Babyhood (9780062098788) Page 2

  I smiled at the lady and put my headphones back on while pointing to the screen, as if to say, “I really would like to finish the conversation, but I tell you—this movie is just so darn funny . . .”

  When the time came to get off the plane, we watched the exhausted new parents and their squawking progeny gather their belongings—which, together, was probably more than my grandparents packed to cross great oceans—and as we grabbed our We-Don’t-Have-Any-Cares-in-the-World carry-on bags, the woman reached out, touched me on the arm, and said, “Good luck.”

  I remember thinking, “Hey . . . we’re not the ones who have to get a cab with fourteen hundred pounds of luggage. Good luck to you.”

  That night, we were getting ready for bed and brushing our teeth and still talking about those people on the plane.

  “Did you see how pale they both looked?”

  “I know . . . both of them . . .”

  “Well, it’s not exactly like you’re going to the beach everyday when you’ve got little kids like that . . .”

  “Hey, no kidding . . .”

  We got into bed.

  “Also keep in mind, they’re older than us.”

  “Yeah, plus that’s their second kid.”

  “Right.”

  “If we have a second kid, I’d definitely want to wait longer than they did . . .”

  “Definitely.”

  “Maybe three years. At least . . .”

  “Definitely . . . and, you know, there’s no telling if we could even get pregnant right away. There’s a very good chance it could take us a year or two for the first one . . .”

  “I know, believe me, I’ve thought about that . . .”

  Then there was a long pause.

  “What the hell just happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have we decided anything here?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I think we did. I think we were snookered. Those people snookered us . . . Didn’t I tell you not to talk to those people?”

  I tried in vain to trace the exact steps and conversations of the previous half day.

  “I mean, we know we want to have kids someday . . .”

  “Of course . . . we’ve never questioned that . . .”

  “So what happened?”

  “Maybe it’s just time.”

  For several moments, nobody said anything. Then I jumped in.

  “Yeah, but we don’t really have any values.”

  “Huh?”

  “When you have kids, you’re supposed to be able to teach them values, instill them with all your values . . . I don’t know if I have any values . . .”

  “You have values,” my wife assured me.

  “Do I?”

  “Sure you do. You do unto others nicely, you never steal, you’re polite to people from other countries . . .”

  “Yeah, remember that time I gave those really long directions to that family from Canada? I didn’t have to do that . . .”

  “There ya go.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right . . .”

  It was very dark, and all I heard was my heart beating in my ears.

  “So we’re doing this?”

  “What?”

  “We’re going to try to have a baby?”

  A brief, sharp noise came out of my wife’s throat—somewhere between a laugh and a squeal.

  “It’s not like it’s going to happen overnight, you know . . .”

  “No, I know . . .”

  We looked each other firmly in the eyes.

  “Are you telling me we’re having a kid because a lady on a plane said something over Cleveland?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It makes no sense.”

  “I know.”

  “So . . . you wanna try?”

  “Yeah. Let’s try.”

  We made an elaborate ceremony out of retiring all birth control paraphernalia (or, as a friend of mine so delicately puts it, “We yanked the goalie off the ice”) and jumped back into bed.

  We laughed and hugged and giggled and kissed.

  And proceeded to not have sex for two and a half months.

  The Big White Elephant

  Once sex is for real, and not just for entertainment purposes, it’s a much scarier proposition.

  So even though we had both officially committed to procreating, we weren’t actually doing anything about it. In fact, we were too scared to even talk about it. Sex became the proverbial Big White Elephant in the room that everyone sees and pretends isn’t there.

  Finally my wife suggested, “Look, we’ll just be casual about it.”

  “Good idea . . . casual . . . we’ll just see what happens.”

  “Yeah, we’re not trying to get pregnant so much as we’re not trying not to get pregnant.”

  Which is not exactly a vote of confidence for your child down the road.

  “We wanted you more than anything in the world . . . but we could have skipped it, too.”

  Looking back, I think I know why we were hedging our bet: If it turned out we couldn’t get pregnant, this seeming indifference might make us a little less devastated.

  And also, there’s this: As happy as you may be, when it comes to relationships, having a kid is the last level of commitment.

  If you break up with someone you’re living with, it’s painful, it’s heartbreaking, but let’s face it: You lose some books, a spatula, some CDs, get a depressing apartment, and it’s over.

  If you get a divorce, it’s more painful and more heartbreaking, you lose more books, more kitchenware, and more CDs, but, facing it once again, you sell your wedding ring, get one of those depressing furnished apartments, and that’s over.

  But if you have children, after all the pain and divvying up of material possessions, it ain’t ever over. You could move to opposite sides of the universe, but you will, in the most physical and intimate of ways, be forever connected.

  Fortunately for the human race, God is a very clever person. You see, by designing it so that the very act of reproduction feels, generally speaking, pretty good, it becomes inevitable that people are going to partake. People tend to like things that feel pretty good. Research shows that the activities involved in making babies are among the most popular, with all key age groups, in all major markets. Furthermore, the majority of people who’ve tried sex said they’d “like to try it again.”

