The following is a monologue I wrote for my non-fiction writing course:
Surrogates
I was about fourteen weeks along when I realized that I hadn’t told very many people that I was pregnant. Starting to show, and not wanting people to just think I’d let myself go, I still couldn’t bring it up. I thought of it as on a need to know basis, despite the fact that the big risk of miscarriage had passed. A friend then told a bunch of our mutual friends when she was only 6 weeks. They were all thrilled for her. Then I felt like I was stealing her thunder, so I waited even longer.
What’s weirder still is that I thrive on being the center of attention. There I was, at the attention gleaning opportunity of a lifetime and we’d told no more than three people.
I started to wonder, why hadn’t I told anyone. Was I not happy? That wasn’t it. I was ecstatic. Following doula bloggers and researching the baby slings and debating which handsewn stuffed animal my baby would like more, the fox or the raccoon. I’d started crocheting a baby blanket in white months before I’d ever gotten pregnant.
So why not tell anyone? Why not let them be happy with me.
Because it seemed like no one was. I’d called my mom on Skype, so that I’d be able to see the reaction of the first person I told. We chatted a while about the new year and I told her she was going to get to be a grandma. I thought she seemed happy, so I said something like, “I figured you might have been wondering when this might happen.”
“Well, you didn’t have to do this for me.” She told me. I sat there a minute, watching as her gaze drifted off screen. “You’re not doing me any favors.”
But, my mom has never really been one to like kids, unless maybe it’s some cute kid that said something funny on Jay Leno. This didn’t come really as a surprise. I mean, who knows better that someone doesn’t really like kids than her own kid, right?
I didn’t tell anyone else for close to two whole months after that. Not even when I had morning sickness around the clock. Not even when I was having heart palpitations every day. Not even after my doctor walked out in the middle of my first check-up because she thought I’d had a miscarriage. Not even, three days before Christmas, when my ultrasound doctor told me to come back in seven to nine days if I hadn’t had a miscarriage. Instead of gifting grandparents with surprise children’s books or bibs, I sat and opened gift cards, clenching my legs together, as if that might be able to stop what seemed to be inevitable.
I focused on that little being I’d seen on the monitor. Something my husband and I said looked like one of those candy circus peanuts. We said we’d be ok to tell people after the next ultrasound came back ok. Then they said that the baby’s heart had been just fine all along, but, I still couldn’t tell anyone. I just hung out. Pretending like I just felt a little down, or was fighting a cold.
It wasn’t until I told my dad and his wife that I started to be ok again. We went to breakfast, the four of us, one of those breakfast places that has omelets and gyros on the same menu. I sat in the booth and was speechless when Julie guessed that I was pregnant before I even had to tell her. Instead of surprising them, they surprised me. My dad was beaming and I had to look away when I saw the tears in his eyes. But I couldn’t shake the fact that she’d guessed it. She said she’d had a dream that I was pregnant, that she’d already thought about telling her brothers that she was going finally to be a grandma. There was no way she could have known. I was dumbstruck. I just kept asking, “how did you know”. Not just suspected, but been so sure that she’d want to tell people.
“Sometimes, a mother just knows.”
I was glad my dad was excited. But, that was the first time I’d felt like I had a mother in years.
My next reveal was my roller derby team. If you’ve ever watched any of the media reports on Roller Derby, you always hear about how derby is played by moms, women that tuck their kids into bed and then sneak out to strap on skates and be badasses. But, my team happens to be the exception. I happened to be on a team with mostly childless women. And by childless, I mean the kind that made fun of other girls that had to miss the after-parties when the sitter backed out. The kind that celebrated on Facebook when their husbands finally got vasectomies. I was dreading the tell. It felt to me to be the equivalent of telling your baptist congregation that you’re gay. I was about to be excommunicated.
We were all together at a basement party, me with pineapple juice to pass as a cocktail, and for a second, I thought about not saying anything. But then, I’d have to tell more people one on one, which seemed harder. I held up my plastic beer mug. “I’m not drinking.”
I’d braced myself, but I actually flinched at the sounds of the shrieks. Jump-off-your-bar-stool and spill-your-beer shrieks. Everyone ran over and hugged me. There was a circle around me, coo’ing, looking at my belly. The child-haters, as it turned out, seemed to hate every child but mine.
Now, when they see me, they say, “hey mama”, ask how I’m feeling and tell me about the prenatal yoga class at their studio. They’re throwing me a baby shower with my team theme, anchors and sailors. They show me cute fabrics with little jellyfish on them, because they know I’ll like it, in case I want them to help me make curtains.
The day after I told my team, my heart palpations stopped.
I once knew a woman who told her grandma about her exciting news, only to hear, “don’t worry about it too much. You may still miscarry.” Sometimes, you just have to know that your family is going to let you down, even though they think they’re keeping you up. It’s not just my family or your family. I mean, everyone’s family has that streak to it.
Lots of other parents are going say stuff to try to scare you, even though you’re already pregnant. Especially when you’re already pregnant. People ask if you’re supposed to be drinking that coffee (even though it happens to be decaf). Then some co-worker will assure you that you won’t be less of a woman, just because you get an epidural, even though they didn’t have pain management when she had her boys. How, just wait, you think it’s bad now. Your kid will never sleep. You’ll never sleep. You’ll never have sex again. Your house is going to be trashed and it’s going to be 18 years before you take a vacation that’s not to Disney.
I’m not going to tell you any of that. Chances are, someone already did. And it didn’t help. And it’s probably not even true, but what do I know. What I’m going to tell you is that you’ve got to find your family—no matter who they are. If your aunt won’t talk to you because you got pregnant before her daughter did, then you don’t have to talk to her. If your mother-in-law thinks you just did this to and keep her son from going to medical school, tough shit. If your mom just wants to be called “Darlene” instead of “Nana”, oh well. Find someone else to be “Nana”.
Chances are, your kid will end up with more surrogate Nanas that way. Your kid can never have too many Nanas.
It's a little Teenie Weenie 