What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir

by Cohen, Alice Eve

  “Exactly!”

  This is suddenly all too ridiculous. I feel bad for the childless couples. I hope Spence-Chapin shows their snapshots to the right pregnant casting agents and they all land dream roles as mommies and daddies. Michael and I laugh till we’re falling over each other on the sofa, like we’re drunk. We’re laughing and kissing, and I’m crying at the same time. My peals of laughter sound an awful lot like screaming, because, damn it, that’s just the way I am these days. Julia wakes up and staggers into the living room with bleary eyes, wanting to know what’s making us laugh like maniacs.

  This is the first moment since showing Michael the sonogram image of the baby that I feel like we’re together in this journey again. We’ve got each other. Michael and I can raise this child together. Julia will have a little sister. Michael and I will get married and we’ll be a family. Maybe I’m even a little bit happy. That scares me.

  Tuh! Tuh! Tuh!

  “We’re the best parents, unless the baby is sick or handicapped,” I say to Michael, after Julia is back in bed. “That’s the deal breaker. Then we’ll give the baby up for adoption, to special needs adoption.”

  Now we’re both good and unhappy again, and safely out of range of the Evil Eye.

  Michael hears me but doesn’t say anything. He nods. I interpret his nod as an agreement that we will give up the baby for adoption if it’s handicapped or sick. I’ve probably misinterpreted his nod. It’s more likely that he’s angry with me, but he’s in no mood to talk about it.

  What I Know

  1. I’m going to have this baby.

  2. We’re going to keep it. . . .

  3. Unless there’s something wrong with it. . . . I think.

  I call Spence-Chapin to tell them my decision. Sasha the social worker knows about birth mothers. She tells me I might change my mind, even if the baby is healthy. The agency can place the newborn baby with foster parents while I decide. But that’s crazy, I think. How can I decide, if the baby is with someone else? How can I nurse the baby if the baby is with foster parents? We’re going to keep the baby. She accepts my decision as conditional, assures us that my file is active and that I can change my mind at any time before or after the baby is born.

  “Do you want to have a contingency plan in place in case the baby is handicapped?” she asks. I don’t know. Maybe. They are prepared to place the baby in a foster home, find an adoptive family, if I change my mind. They will, if I need, pay for my prenatal care, my food and rent. They will pay for baby clothes and doctors bills if I need.

  Wow! I am overwhelmed by the abundance of their offerings, and realize that Zoe benefited from their professional generosity nine years ago. I don’t feel I deserve it. I’m a grown-up, not a pregnant teenager; I have a home and health insurance—albeit crappy health insurance—a family who cares for me. I have Michael. I thank her, but decline. I decide to contribute money to Spence-Chapin when I have a regular income again.

  Lamaze: Second Lesson

  “So a lady says to me, ‘After my baby is born, is there anything I should seek to avoid?’ And I say, ‘Yes—pregnancy.’ So . . . Michael and Alice, you’re going to have a baby!” Joy teaches us Lamaze breathing technique. She explains what an Apgar score is—the report card for the newborn, a number from zero (very bad) to ten (very good) that indicates the infant’s general health at birth.

  “Here’s a tip for you, Michael. Fathers always try to be helpful in the delivery room, but don’t take it personally when she treats you horrible during labor. You won’t recognize her. She’ll insult you. I’m not kidding, she’ll act like you’re not there, she’ll call you horrible things, she’ll talk like a sailor. Remember, she’s not Alice anymore, she’s a woman in labor. Hang in there. Now I want you to watch this videotape together before my next visit. So long, you guys.”

  Since I’m grounded for three months, Joy’s entertaining visits to our living room are like date nights for me and Michael. Tonight we get a double feature—Joy’s comedy act followed by a movie. We watch it while Julia sleeps. It’s pure propaganda. Three women give birth, with supportive husbands nearby, and without much pain. One woman is low-key with long wavy blond hair, one woman is perky and has a black Afro, one is shy and has curly red hair. At least there are some contrasts in hair-style. The low-key blond gives birth as if she’s in a yoga class. Her meditative state is amped up with heavy breathing when she’s pushing, like she’s demonstrating Kundalini Breath of Fire. When the black lady gives birth, it sounds like she’s having a fabulous orgasm. The red-haired lady calmly narrates her fears throughout the process, and tells the camera in an even-tone voice, “This hurts a great deal.” Lamaze technique wins the day—Hurrah!

