THE FEELINGS I DON’T FEEL
The ultimatum comes after a huge fight. We’ve had this argument before, but tonight he’s even angrier with me. Tonight he has had enough, enough, of waiting for me to have “the feeling.” You know, the feeling. The way women talk about how much they want to have a baby, how much they can’t wait to be pregnant, to be a mom. The feeling I don’t feel.
He says, “You said you wanted to have a baby!” And I say, “I do! I’m sure I do … but I just don’t have the feeling yet. I’m only thirty-one, we still have time —”
He cuts me off: “We’ve been married for four years!”
“I know, and it’s been awesome! What’s the rush to have a baby? I’m just not ready yet!”
I’m not ready yet. Or actually sure I will ever be ready. I’ve never had the feeling or anything close to the feeling. Not even a twinge. I haven’t felt the magical desire to be pregnant, to give birth, to care for a baby who will turn into a child and then into an adult, and for the rest of my life be tethered to me. And I worry. I worry that a baby will change everything between us; that once we have a baby, our carefree, comfortable, love-drunk feeling will be gone. We won’t be able to go to the movies on a whim anymore, or eat in restaurants four nights a week. Or be able to sleep in, or sleep at all! We’ll no longer be a nation of two.
But he wants to be a dad so badly. I remember when we first met, he said, “You are the mother of my children.” The funny thing is, I had that same feeling about him, this strange biological imperative, that he was the father of my children. Even before we were a couple. But the idea was more romantic than real for me.
His jaw is so tight, and he grits his teeth at me in the way he does when he’s angry. His face is so close to mine, his finger pointing right at my chest but not actually poking me, just close, so close, and he says through clenched teeth, “I never would have married you if I knew you weren’t going to have a baby.”
“WHAT?” I say. It comes out like a croak. And then tears, so many tears. He never would have married me? Does he mean he only did it so I’d make him a dad?
He asks me to get off the birth control. He says he’s done waiting for me to have “the feeling.” I cry and cry and say, “Okay, okay …” because I think I will lose him if I don’t do this. I reason with myself: I may never have the feeling, so what the hell, why not just get pregnant?
After the tears, the long awful night, he’s back to his kind, funny self. I feel better, too. I’ve resigned myself to the idea that my body, mind, and life are all about to change forever. I’m committed to doing it. I mean, babies are cute, aren’t they? Sure. And they become funny little children eventually, and I definitely like those. Maybe “the feeling” is bullshit; maybe all those other women are just making it up! Maybe this is just another thing I’m afraid of. But I never let fear stop me, so why would I now?
I go off the birth control. My doctor warns me that since I’ve been on it for so long, it may take up to a year to conceive. So, I approach getting pregnant like I approach most things in life — I produce the shit out of conception. I go online and learn how it all works — how long the egg lasts once it’s released and how long sperm lasts once it’s inside of me. I figure out when I’m ovulating next, plus or minus three days. Then, based on how long the egg and sperm are supposed to last, I come up with a plan: We need to have sex eleven days in a row, with my approximate ovulation date somewhere in the middle.
“As long as we do that, we’ve got to hit it!” I say, and The Husband is pleased with my calculations. He kisses my forehead, and I feel amazing because if he’s happy, I’m happy. And I love when he’s so admiring of my ability to estimate numbers quickly and accurately — how long it takes to get somewhere, the gratuity on a restaurant bill, the price of an item that’s 65 percent off, and now, what the formula is to make a baby on our first try. Which is exactly what happens.
On the calendar in our kitchen, I plot the eleven-day sex-a-thon. And we have fun, excellent sex on each of those eleven days. One month later, we’re driving in his parents’ town, and suddenly I feel so tired. I’m a little dizzy, and I just feel weird. And then I know. I’m pregnant. Just like that. Just like that, driving in our little car it hits me: I’m pregnant. I don’t know why I know it, but I do, and it’s the most certain I’ve ever felt about something I have no proof of.
I see a drugstore and pull the car into the parking lot. “What do you need?” he asks, and I tell him. Fifteen minutes later, we are back at his parents’ house, up in the bathroom together with the door locked like two teenagers hiding something. He sits on the edge of the bathtub while I pee on a stick. He reads the instructions fifty times, even though I tell him not to worry, I’m a pro at these tests.
He looks at the stick. He looks at me. I’m pregnant. I’ve just given him the thing he wants most in life. He looks happier holding that positive pregnancy test than I have ever seen him, before or since.
BUILDING
When I’m six months pregnant, we sell our awesome downtown condo and buy an old house in the north end of the city. People will dispute “north end” and they’re right, but to this downtown girl? It feels like we’ve moved to the treeline.
The reason we’re here above the treeline is me. Even though I’ve lived downtown since I was nineteen. Even though I love living within walking distance to everything and being in the centre of it all. Even though I love living in an apartment, I am the one who pushes us to buy a house away from it all. Me. I know. It’s like I’m a totally different person now that I’m pregnant. A person who thinks “the right” thing to do is to live in a house because a baby is coming. Even though we could have made do in our condo, or just bought a two-bedroom. For some reason, I’m stuck on the idea of a house. A baby needs a bedroom! A baby needs a house! And it should be quiet, so a baby needs a detached house! With a backyard! And a driveway. With a garage! Make it a double!
So this is why we’re here, in an eighty-year-old house, with a leafy backyard and a double garage, nowhere near downtown. Nowhere near any of our friends or favourite restaurants or parks. Nowhere.
There are only two things I enjoy about being pregnant — one is that my hair is as shiny and curly and healthy and beautiful as it’s ever been or will be. The other is that I can feel her moving around inside me. And she moves a lot. “What’s she building in there?” I always say, quoting a Tom Waits song and imitating his voice as I do it, which always makes The Husband laugh. I just can’t believe how much activity there is in my own body! Sometimes, I’m lying down and part of my belly just changes shape as she jabs some appendage into the wall of the sack she’s growing in, which just happens to also, miraculously, be part of my body. Beside me is her dad, as silly and adorable as ever. He grabs at the appendage and manages to hold it for a second, and I feel her fight to free herself from his grip. It’s like they’re playing together already, even though my body is between them, and I feel increasingly removed and lonely.
How can I be lonely with another human being inside of me? I mean, you can’t get closer than that can you? I also have a husband who’s wanted to be a father for so long. He’s so jazzed by the whole thing, but my body hurts. It’s uncomfortable, and now I can’t play soccer anymore.
I play in a co-ed league every Thursday; it’s the thing I look forward to most each week. I love my team and the way everything disappears while I’m on the field. Now that I’m pregnant and can’t play anymore, I feel like a huge part of my life is missing. Instead I sit at home on Thursday nights with my uncomfortable new body, eating too much while trying not to think about soccer, or how once the baby