  You have to admire the forethought. Had, for example, the Almighty-and-All-Powerful instead made sex an act of sheer pain and humiliation, how many people would have gotten involved? Not everybody. If our parents had to, let’s say, slap each other in the head with enormous planks of linoleum and crawl hands-and-knees through acres of muddy stink to create Life, I don’t know that we’d all be here today. But by shrewdly linking procreation to an act likely to make you stupid with excitement, God has seen to it that Life does indeed go on.

  (It’s possible, by the way, that this is why God’s name comes up so often in the middle of the act; it’s a salute to the author: “Hey, whoever made this up—thanks.”)

  So, sooner or later, even the most ambivalent of us get worn down by this divine cleverness. And to our pleasant surprise, this Sex for Real was really something. Without those spontaneity-killing trips to the medicine cabinet, there was suddenly a new sense of abandon, a certain devil-may-care flair that put an extra smile on everybody’s face.

  Sometimes you just have to say, “God bless God—He knows what He’s doing.”

  Thank You for Sharing

  My bride and I consider ourselves fairly private people. Between us, we have a handful of close friends who fall into three basic categories: She has a few close friends I don’t really like; I have a few close friends she doesn’t really like; and then, thankfully, we have those special few we both like.

  Babyhood changed that.

  Now we’re suddenly on intimate terms with all sorts of people, including some people that, frankly, neither of us particularly like. />
  Once you start trying to get pregnant, the things you talk about with strangers will surprise you. We found ourselves comparing notes with couples we had never met before. Graphic descriptions of body parts and internal workings are exchanged as casually as directions to the airport.

  “My breasts were so engorged I had to pump every two hours, which, let me tell you—really cracked my nipples.”

  These are people who were simply invited to the same barbecue as us. We met over fruit salad.

  But once people hear you’re “trying,” they just open up.

  “Yeah, my wife and I are trying, too, but no luck yet. We tested my sperm, and Tuesday, my wife’s getting her fallopian tubes Roto-Rootered, and then they’re gonna look around for some of those fibroids. Hey, have you tasted this chicken? It’s dynamite.”

  I certainly understand in theory that if you’re going through an event as universal and wondrous as childbirth, and especially if you’re having difficulties, there is benefit in sharing. But the reality is, I don’t feel like discussing my genitalia with anybody.

  Just announcing that you’re trying seems awfully personal. You’re basically telling anyone in earshot when, how, and why you’re having sex. When did this become acceptable? You certainly didn’t do it before you were trying to get pregnant. If you weren’t specifically trying to conceive, would you stand up at the Thanksgiving table to say, “Folks, just want to let you know—we’re having sex, on the average, two to three times a week, mostly in the missionary position—pass the cranberries?” No. You’d look like an idiot. But by merely having pregnancy as a goal, the lines of discretion and propriety are totally redrawn. You can, and are expected to, share everything.

  And, of course, you then have to provide constant updates.

  “So how’s it going now? Have you had any success with the sex you two are having? ’Cause I know you’re doing it—you mentioned it at Thanksgiving. I guess what I’m asking is, how much are you doing it? For example, did you do it today? How’d your sex go today?”

  People want to be part of this pending miracle. Unfortunately, there’s a very fine line between “So, when’s the good news?” and “What’s taking you guys so long?” Because the subtext there is “So, one of you seems to have a medical problem. Am I right? Is something wrong with one or more of you medically, physically, emotionally . . . ? Huh? Huh? Is there? You can tell me . . .”

  There does seem to be at least a modicum of diplomacy in this area. Couples who are having difficulties conceiving generally close ranks and present one united front, so as to protect the feelings of the one whose body is indeed being uncooperative. They stand behind the generic “We.”

  “We’re doing a few tests.”

  “We’re trying some new drugs.”

  “We don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  Rarely will you hear a guy say, “We wanted to have children, but the wife here is just barren.”

  And even more rarely will they voluntarily take the heat themselves.

  “The problem is—I have dead sperm. My testicles are unwieldy, and my sperm is just dead, dead, dead.”

  When you’re trying to get pregnant, you both take a veritable crash course in biology and anatomy. Names of procedures and body parts that were once faraway places on that big map in your doctor’s office become second nature.

  But for men, this transformation is even more remarkable, because before this, they knew next to nothing. Women at least have a familiarity with the subject. Men? It’s remarkable—sad, but still remarkable—how little they know of the actual mechanics operating within women’s bodies. The whole business is referred to simply as “Down There.”

  “Yeah, they did some tests down there . . . looked around, it’s very fascinating what’s going on down there . . .”

  But once aboard that Pregnancy Train, the education accelerates, and men find themselves giddy with information they should have known in eleventh grade.

