Читать книгу Alone: A Love Story - Michelle Parise - Страница 16

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.