by Z. B Heller
I imagined myself as a mother. The only example I had was Martha and she was as dysfunctional as they came. She had no idea how to parent. I remembered the only way she knew how to sooth me was to stick cookies in my mouth. Yes, I was already nine years old when Martha came into our lives, but eating quickly became my soothing mechanism. Therefore, the only thing I knew to do with a crying child was to stick a cookie in their mouth. For someone without teeth, this was probably non-effective.
Granted, I was forgetting an important part of the equation: Miles. I tried to remind myself that I wouldn’t be alone in this. Or would I? Miles and I never discussed having kids together. Sure, I had a great relationship with Dillion, but that’s because I could hide my own insecure crap from one of the sweetest souls I knew. But he was an exception. He and Miles were a package deal. Being around other kids was a different story. Ironic, since I was a teacher and around them all day. But all Miles ever heard from me about how I felt about kids was how I bitched about my students.
Miss Summers?”
“Yes?” I answered the receptionist.
“It’s been a little while since we’ve seen you. I just need you to update your paperwork.”
I walked up to the desk, and she passed me the clipboard and pen. I hesitated taking it, afraid that it was really a contract with the devil to sell my soul. Then again, I lost that battle when I binged on Snickers after I said I would never touch them again.
Turning around and going back to my seat, a beautiful looking couple had come in and sat next to the chair I had occupied just moments ago. The waiting room wasn’t large, so I really didn’t have an option but to sit next to them. I sat down and let out an audible sigh.
“First one?” The woman asked. She was a tiny thing, maybe five foot two with what looked to be a perfectly round basketball under her floral shirt. Even though I rubbed my stomach, it was a little presumptuous on her part to think I was pregnant. Maybe I’d just gone to Taco Bell and was trying to sooth my stomach from burrito gas pain.
“Oh, I’m not here for that. I have a… thing. You know… an itch… in a naughty spot,” I said and quickly ducked my head to fill out my forms. There was no reason to lie to these people other than I was the mayor of a town called living Denial.
She leaned over to her husband and said in a low tone, “Oh, Jon, that is so cute. Look how nervous she is. Do you remember when that was us? She reminded me of how you looked when we found out we were expecting Rebecca.”
Now I was just curious. They’d obviously gone through this before. I lifted my head and said, “Is this your second baby?”
Both let out a loud laugh. “Oh no. This is our seventh,” she said.
My mouth went slack. This woman had pushed six watermelons out her cooch. Her vagina was probably so loose, her baby would just fall right out of her like it were shooting down a Slip‘N Slide.
“Wow, seventh, huh?” These days people had two, maybe three kids, but seven? “I bet that’s a lot of diapers and formula to go through.”
“We use cloth diapers and I still breast feed,” the woman replied.
“So number seven will be close in age to number six, huh? How far apart are they?”
“Our youngest child is four years old. We believe that all our children will wean when they are ready.”
Still breast feeding at four years old? When you’re old enough to belly up to the bar and serve yourself a cold one, that’s when the bartender needed to shout out last call. I had visions of a teenager walking up to their mom and saying, “Hey, Ma, I’m thirsty. Why don’t I have a little snack from Titty Town.
“Miss Summers?” I looked up to the nurse calling my name. Thank God, I was afraid this woman next to me was going to ask if I wanted a milk shake.
“That’s me.”
The nurse led me down a hall full of pictures of babies from different sizes and origins on one side and posters of the fetus development on the other. The poster of the woman at nine months demonstrated how the baby took up all the room in the abdomen as if it were a Holiday Inn. I glanced down to my stomach; since there was already some generous padding, I would say that my baby would be living at the Ritz Carlton rather than the Holiday Inn. The nurse waved me into one of the exam rooms.
“Please step on the scale.” I slipped off my shoes, stood on the scale, and closed my eyes.
“How tall are you?”
“Five feet seven inches,” I answered.
The nurse scribbled down notes, not caring to look at me. The scale was digital so a number came up right away.
“So, do you want what I really weigh? Do you want my weight before I eat in the morning or after because those are two completely different numbers. Even after having a good poop that number fluctuate.” I twisted my hands together. Her cold bedside manner didn’t sit well with me.
She shook her head and looked up, but the corner of her lip turned down. “Let’s just go with the one you feel would best describe you.”
“In that case, I’m one forty-five and five foot four.” I let out a little laugh. The nurse put her closed fist on her hip, which she jutted to the side.
Huffing, I said, “Fine, I’m one ninety-five.”
“I’m going to take your blood pressure. I need you to roll up your sleeve.”
The nurse finally looked at me as she grabbed the blood pressure cuff off the wall. She wrapped it around my arm so tight I thought my arm was going to pop off.
“Is your blood pressure always high?”
I looked over at her in confusion. “Umm, I’ve never been told it was high in the past.”
“Well, it could be that you’re carrying a little extra weight and you’re nervous. You’ve been biting your bottom lip like you’re having it for lunch.”
A little extra weight? I was going to take the cuff and strangle her with it.
She noted my stats and continued with her onslaught of questions. “Looks like you haven’t had your pap smear this year yet.”