  And a lot of them can’t wait to use it. With very little provocation, the words “uterus,” “placenta,” and “vaginal” are popping in and out of conversations like hummingbirds. Ironically, it’s not the guys you might expect, either. The kind of guys who in everyday speech talk incessantly and crudely about women’s body parts are now too embarrassed to discuss the very same subjects in terms of actual anatomy. On the other hand, the kind of guy who excuses himself from a room when someone tells the joke about the hooker and the snorkel-mask is exactly the guy who is now most likely to kick off a conversation with, “My wife has what they call an incompetent cervix, but her clitoris was number one in the state.”

  The Power of a Two-Inch Paper Stick

  During the period we were officially “trying,” there were a few times when we thought we had succeeded. After experiencing one or more telling symptoms, my wife would come in with a very peculiar look on her face and report with absolute certainty, “I’m not sure, but I think, maybe, it’s not impossible, or entirely out of the question, that I may be, potentially, pregnant.”

  To which the only appropriate response is, “Well . . . then . . . ‘Yippee’ . . . possibly.”

  To get just a tad more information, we would then take the next big step and get out the home pregnancy kit. What a nice feeling to know that your entire future will be decided by a two-inch paper stick.

  Before this technology existed, it wasn’t so easy. Hundreds of years ago, if a woman noticed her clothes were getting continually tighter and she felt frequently queasy and exhausted, she had no way of knowing for certain if she was pregnant or simply had eaten some bad boar. She had to settle for, “Well, I guess we’ll know in nine moons, won’t we?”

  But now we simply soil a piece of litmus paper and sit quietly for a couple of minutes.

  During those fateful minutes, I found myself trying to prepare for either outcome, readying every possible emotional response and lining them all up in a row, so on a moment’s notice I could grab the right one. If it came out positive, I was ready with, “Oh-my-God-what-wonderful-news-this-is-so-exciting-and-wonderful.” If things went the other way, I had “Damn-it!-What-do-we-have-to-do-to-get-pregnant?” equally loaded and set to go. And over in the corner of my brain, so as not to be too conspicuous, was the third and least noble alternative, “Okay-to-tell-you-the-truth-I’m-a-little-relieved.” I was ready for anything.

  After waiting the prescribed number of minutes, my wife investigated, double-checked and triple-checked, and then looked at me.

  “Guess what color it is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “What color is ‘pregnant’?”

  “Blue.”

  “Okay . . . I’m going to take a wild guess here . . . is it . . . ‘blue’?”

  She thrust it out in front of me the way someone would fan their cards if they had an unbeatable straight flush.

  “Blue.”

  Sure enough, there was a distinct blueishness to it.

  The stakes were just blatantly and boldly raised. It was then I realized that all the other times we thought “This is it” were just feeble little minor-league moments. Melodramatic dress rehearsals. This was the this that was it.

  It reminded me of when I was a kid and used to think I heard someone breaking into our house. I would grab my baseball bat and, with the stealthiest of superspy cool, stalk the halls, looking to clobber the guy. Then one time, while casing the place with my Louisville Slugger in hand, I heard a really loud noise which made me think there really, really was someone in the house. I promptly threw down the bat and tore out of the house just a hair faster than lightning. You may think it’s real, but when something comes along even realer, you understand that up till then, you were just playing around.

  Though my wife and I were both very excited, I wasn’t ready to start sending out birth announcements. Part of me didn’t completely trust the test, and the rest of me was just really scared.

  “You know, it ma
y not definitely be true.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said.

  “I’m just saying these things aren’t always a hundred percent accurate.”

  “They’re accurate.”

  “Yes, but not all the time. So, I mean, you may be pregnant, but . . .”

  “I am pregnant.”

  “Yeah, no, I know, I’m not saying you’re not . . .”

  “The stick is blue.”

  “Yeah, but not by a lot.”

  She looked at me suspiciously. “Why are you doing this?”

  “All I’m saying is, it’s barely blue. It’s a very light blue. Like ‘sky blue.’ Sort of ‘bad rental tuxedo blue.’ ”

  “This, pal, is what they call ‘baby blue.’ ”

  “But I think it’s supposed to be dark blue. Like navy blue.”

  She took a deep breath, looked down at the paper stick, and then slowly back up at me. There was a shadow of doubt in the jury’s mind.

  “It’s blue,” she said, with a tiny pause after the “blue” that sounded like “. . . isn’t it?”

  She made an appointment to see the doctor the very next morning.

  When she came home, I was on the phone. I looked up and eagerly mouthed the word, “So?”

  She motioned that she’d tell me in a minute.

  I needed to know.

  “What’d he say?”

  She smiled. “Get off the phone.”

  My stomach tightened, made a fist, and punched me in the kidneys. This could only be one thing. She wouldn’t make me hang up to tell me there was no news.

  “Are you pregnant?” I mouthed, wide-eyed in disbelief, still holding the phone to my ear.

  “Hang up the phone and I will tell you.”

  “I-have-to-get-off-the-phone,” I mumbled to somebody.

  SLAM.

  “Okay. Tell me.”