Houston, We Have a Pregnancy
A SCENIC VIEW OF MY PAST
It was season four of The Parkers, the black sitcom on UPN on which I’d been costarring since episode one, and I still felt totally out of place. I didn’t fit in, and it made me insecure. You know the old Sesame Street song that went, “One of these things is not like the other”? I was “one of these things,” and I was having trouble letting that roll off my back. They could talk about things I couldn’t. They had stories to tell that I couldn’t relate to and special inside jokes to share that proved I wasn’t “one of them.” I wasn’t a member of their exclusive club. Every now and then, Countess Vaughn would even make a comment like, “You can’t possibly understand. You just haven’t been through the same struggles we have.” Gee, thanks. Way to make a girl feel like an outcast. Way to make me feel like . . . the nonparent I was. What, you thought I was referring to being the only white cast member? Ha! Not a chance. Skin color never made an ounce of difference to any of us. In fact, Mo’Nique often quipped that I wasn’t Caucasian, just “light-skinned.”
Being the only cast member on The Parkers without a kid made me feel like a petulant child in a roomful of working adults. I was the only one who didn’t have a family to go home to, who didn’t know what it was to be a parent and have that special love in my heart for a tiny human being. And I wanted it desperately.
So desperately, in fact, that I started adopting dogs. Lots of them. Which led me to believe, in all my twentysomething wisdom, that I knew what it meant to be a parent. Why alienate me just because my kids had four legs instead of two? Because they barked instead of crying? Because they left their toys strewn across every room of my house and drooled all over my furniture? (Technically the latter two examples cover both dogs and children, but you get the idea.) I thought parenting puppies should at least grant me a pass for their elite clique, but no one else seemed to take that notion seriously.
Single life was sucking big-time, and my biological clock was spinning out of control. I wanted a family to ground me; I wanted to finally belong . . .
CUT TO . . .
So much for a feeling of belonging. Turns out I had no clue what to expect when I was expecting, dogs or no dogs. After all, my canine kids go to sleep when I tell them to, clean up any food that gets dropped on the floor, and were potty trained by two months old.
And wanting a family to ground me? What was I thinking? Impending mommydom made me feel like I’d been sent to orbit the moon for a while, armed with only fuzzy pink slippers and a casserole dish . . .
But hey, at least I was finally in on all the jokes.
MY CRADLE CHRONICLES
“So you’re having a baby.” In my experience, most instructional pregnancy books start out with this phrase or some equivalent of it. Thank you, faceless authors, for stating the obvious and handing me my sign. After peeing on a stick (or four), racing to the doctor faster than I could say “biological clock,” throwing out a refrigerator’s worth of soft cheese and deli meat, flagging every baby name site on the Internet, reading all the back issues of Parenting magazine, prematurely plotting a nursery design, and indulging my urge to tell every pregnant woman I saw that I was becoming a member of her club, I’m pretty sure I’d already established the fact that I was bringing a child into the world.
Or had I? It’s amazing how long it took my head to catch up to my heart.
But still, “So you’re having a baby” seemed like such an unceremonious introduction. After waiting for so many years to get knocked up (I was thirty-five when I gave birth to my first daughter, Gray), I wanted a parade in my honor, dammit! But one has to start somewhere, right? Parades take time to plan, and I suppose a float in the shape of a uterus would be a little weird. Also, “So you’re about to spend the next eighteen years letting a tiny human be the CEO of your life, huh?” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
In retrospect, I guess there’s really no better conversation starter than the one they’ve all resorted to. But how about adding a little enthusiasm to the mix so it sinks in? I know it isn’t feasible to be showered in confetti or offered a congratulatory neon marquee via book pages, but some amount of excitement is nice. You know, slightly more than one might experience when one’s bologna is ready at the supermarket meat counter.
How about trying this version on for size: “So you’re having a baby. Holy hell!”
Or “So you’re having a baby? You did it! You got the little guy to swim upstream! Go kiss your spouse and celebrate with a pint of peanut-butter-and-chocolate ice cream, for heaven’s sake. You deserve it! Here’s a coupon for a complimentary cream puff!” I swear I’d send you all a bottle of champagne right this minute if it were feasible. On second thought, perhaps I’d send a nonalcoholic beverage such as sparkling apple cider, so the pediatric police don’t hunt me down. Either way, consider this my written version of a celebratory rally for you. I’m whistling “Hail to the Chief” as I type this.
Bottom line? You are a rock star, and I’m out here rooting for you. If no one else remembers to tell you this important phrase, soak it up now: You can do it. You have what it takes!
If you’re anything like I was, the simple words “I’m having a baby” are taking some getting used to. I had to put that mantra on repeat in my head for a while before I began to absorb it. It takes a while to wake up and smell the breast milk! Whether you’ve planned to get pregnant or not, there’s a sort of fuzzy disassociation that occurs at the start of it all. I promise it isn’t just you who’s experiencing it, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t ready for motherhood. I felt it when I finally got pregnant too, and I’d been obsessing over a baby for so long that I’d even considered freezing my eggs as a twenty-fourth birthday gift to myself.