“No, I had it sometime last year.”
She looked up from her notes. “Early last year? Midyear? End of the year?”
Who the hell was this woman? The Pap police? “Early in the year. March, I think.”
“Are you on any form of birth control?” she asked, going back to her notes. “When was the date of your last menstrual period?”
My period was usually regular, but I had to think about the last time I had it.
Getting impatient, the nurse asked, “Are you on birth control?”
“I’m on the pill.”
“Which one?”
I paused again, struggling to remember the brand. I usually just went to the pharmacy, opened the packet, and start popping pills. They could have been giving me cholesterol medicine and I wouldn’t have known. When I became sexually active, the doctor gave me a prescription and told me to get it filled. I didn’t question it because I was still horrified that a man had his hand up my pinkolicious taco. I was under the impression that a boy was supposed to at least by you dinner first. I was sixteen and stupid.
“OraPed.”
She stopped writing and peered at me over her glasses. “When did you receive your last refill?”
I looked at her, tilted my head to the side, and narrowed my eyes. Why did it matter when I refilled it? “Last month.”
“Mmm,” she replied. “Since you think there’s a chance you’re pregnant, use the bathroom down the hall and to the left, pee into this cup, and put it in the little door in the wall of the bathroom. A nurse will take it from there. Then come back to this room and put this gown on.”
“Damn, if I’d have known I would get this gown, I could have worn it to the clubs last weekend.” I laughed, but quickly stopped when Nurse Ratched remained stone-faced.
I took the cup and headed down the hallway to the bathroom. When I got situated and ready to pee, nothing would come out. It was as if my pee suddenly got scared and crept back up into my bladder. I turned on the faucet
hoping the sound of running water would help. I even spoke softly to my bladder, telling it that if it behaves, I’ll treat it to a nice Coke afterward.
Luckily, my bladder complied. I had a feeling that if I didn’t get something out, Nurse Ratched would come and sit on my bladder. I put the cap on the cup and opened the little door to place my specimen. I looked at the cup before I shut the door. It was all very metaphorical. One door closes and another opens. Except this door was closing on sanity and opening the door to a fucking black hole.
A few minutes after I’d returned to the exam room and put on the gown, there was a knock at the door. I was expecting to see my regular doctor, but unless Dr. Chandler went through gender reassignment and turned into a rock star god, I was pretty sure this wasn’t her. This was a living Greek sculpture with dark brown hair and even darker eyes. His jaw was so chiseled and perfect, I wanted to lick him like a lollipop. Even though he was beautiful, he also looked fresh out of medical school.
“Miss Summers?”
My mouth lacked the ability to move or close, for that matter.
“I’m Dr. Ford.” He held out his hand, but my arm couldn’t move either.
“Where is Dr. Chan-Chan-Chandler?” Apparently I’d picked up a stutter in the last thirty seconds.
He dropped his hand, his perfectly trimmed eyebrows knitting together. “Dr. Chandler retired. Didn’t you get the letter?”
I probably did get the letter, but figured it was a bill, stuffed it somewhere, and pretended it never came or miraculously paid itself.
“Umm, no, I guess I didn’t,” I said, feeling a little sheepish.
“Is this okay if I do the exam?” A little worried crease marred his otherwise flawless features.
I needed to get myself together. “Of course it is. I’ve just never had a male doctor before.”
“I can assure you, Ms. Summers, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Nothing surprises me.”
“Nothing? I’m sure you don’t get many clowns in full makeup dropping their pants for you.” I laughed.
With a completely straight face, he said, “When I examined her, she would beep her nose every time I tried to stick the speculum in.”
That’s all it took. I instantly relaxed; thankful Dr. Ford had a sick sense of humor like me.
“I would hate to hear what happened during a breast exam.”
He sat on the rolling chair and grabbed my file off the table, looked it over, and then back at me. His brown eyes were soft and caring even though he looked young enough to be one of my student teachers. There was a knock at the door and Nurse Ratched came back in and handed Dr. Ford a piece of paper. If I was not mistaken, she shook her head and she left the room. What was with the stick up her ass? Maybe one of the doctors lost their speculum.
Dr. Ford read the piece of paper then looked at me, a wrinkle between his brows. “Moxie, you said that you are on the pill? Which pill are you on?”
“OraPed,” I said, annoyed that I had to go over this information again.
Dr. Ford gave me the same expression that Nurse Ratched gave me.
“Who put you on that pill?”
“Doctor Chandler did. Why?” I was starting to worry a little at his tone.
“Moxie, there are two things I need to tell you. First thing is that you are indeed pregnant.”
“I kinda of got that by the thirty pregnancy tests I took.”
“Thirty?”
“You never know, some could have been faulty.”
“Well, that’s funny that you should bring up the word faulty.” He closed my file. “As I’m sure you know the pill isn’t hundred percent effective. But in your case it was even less so. In the past six months, there was a mandatory recall on OraPed. There was a problem with the package design at the factory which caused a screw up with the order the pills that were placed in the package. In the current pack you were probably taking the placebos when you thought you were taking the regular pills.”