  Solo Theater

  My students are beginning to perform their solos for the class.

  Jeremiah: “I remember Alabama summers. Yearning to patty cake with the sun. Uncle raped my sister at twelve in the front seat of the ’76 Mustang.”

  Bella: “He holds the guitar quiet like water.”

  Kayla: “I remember walking through the projects in my Corpus Christi uniform, my Uncle Tom Uniform. I’m twelve years old. My friend can’t sleep over because I live in the projects.”

  Dani Athena, the forty-something choreographer and high school dance teacher, works without text. She arranges clumps of moss and dirt as her stage set, turns off the overhead lights, and lights a candle. In the dark she performs a mysterious dance and monologue that we collectively understand is about dying.

  After class, Dani asks if I can meet for a few minutes. “I want to talk to you about my piece, but I don’t want to share this with the class. It will be useful for you to know, as my teacher, that . . . I have rectal cancer, and I just found out this week that it’s metastasized to my liver. I’ve decided not to do chemo or radiation, because it will just prolong my life a few months, but it would really diminish my quality of life. My doctor thinks I have less than a year left. I don’t want the class to know, but I want you to know so you can help me finish this piece.”

  “How can I support you in class? What would be most valuable to you?”

  “Just coming here, being with this group, showing new material every week, knowing that you know what the piece is about and that you’ll help me shape it. That’s enough.”

  She hugs me. Her flexible dancer’s body accommodates to my pregnant roundness. I wrap my arms around her thin back. Her angular face rests on my soft cheek. We breathe together, and I think I feel three hearts beating—mine and Dani’s, beating side-by-side in unison, and the faster heartbeat of my mysterious daughter, waiting with surprising patience to be born, Dani Athena so filled with life I think hers can’t be extinguished.

  “What’s the most frightening thing for you?”

  “I’m scared of physical pain. I’m scared of running out of time. I’m not afraid of dying.”

  Dani Athena is the most generous person in the room. She is awed by the work of the other students, and they light up when she gives them feedback. Her own performances frighten, hypnotize, and ignite the class. Her mysterious choreography and props, imported from the natural world, transforms the ordinariness of the sterile classroom. Following her lead, the other students risk making solo works that they don’t immediately understand.

  I am humbled by Dani, by our parallel secrets. I’m expecting a baby, and I’m terrified. She is dying, but she’s not scared. She embraces this journey toward death as an adventure. She keeps looking for opportunities to give and give and give, before she runs out of time. I want to be more like Dani. I pay careful attention to her, to her optimism and her generosity, the way the class lights up when she talks to them, when she performs. Emulating her makes me a better teacher. I carefully prepare my classes with the needs of each student in mind. The class is doing remarkable work. I help Dani shape her piece.

  I cab home from The New School each Monday and crawl back into bed. I close my eyes and try to preserve in me, for as long as I can, the
connection I feel to my students. I savor Dani Athena’s life-affirming generosity. I sleep. When I awake there’s the old pessimism.

  Lamaze: Third Lesson

  “I saved the best for last,” says Joy on her final Tuesday night visit. “Drumroll, please—The disaster scenarios! I always say to expectant moms, this lesson could save your life, okay? So listen up.”

  Joy has spent the first thirty minutes of the lesson leading us through a practice session of Lamaze breathing and relaxation technique. We stop relaxing as Joy sets up her flip chart and turns to the page showing all the things that can go wrong—disastrously, fatally wrong, at the last moment.