If you want to get technical about it, none of us is really ready, no matter how long we’ve yearned for it. There is no such thing as an instaparent. We don’t blossom overnight. (No pun intended, I swear!) We all learn by trial and error, and we try to do the best we possibly can. There’s a natural inability to reconcile that a little person is growing inside us or that our lifestyle and mind-set have been altered in the blink of an eye. I think our hormones, aka our horror-mones, start to fire vulgarities at our brains when they realize the pandemonium we’re about to put them through for the next nine months. Well, ten months, if you want to get real about it. (Yeah, that math will get you every time.)
The physical imbalance of pregnancy rendered me perpetually disoriented. It perfected my deer-in-the-headlights expression, which may or may not be something to brag about.
To put things into perspective, I’ll share my story. Finding out I was pregnant for the first time went like this: On Sunday, October 2, 2011, my husband and I were spending a leisurely day around the house with our canine brood. We have an old record player in our living room, and we were listening to Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album. I had just finished whipping up some pancakes and bacon, and we’d enjoyed an unhurried breakfast together. With mimosa in hand, I paused to look out at the supremely beautiful day. I closed my eyes and smiled serenely. That’s when I had an inkling. The moment was just too rapturous not to think there was something more to it. Something other than a mimosa buzz, that is. Since my biological clock had been ticking louder than The Tell-Tale Heart for the last two decades or so, I was fairly convinced I was on the road to motherhood. It sounds crazy, but I was filled with a sudden sense of purpose.
Looking at my empty glass, I thought, If I take a pregnancy test and it’s negative, I’m having at least two more of these tasty suckers. If it comes out positive, I’m going to spend the next hour asking Siri whether or not I’ve doomed my child by enjoying the ones I’ve already had.
I ran downstairs and made a beeline for the pregnancy test I’d been saving. (One of my best friends had given it to me as a not-so-subtle suggestion at my bridal shower in 2010, which I thought was pure genius.) I peed on the stick and blinked in confusion as the blue line immediately surfaced.
It’s amazing how the movies make it seem like you’re going to have to wait an interminable amount of time to get your results, isn’t it? I mean, whole plot lines have transpired while someone waits for pregnancy test results.
Not so much. I had my answer in under thirty seconds.
Of course, I opted not to believe it and took a second test to be sure. Also positive.
I happily dismissed the notion of another mimosa as my body buzzed with excitement, adrenaline, and champagne bubbles.
Then, in a not-so-brief moment of insanity, I decided the tests must be too close to their expiration dates to be correct, so I ran out to buy a brand-new box of life-changing plastic.
Those both came out positive too.
Oh, you thought I was kidding about taking four pregnancy tests? Not a chance, mon amie. Two packages later, I called my OB-GYN to schedule a blood test. You know, just in case all those store-bought ones were faulty.
“If you’ve taken four predictor tests already and they’ve all come out positive,” the nurse told me sardonically, “you really don’t need a blood test. You’re pregnant.” I could envision her shaking her head and writing rookie in my patient file.
I scheduled the blood test regardless.
Seriously? Did I still need validation? Enough to get poked with a needle unnecessarily?
I chalk this up to being in my newfound maternity trance. Or, for good measure, I suppose I could continue to implicate the mimosas. For more on the clouding of judgment during pregnancy, see chapter 3, where I discuss baby brain. It’s like a really bad, nine-month-long blooper reel.
Pregnancy makes us do wonderfully zany things, because it is overwhelming to know you are bringing a new little person into the world. It’s tough to fathom that there’s a human being smaller than a blueberry (or whatever edible member of a fruit salad the maternity websites are comparing your fetus to this week) in your belly, wreaking havoc on your emotions, your thoughts, and your body.
And there isn’t necessarily a single, sudden moment when it all registers. In fact, it didn’t really register for me until Gray was there, swaddled in her hospital blanket and sporting the obligatory, gender-neutral nursery hat.
You may find the same to be true. Reality may not set in until those sweet little eyes stare back at you and your nights are filled with soft coos . . .
Oh, who am I kidding? Your nights will more than likely be jam-packed with screaming, crying, groggy feedings, and punch-drunk diaper changing. The reality of motherhood will probably hit you with the impact of the Titanic.
You’re going to be a mommy! Insert my happy dance here, and try to stop freaking out. While you’re at it, laugh a little . . . it does a pregnant body good.
THE MORAL OF MY STORY
Usually I agree with Groucho Marx, who said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” But this is my exception to the rule. I’m proud to say I’m a card-carrying, lifetime member of motherhood, and the benefits are unparalleled! Even if it required nine months of hazing before my official induction ceremony.