My mouth unhinged once again. I was going to find the factory where the pills were made and set it on fire. For all I knew it was a sweatshop run by twelve-year-old kids who thought it would be funny to get unsuspecting women pregnant.
“Moxie, are you still with me?”
“Yup. Just thinking about arson and pharmaceutical companies.”
“Umm, okay, then. Why don’t you lay back, and we’ll take a look at you. We will be able to discuss your options.”
“Does one of my options include a return policy?” I mumbled as I lay back on the table.
The Pregnancy Guide
Month 1-2
Women
Congratulations, you’re pregnant! Your body is getting ready to transform into a wonderful living space for the newest member of your family. While many women don’t experience any symptoms the first month, some women experience sore breasts, tiredness, and some mood swings. Things that will come in handy during this time are saline spray for that stuffy nose, saltines for nausea, and stool softeners for constipation. What is commonly known as morning sickness can be felt anytime of the day. Eat what you can and let your man pamper you. You might experience headaches and an increased sense of smell. You might also feel the amplified need to urinate and to pass gas.
Men
Do you remember that smoking hot bombshell you wanted to bang all day long? Yeah, you can kiss her good-bye. Her boobs? They’re going to get huge! But… you won’t be touching them. That’s right; those nice voluminous masterpieces will be off limits for the next nine months. If you try to touch them, you might get your hands torn off. You know that sweet woman who you used to live with? Her name will be changed to Satan. Don’t expect to go into the bathroom anytime in the near future. She will be living in there, trying to take a shit. Oh, the puke! It won’t stop. It will be like a steady stream coming out of your loved one’s mouth. Offering saltines and ginger ale will only result in you getting a ginger ale enema. That excuse of “not tonight, I have a headache,” will be a permanent statement around the house. Remember that new cologne you got for your birthday? You can throw that out. Along with your soap, shampoo, and favorite foods. Make sure that a bathroom will be within five feet of your current location because her bladder will become running a faucet. Invest in a gas mask. Mustard gas is wimpy compared to the stuff coming out of her ass.
Renee, Ryan, Dillion, and I boarded the plane to Florida. I hated airlines for a multitude of reasons. The cramped leg room, seat mates who thought it was fun to play elbow war on the arm rest, and passengers who thought they could get away with passing gas without anyone noticing. Back in the day, flight attendants offered pillows and blankets along with iffy-looking food served on steel trays that you were scared to eat, but ate anyway because it was cool.
Now, thanks to investigative news stories, we discovered there was poop particles on the pillows and blankets with crabs. You even had to fork over your credit cards to get a two-ounce bag of peanuts, which you can’t eat because a majority of the plane had a nut allergy. Therefore, getting on a plane wasn’t something I looked forward to.
Luckily, we all had seats together. Except Ryan. He sat in the adjacent row because there were only three seats in the row. Unfortunately for him the man sitting next to him forgot his deodorant and sweat like a racehorse after the Kentucky Derby. The armpits of his dress shirt were soaked through and he patted the beaded perspiration from his balding head with a napkin.
“Sir, are you okay?” Ryan asked after buckling himself in.
“Yeah, don’t mind me. I’m just a nervous flyer,” the sweating man said.
“Well, I’m sure everything will be fine. You know there are more accidents in cars than there are on planes.” Ryan shrugged and waved off the man’s concerns.
“That’s why I don’t drive,” the man replied in a shaky voice.
“It’s amazing you even leave your house,” Ryan mumbled, turning so he faced us as much as he could in a restrained plane seat.
&nbs
p; Renee, Dillion, and I were stuffed into our seats. Dillion insisted on bringing his pillow from home and wanted the window seat so he could look out and watch the clouds. I ended up in the middle, feeling like sausage, while Renee had it nice and easy in the aisle and could extend her legs out, even though she was rifling through her purse, which was big enough to stash an entire grocery store in. I put up the armrest, hoping to gain one more inch in both directions.
I leaned over to Renee. “Can you please explain to me why it’s three hundred dollars per ticket just so we can be herded on here like cattle?”
“Something about the airlines being strapped for money.” She took out her magazine from her bag.
“At this rate we might be better off traveling by horse-drawn covered wagon.”
“Maybe we should play the Oregon Trail game,” she added.
“Instead of forking over money for these stupid bags of peanuts, we’ll have to hunt squirrel, and we both know that squirrel would only satisfy me for thirty seconds. Also, one of us would die from dysentery.”
“What’s dysentery?” She scrunched her nose up and furrowed her eyebrows.
“It’s when you have really bad poop and can die,” Dillion chimed in.
Renee and I looked at Dillion in surprise. “Okay, first of all, I shouldn’t really be surprised that he knew that. Second, it’s really a problem you don’t know what dysentery is considering you’re a fifth grade teacher.”
“I thought normal people called it the stomach flu.” Renee shrugged.
“No. What you had last week when you kept running to the bathroom to vomit was the stomach flu. I thought the principal was going to call hazmat team to clean up after you.” Thinking about that day only made me feel worse.
I turned to Dillion. “I better text your dad to let him know we got on the plane and are ready for takeoff.”