  “You are a prime candidate,” she cheerfully assures me, “for the most dangerous of these complications—hemorrhaging. Why do you think all those pioneer women died in childbirth? They bled to death! You think that doesn’t happen anymore? Wrong! They’d like you to think it doesn’t happen, not in this day and age, right? Dying in childbirth only happens in third world countries, right? Not! Happens all the time. Right here, New York City, even in New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center. I’m a nurse in the neonatal unit. You wouldn’t believe what I see. Just last week—I probably shouldn’t tell you this—but anyway, just last week, a pregnant lady starts to bleed, so she calls an ambulance, and she’s heading over in the ambulance but they can’t stop the bleeding and by the time they get to the hospital—I really shouldn’t tell you this—she’s dead on arrival. And they can’t save the baby.

  “Human women are very poorly designed for childbirth. There’s not enough room. Okay, look at this chart: female anatomy. Stupid design. What was God thinking when he gave women such a narrow pelvis? Did you ever see a horse give birth? The mare breezes through it, vroom, kaboom, ten minutes and the colt is out of there. Because a horse’s pelvis is wider, proportionally, than ours. Jeez, a horse! Just think about that. Think about a colt with its long knobby legs, and she just pushes it out. But no-oo, God wanted humans to stand on two legs, right? so he streamlined us for walking, and consequently our hips are too narrow, and Alice you’ve got really narrow hips, relative to, well, relative to the size of a baby.

  “And let’s talk about age. Whew!! I’m sure you’ve heard the term advanced maternal age. You’ll be forty-five, right? You don’t get much more advanced than that, and if you do, you’re on the front page of the tabloids. If this were a hundred years ago and you were pregnant at forty-five . . . well, a hundred years ago, if you were forty-five, you’d be dead! Nature didn’t intend the human body to be pregnant or even alive at forty-five, you see, so this is not a normal thing. And of course advanced maternal age increases the risk of hemorrhaging. A lot!

  “Plus, you’re a DES daughter, and that increases the risk of hemorrhaging even more. And you’ve got a double uterus, right? That’s terrible.

  “And the position of your baby, I’m afraid, placenta pre-via —Whoa, Nellie, couldn’t be worse. That’s the worst. The! Worst! The baby could just pull away from the placenta and—BOOM!—there you are, bleeding uncontrollably, like that lady in the ambulance I told you about. You’ve got every possible risk factor. You’re like the perfect storm! So listen up, if you start bleeding, call an ambulance! Don’t wait to see if the bleeding stops, just call instantly. Promise me that.

  “C’mon, don’t look so worried. You’ll be fine. You know me, I’m a performer like you, remember? At least I got your attention, right? Cheer her up, Michael, I gotta go. Nice meeting you guys.”

  Scene 8

  A Litigious Mood

  I’m the only woman in America who’s about to die in childbirth. I know this fear is inflated but it takes hold. It’s a genuine phobia.

  “You’re not going to die in childbirth,” says Michael. “Joy likes to get a reaction from her audience and she succeeded. You’re going to be fine. The baby will be fine.”

  “I know,” I say, but I don’t believe it.

  My fear of bleeding to death shouts louder in my head than my fear that I won’t be able to love this baby, so my new phobia gives me some relief from my worst fear.

  I’m more despondent than ever. I want to give up the baby for adoption again.

  “No, Alice,” said Michael. “We’re not giving the baby up for adoption.”

  “I don’t think I can be a good parent if the baby is sick or deformed. I can’t do it, Michael.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “We don’t make enough money to raise a baby with special needs. We barely make ends meet as it is, even when I’m not on bed rest. I don’t want to do it.”

  Michael, his superhuman patience finally at its limit, looks at me with a cross of pity and disdain. He ignores this outburst. He is accustomed to the perpetually changing mind and fluctuating emotions of his pregnant fiancée.

  I’m in a litigious mood. We’re going to need money to raise this baby, whether it’s sick or not, whether I die in childbirth or not. There was clearly medical malpractice. Can I sue Robin? She insisted I was in menopause, even after doing an internal exam when I was five months pregnant. She’s a good person, I’ve always liked her. But she screwed up. I call a lawyer I know from Julia’s school. She gives me a list of medical malpractice lawyers she knows. Lying in bed on my left side, between naps, editing, drinking blue Gatorade, I call lawyers.

  “These cases never amount to anything,” says the first guy I called. “I took one of them before, worked on it for two years, and lost a bundle of money. Good luck to you and your baby, but I never take these cases anymore.”

