Six Months

It’s the end of the second trimester and I really can’t hide it anymore. I’ve avoided three different dinners with my parents because I don’t want them to see me; even though Claire and I haven’t been talking, I know her well enough to be sure that at least she hasn’t told our parents. 

I can now only wear the clothes that Sarah gave me, so we’ve been doing laundry so frequently Matt is running out of things to fill the load with. Last time we ran the window curtains with my pregnancy pants.

As I walk past Gloria, the receptionist, she says “psst” and waves me over to the reception desk. I reluctantly oblige.

The work situation has been steadily deteriorating. While the morning sickness has finally passed and I’m no longer throwing up everyday, I now have this massive bulge in my stomach that refuses to go unnoticed. Most of the other employees don’t know what’s going on, but a few of the keener ones have guessed; like Gloria.

Gloria was one of the first ones to figure it out. As a mother of three, and a grandmother of four, she’s well-aware of the process and course of pregnancy. I’m just glad that the office was empty when she figured it out, because her exclamation of surprise was so loud I swear the windows shook.

For the past week, she’s been haranguing me with parenting advice and ruthlessly questioning my preparedness. Yesterday she had me take down a list of all the baby sundries we’ll need by the time the baby’s born; the list started with “crib” and “diapers”, and ended with “four thousand rags for burps and barf”. I’m grateful, of course, because I didn’t know about a lot of that stuff; but I also wish she’d just email me or something, instead of making me stay late after work.

“I have some books for you,” she says, before ducking down to rummage in the desk drawers.

“Books?”
“Pregnancy books and baby books,” she says, coming back up, and slamming down an intimidating stack of books all colored in soft pastels. She divides the pile in two, and points to the first pile. “These are the pregnancy books — you should have your little boyfriend read these, since he’s going to have to be the one to take care of you. And these,“ she points to the other stack, “are the baby books. Both of you need to read these ahead of time, so you know what’s coming.”

“Oh, thank you.” There’s about ten books in there. I’m not going to read ten fucking books in three months; I’ll probably just skim a couple and then see if there’s some Youtube videos that explain it better.

I make a move to grab the piles, but she puts up a hand to stop me. “Wait, there’s one more.” Curious, I watch her root around in her purse. She pulls out a small, slightly weathered book with a drawing of an infant on the cover.

“What’s that?” I ask as she hands it to me. I open it, and the pages are all blank.

“Baby journal. They change so much in the first few years, it’s really worth it to write down as much as you can. This was supposed to be for my daughter’s first son, but she gave it back to me about a month ago completely blank. Can you believe it? I gave it to her four years ago, and she finally returns it — blank!”

While Gloria complains about her daughter, there’s something funny going on with my heart. Each page has a little title; some of them simply say “Month 1” or “Month 2”, but in between are pages that say, “First laugh,” “First steps”, “Favorite words”. The book takes the baby from birth to their third year of life.

“Thank you,” I say a little more sincerely. I think I’ll really use this one.

“No problem. I just want someone to use it, since my daughter obviously doesn’t care.”

I carefully stack all of the books and start to heft them off the desk, but I’m already carrying a lot — I stagger.

“Oh no no, put those down, I’ll help you.” Gloria snatches seven of the books out of my arms and takes off briskly for the parking lot. With the bulk of the weight off my shoulders, I’m able to carry the rest; together we head for my car and load the books in the back. I thank her again, and drive home.

“Matt, there’s a bunch of books in my trunk,” I yell over Rocky’s barks when I walk in the door.

“What?”

“More like a fuckton. Gloria gave them to me.”

“What kind of books?”

“Baby books and shit. I thought you’d like to see them.”

“That was nice of her.”

“Yeah — except there’s too many for me to carry. If you want to see them, you gotta get them yourself.”

He snorts and stands up while I plop down heavily on the couch. “Subtle,” he says sarcastically, an unwilling smile tugging at his lips.

“Always.”

He comes back struggling under the weight of the books, and dumps them on the couch next to me. “Holy shit, you weren’t exaggerating.”

He immediately opens a particularly effeminate looking one called, Your Pregnancy and You. I turn on the TV and watch absentmindedly for a while.

Unfortunately, the channel that’s playing is the Food Network, and as I watch Guy Fieri shovel down a record amount of hamburger sliders, my stomach starts to growl uncomfortably. Since it’s barely five, I try to ignore it — but then the baby starts squirming too. My stomach now feels like an entire circus is going on in it; I give up.

I heft myself to my feet and head into the kitchen.

“You hungry already?” Matt says from in the living room, looking up from the book.
I just sigh in response, and grab the ingredients for quesadillas, too impatient for anything more elaborate.

“You’re going to spoil your appetite for dinner,” Matt says again.

“The baby’s hungry — what else am I going to do?”

I make three nearly-embarrassingly plain quesadillas, just cheese and tabasco sauce, then go back to the couch to sit with Matt. He’s surprisingly far in the book so far; I always forget how fast a reader he is.

“Anything interesting?” I ask between bites.

“I guess it’s a thing to eat your placenta after giving birth?”

I gag. “I’m eating, Jesus.”

“Sorry. So, we’re definitely going to the hospital for this, right? Not a home birth?”

“No way in hell. Oh my God, that would be so fucking scary.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine.” He puts the book down, and picks up another one called 101 Baby Names. “We really need to come up with some names,”

“Have you thought of any?”

“I’ve always kind of liked Winifred,” he says wistfully.

“You want to give our daughter an old lady name?”

“We could call her Winnie for short.”

I shake my head. “No old lady names.”

He thumbs through the book. “What about a name with a mythical origin?”

“Persephone would be a bitchin name. I’d name her Persephone.”

“Yeah, but Persephone gets abducted and raped by Hades.”

“Whoa, what?”

“Let’s not do a Greek goddess. Why not Winnie? Winnie’s adorable.”

I shrug and put my empty plate on the table, bending awkwardly over my belly. “I don’t mind Winnie, I’m just not a fan of Winifred.”

“That was the name of the mom from The Shining.”

“But it’s just such an old lady name.”

He sighs, and glances at the clock. “I’ll make a real dinner for you. What are you in the mood for?”

“You just want me to warm up to you so I’ll pick Winifred,” I grumble, but my stomach growls again despite myself. Apparently, three quesadillas isn’t enough for two people.

He doesn’t say anything, but I catch him smiling on his way to the kitchen.