey the dress code.”

  I pulled my flip-flopped or “thonged” feet away from Janice’s gaze and said, “The pants go down to my ankles.”

  “The rule in the dress code clearly states that capris are only proper on Fridays. The length of the capris is irrelevant.”

  “Yes, but by definition, capris are calf-length. These are ankle-length.”

  “I can tell they’re capris, don’t wear them again unless it’s a Friday.”

  I was tempted to say something along the lines of “Fuck off,” but I didn’t want to get fired before my maternity leave.

  I took the FMLA packet back to my office and started filling out the forms. Name, address, age, social security number…I was acing this questionnaire so far. Reason for medical leave: giving birth. Doctor’s name and signature: I’d fill that in later.

  The form had a place to choose eight weeks or twelve weeks maternity leave. What dipshit workaholic would only choose eight? There’s gotta be a catch. I Googled it and found the catch. FMLA required that women receive twelve weeks maternity leave after giving birth. A new mother cannot be fired during this time period, but a business does not necessarily have to pay them for the duration. A number of factors dictated the amount of paid leave a business granted to a new mother. At Johnson Smith, women were entitled to take twelve weeks leave, but only eight of them were paid at two-thirds salary. I only had enough in savings to last me three days, but it was still a no-brainer to choose the twelve-week option. I’d figure out how to support myself for the other three-and-a-half weeks when the time came. Hopefully I’d turn pro. Not exactly a cash cow, but I would be paid in “cycling money,” which would get me through for three weeks.

  The top domestic professional women racers in the United States make salaries of approximately five thousand a year, and not more than forty thousand. Unfortunately, the domestiques for these top racers don’t necessarily earn more than zero. The term domestique is French for “servant.” Unlike triathlon or running, cycling is a team sport. The team leader needs people to block the wind, chase down breakaways, get water bottles from the team car, and in the event of a mechanical, such as a flat tire or broken chain, give up their wheel or bike to their team captain.

  In women’s racing in the U.S., domestiques are paid next to nothing, plus some cycling money, which is more valuable than Monopoly money but less valuable than actual currency. Domestiques receive a free team bike (worth about five thousand dollars), several uniforms (called “kits”), travel expenses (hotel, gas, food), entry fees, and, if applicable, a split of their captain’s winnings (captains get these perks in addition to becoming thousandaires). The prize purses for women’s races are often staggeringly less than the men’s races. Because domestiques get paid in cycling money rather than actual currency, domestiques in the women’s peloton tend to be either extremely poor if they’re not college kids supported by their parents or student loans, housewives supported by their husbands or, hopefully, lawyers fraudulently posing as pregnant women.

  I would consider myself a success in cycling if I could avoid losing money. Placing in a regional women’s bike race nets a whopping fifty to three hundred bucks. After putting these winnings towards my weekend expenses, I’ve been losing an average of seventy-five dollars per weekend since I started racing. I make much more money as a lawyer than I ever could as a cyclist and my maternity leave is only going to make this worse. My “vacation” of racing the Tour de West and all of the NRC races leading up to the Tour de West will require me to purchase a four hundred dollar plane ticket for myself and two hundred dollar plane ticket for my bike, then pay for entry fees, hotel, car, gas etc. Therefore, four weeks with no income whatsoever will be a hardship without the help of a professional team.

  Filling out the FMLA packet was oddly anti-climactic. For six months I had been paranoid that the paperwork was going to reveal my secret. In reality, the paperwork was barely anything. I’d filled out more paperwork for a teeth cleaning. Surely someone had abused this system before.

  * * *

  Since becoming a full-fledged fat pregnant woman at month six, I had completely bifurcated my life to avoid being caught pregnant by my friends, or not pregnant by my coworkers. This had made training on the open roads of Tampa difficult, so I started riding my bike in St. Petersburg instead. Danny usually accompanied me on these rides, as he did today. As we rode across the Gandy Bridge, I asked Danny how his overdue thirty year checkup went.

