Exploiting My Baby by Teresa Strasser Read Free Book Online Page B

compromised cervix and a poorly shaped uterus ... the horrific stories take center stage in my mind, linking arms in a kick line, glittering in gold leotards, blinding me with a show-stopping, heartbreaking, attention-grabbing, relentless song and dance.
    A throng of people in line at Starbucks, a swarm of drivers vying for a spot in the Trader Joe’s parking lot, a crush of humanity at a downtown sample sale, I dispense with all of this proof that human beings are having no trouble reproducing themselves and decide instead that it’s a wonder any of us made it out alive at all and I should follow the common practice and keep the pregnancy mum for twelve weeks.
    This is the hardest secret I’ve ever kept, so I constantly fantasize about telling people, about telling everyone.
    This is followed by mentally rehearsing how I will disclose losing the baby. Will I even use the phrase “lost the baby” or just keep it clinical, tell them I “miscarried” with a brief medical explanation and a sunny sign-off about how we’ll try again next month? Will I send out a group e-mail, subject line: “sad news”? Or maybe I’ll have my husband roll the miscarriage calls, while I sit next to him listening and quietly weeping, turning a lamp on and off like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction . Of course, in this mental rehearsal, we are always perched in a cozy nursery, which makes the vision even more poignant, because I’m sitting against a freshly painted, pale yellow wall on a nursing rocker I won’t be needing with a couple of sad little plush toys on my lap. My pregnancy hormones are like an endocrinological remote control, constantly switching the channel in my brain to Lifetime.
    “Are your boobs sore?” asks my friend Lucy, who has three kids and used to be the anchor of the morning news show where I worked as a field reporter.
    “Yes. Very sore,” I answer.
    “You’re pregnant,” she says decisively. “Trust me. You’re still pregnant.”
    I have long chats with her on the phone while she puts on her makeup to anchor the evening news in Houston and I stroll endlessly around the block asking a million questions about pregnancy and knowing that I won’t have to un-tell her if I miscarry, she will simply know, because she is one of these women who seem to have magical mommy powers. And this is the beginning of something I will feel throughout, a kinship with anyone who has a baby. I’m in the club; just barely and maybe not for keeps, but I’m in the club.
    Lucy is the only person I tell, before I even get the official results from the blood test my doctor takes. Well, the only friend. I yap about being pregnant to any and all strangers, valets, waitresses, and sales-clerks because I will never see them again and won’t need to un-tell them. And I love saying it, finding ways to jam it into any conversation.
    Waitress: “Welcome, can I get you a drink?”
    Me: “I wish I could order a cocktail, but you know ... I’m pregnant . So what would be a good drink for someone in my condition? Which is pregnant?
    Dry Cleaner: “Your shirts will be ready Thursday.”
    Me: “Oh, great. That’s perfect, because I want to wear these shirts while they still fit, because I’m getting bigger. Because I’m pregnant . So, see you Thursday. I’ll be the pregnant one, in case I lose my ticket.”
    Lady in line at bagel shop: “I think you were ahead of me.”
    Me: “Oh, gosh, thanks so much. I’m so hungry these days, because I’m pregnant .”
    Valet: “Garage closes at midnight.”
    Me: “I’m pregnant .”
    Non sequiturs will do when you really can’t work it in organically. It becomes this secret between me, my husband, my fetus, my doctor and any service industry professional or stranger who gives me twelve seconds of their time. It reminds me of using a fake name when I was a teenager hanging out at the arcade at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, where I grew up. That person, “Andi,” was my much cooler