  A second lawyer says the same thing.

  The third lawyer tells me to call back after the baby is born, when I know what damages, if any, I will be suing for. “Meanwhile,” she advises, “keep careful notes.”

  What I Know

  1. I’m going to have a baby in two months, maybe sooner.

  2. It will be a girl, probably. . . .

  3. With a fatal disorder and a penis, maybe.

  4. An athletic lesbian, maybe.

  5. She might have surgery to disguise her penis as a clitoris, or maybe we’ll leave the penis as a penis.

  6. I’ll die in childbirth, I think.

  7. She may be adopted by a Christian, evangelical, homophobic family, which will tolerate neither her lesbianism nor her penis.

  8. This should be more than enough worry to ward off the Evil Eye.

  9. Tuh! Tuh! Tuh!

  Scene 9

  December

  It’s December 1. My birthday was a week ago. I’m forty-five. Julia and Michael baked a cake for me. My due date is December 25, or December 11 or 29 or January 1 or 7. It’s hard to get an accurate due date in the twenty-sixth week of pregnancy, but I’ve certainly passed the important pregnancy landmark of thirty-two weeks. I’ve been lying on my left side for two and a half months. Remarkably, I haven’t given birth prematurely. It would be safe to give birth now, at eight months or so. The lungs are developed, and the heart is strong. I’m going to have a baby soon.

  There’s been a constant talk on the radio about the dreaded, ticking clock of Y2K. The industrial and digital world will grind to a halt at midnight, on December 31, 1999, as it rolls over to Year 2000, because the world’s computer infrastructure is predicated on twentieth-century numeration, and will not compute the change to the twenty-first century. Given my luck, I’ll go into labor on December 31, the power will go out at midnight, and I’ll need an emergency C-section, by candlelight, in an unheated hospital room in the middle of winter, while I bleed to death.

  My sisters ask me if I want to have a baby shower.

  This is a trick question. I don’t want to have a baby, so I don’t want a baby shower. I don’t want anyone to know I’m having a baby, because then it’s really happening, so I don’t want a baby shower. I might be giving up the baby for adoption, so I don’t want a baby shower—cause, heck, what’s the etiquette? Who gets to keep the presents? Do I send the rattles and board books and stuffed animals to the adoptive par
ents?

  And do the guests bring pink or blue gifts? The baby might be a girl with a penis, or a boy with two X chromosomes. She might have her penis turned into a clitoris with her mile-long sexual nerve neatly folded up and tucked away in her little jewel bag, or he might grow up to be a radical lesbian hermaphrodite transgender lobbyist athlete. She might have to be raced to the emergency room to get her enzyme treatment so she doesn’t turn into a pillar of salt, or a salt-wasted pillow?

  I’m having a baby. I’m not having an abortion. I’m not going to give birth prematurely. I’m not going to give this baby up for adoption, unless . . . oh, never mind. I’m having a baby. It’s not going to stay inside of me forever. I think I’m going to have the baby very soon. It makes me lonely. For me. For the baby. Hardly anybody knows about it. I’ve been indoors on my left side since I found out I was pregnant, so hardly anyone has seen me pregnant. Strangers on the street haven’t asked me when I’m due. My mother isn’t alive, my father lives far away. I haven’t been taking prenatal exercise classes with other expectant moms. I have been too depressed and too indecisive and too horrified and too guilty about my feelings to call anybody. I’ve isolated myself. I’ve asked my few friends who know I’m pregnant to keep it a secret. I’ll have to come out of the closet sooner or later, either as a new mother with a new baby, or as a new mother who has given away her new baby.

  Yes, I do want to have a baby shower.

  My new friend Susan Feiner, mother of Julia’s friend Sophie from Hebrew class, will host the shower at her beautiful Upper West Side apartment. I give my sisters a list of my women friends. Most of them will be surprised to hear that I’m pregnant. Madeline wants to postpone the party till later in December, because of her busy work schedule, but my body is telling me I’m going to have this baby really, really soon, so I persuade my sisters to schedule it for next week, the second Saturday in December.