  Last weekend, Danny had mentioned that he’d set up the appointment to keep his insurance rate low and I’d been scaring the bejesus out of him about the possibility of being anally raped ever since. In truth, I had no idea when men had to get prostate exams nor did I know what they entail. Nevertheless, I spent yesterday at work feeding Danny’s fear of the prostate exam by sending him emails regarding prostate exam horror stories, videos of fisting, and the like.

  “So,” I said.

  “So what?” Danny replied.

  “How did it go?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he repeated. Then said, “Let’s just ride.”

  As we started pedaling, I said, “Come on, you have to tell me.”

  “I can’t. You’ll laugh.”

  “I can’t promise anything,” I said, “but tell me anyway.”

  “Okay, you can laugh, but you can’t tell anyone. And don’t judge me.”

  “Okay, I can promise that,” I said.

  “Well,” Danny started, “The doctor was a young man from the Philippines with small hands.”

  “This is going to be good,” I said.

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “Yes please.”

  “He put gloves on and when he stuck his hands up my ass, I just came.”

  “I’m calling bullshit on that one,” I said.

  “Seriously, I just came on my gown. I couldn’t help it. His hands were so small and delicate.”

  “Get the fuck outta here,” I said.

  “I’m not kidding,” Danny insisted.

  “Okay. Then what happened after you came?”

  “A nurse came in and wiped it up. She said it happens all the time.”

  “No way.”

  “It does, just like in that movie Road Trip. I wasn’t even hard. I just came.”

  My childhood consisted of being continually lied to by my parents to test the boundaries of my gullibility, so I seldom believe anything I hear until I confirm it on Google. Still, Danny seemed pretty sincere and why would anyone make up such a story?

  After I finished laughing I said, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m just kidding,” Danny said. “They didn’t even do the test.”

  “What? I thought it was standard. Why didn’t you ask for one?”

  “I’m not asking a doctor to stick his fingers up my ass.”

  “Was he at least a small man from the Philippines man?” I asked.

  “No. Old guy,” Danny said.

  “You should really ask for the test, you could have cancer.”

  “If the doctor was concerned, he’d have done the test. I’m going to rely on his judgment and not request to be violated.”

  “It’s your life,” I said as we rode past a patch of Florida swamp land dried up by drought.

  After our ride, I drove to the Spanish section of Tampa to go grocery shopping. As the only English-speaking gringo in the store, I felt no fear of recognition. I hate grocery shopping and only subject myself to it a few times a year. When I go to the store, I buy in bulk. Five of all of my toiletries, ten bags of bagels and ten cases of beer. Bagels are six to a bag. I generally repeat my shopping trip every sixty days, when I run out of bagels. I go to the liquor store or drug store in between as needed.

  I don’t buy anything perishab
le, as expiration dates make me nervous. I also hate cooking and cleaning dishes. The obvious solution is to eat out for every meal other than my morning bagel, which requires no preparation other than defrosting on my way to work. Generally, I order a large lunch and eat the leftovers for dinner. If I have no leftovers, I order dinner and eat the leftovers for lunch the next day.

  Prior to this system, I used to have a burger for lunch and pasta for dinner. I’d probably still have this system today if my friends and family didn’t insist otherwise. For lunch, my specialty was buying several pounds of meat, then grilling sixty or so hamburgers on the Foreman Grill, which I would then freeze, along with numerous bags of hamburger buns. Then, every morning before law school I’d grab a frozen patty and bun and put them in Saran Wrap, along with a slice of individually wrapped Kraft cheese, the fake kind that needs no refrigeration. At lunch, I’d eat a burger under an oak tree with my law school friends. One day the topic veered towards the discovery that the burgers I was eating on a daily basis were barely defrosted. After that, my friends averted their eyes during lunch time until I caved into peer pressure and began buying my lunch. My pasta for dinner tradition ended similarly. My strategy for pasta was to make a box of pasta and mix it with a jar of tomato sauce, then eat it for dinner for a week or so out of the big pot I cooked it in. My mom came over once when I was eating out of my vat of cold pasta like a trough, and it made her so ill that I promised never to do it again.

  I was on the phone with Danny while I was shopping. He was at my house waiting to give me a massage.

  “Sorry I’m late, I’ll be right there.”

  “I would have grabbed bagels for you if you had asked.”