Maternity Leave by Trish Felice Cohen Read Free Book Online

have told me my boobs looked bigger or that I was glowing?
    I replied, “I’m only two weeks pregnant, I’m pretty sure I haven’t gained weight.”
    “No,” Sarah said, “you’ve gained at least four pounds, I can tell. Do you know that I only gained fourteen pounds during my entire pregnancy? You’ll be that big in six weeks.”
    “Weren’t you eleven when you were pregnant?” I said as I grabbed my coffee.
    “No, I was sixteen. What are you doing? You can’t have coffee.”
    Damn it! I forgot about the nine months without coffee aspect of pregnancy. I grabbed the decaf and added a ton of sugar and cream to it. I’d get real coffee later when no one was looking.
    Sarah started telling me the details of her weekend: the free martinis she received from hot guys, the people who mistook her for being her daughter’s sister, getting carded at several bars, finally giving into temptation and getting a belly button ring…She was in the middle of asking me whether I thought she should get a “Truth” or “Honesty” tattoo in Chinese lettering above her right boob, when a secretary walked into the kitchen. I decided that the secretary could take my place as a captive audience and walked away without answering her tattoo question.
    I shut my office door and Googled pregnancy. I figured that the ban on caffeine was not the only thing I should know about as an expectant mother. I found a website with a week-by-week description of pregnancy and bookmarked the page. This would come in handy. I looked at week two:
    This may sound strange, but you’re still not pregnant! Fertilization of your egg by the sperm will only take place near the end of this week.
    What? I read on and discovered that pregnancy, which is forty weeks long in its entirety, is measured from the date of the knocked-up individual’s last period, even though ovulation and fertilization doesn’t take place until two weeks later and it’s another two weeks before you miss a period and test positive for pregnancy. This means that by the time a woman pees on a stick, she’s already a month pregnant. What a deal, first month is free.
    In my imaginary world, I tested pregnant before I even ovulated. Oops. Thank God no one seemed to notice. I found it impressive that while I was not pregnant, in actuality or by the medical definition, Sarah could tell I was pregnant. She really does have a sixth sense. I skipped ahead to week three. Nothing much happens there either, though I should apparently experience spotting.
    After work, I met Danny in the garage below my office. As per the usual schedule, Danny started playing bike bitch, pumping my bike tires and filling my water bottles while I changed into cycling clothes. After this ritual, we generally rode to Davis Island or St. Petersburg to meet up with other cyclist friends of ours.
    Bike bitch is actually a narrow definition for Danny’s role. In addition to being my bike mechanic, Danny acts as my unofficial teammate at unofficial group rides several times a week. We also usually travel together to each race in Florida and Georgia. Danny tends to be my regular bitch as well. In the two years I’ve known him, Danny has acted as pest control (removing roaches, rats, raccoons, opossums, dead squirrels and other vermin from my house and yard); driver (to the airport and races, occasionally driving through the night to races while I sleep in the back seat); and handyman (snake my sink, build me a deck, fix my air conditioner, build me a fence).
    Danny’s actual occupation is massage therapist and cycling coach. As a result, he works odd hours and often has downtime during the day while I’m at work. Thus, in addition to the aforementioned duties, Danny tends to be on-call for me unless he’s working. Danny refers to my assignments as JRAs or Jenna Related Activities. I should clarify that Danny is my best friend, and when I call him from work to ask him to crawl through my doggy door and get the dead