Everyone talks about having a baby, becoming a mom, giving birth. Most women I know have at least considered taking on this project at some point in their lives, and most of the ones who wanted to have achieved it. The thing you cannot possibly realize - that is, until you become a mother - is that you don't give birth to your children. They give birth to you.
Before I had kids, I was a professional French horn player with a Master's from Juilliard who lived and worked in New York City. I freely accepted whatever gigs came my way, which were plentiful and enjoyable. I was a very fortunate musician indeed - surrounded by kind and talented colleagues, traveling with a cherished woodwind quintet who was under professional management (with my clarinetist husband, no less!) and generally making a livable wage doing something I loved more than anything else in the whole wide world. Then at some point while living uptown on Fort Washington Avenue, my clock started ticking. No - gonging, really. I covertly perused the pregnancy section at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble, buying armloads of how-to books and baby name guides and carting them home on the A train. It hit me - I wanted a baby. Bad.
Steve, to his credit, was a good sport about the whole thing. I mean, considering the fact that we were freelancing with no regular jobs or assets or even guaranteed health insurance, he took it all in stride. In retrospect, ignorance probably had a lot to do with our nonchalance about this monumental decision. I distinctly remember discussing a possible baby with our (childless) accountant, and her wide-eyed response - "It's a total lifestyle change." Of course, she also knew our pathetic financial situation, so that probably had something to do with her rather candidly concerned reply.
I suspected something was up while playing at Bard with the American Symphony Orchestra during the summer of 1999. My concentration was nil, I was constantly exhausted, and was inhaling chickpeas at the salad bar for every meal (found out later they are chock full of folic acid). We bought a pregnancy test, which felt for some reason like we were doing something wrong or even strangely illegal (Yikes - the high school clerk knows we had sex!!!!!). All three tests I took were negative. We gave it a break, finished our gig, and drove up to Maine. Our honeymoon, three years earlier, was in a lovely little town called Damariscotta, and we had decided to return there for a short vacation before returning to the city.
I still had no answers, so our first stop was the local drugstore. Fortuitously enough, they had the store-brand PG tests on sale for $1.99!!! You ladies out there know what a good deal that is, so we bought 10, and one expensive pee stick, just in case the cheapos were expired or something. I stuffed the goods in my purse and we crossed the street to have lunch.
The service was slow. REALLY slow. We ordered beer, and I told myself that it was ok, since apparently I was not yet pregnant despite my instincts. I quickly realized that I had the tools that would determine the course of my entire life sitting next to me. There was no way I could possibly make it through what might (at this rate) be a three-hour lunch without knowing, at least not without trying to know. Excusing myself without explanation, I headed to the ladies room, which was just a one-toilet deal (for you locals, like Strawberry Place has). I knew I had to work fast. Whipping out a test, I did my thing as fast as I could and put the cap on. That's when I heard someone knock on the door. Cursing under my breath, I shoved the stick into my bag and walked back to our table.
Sat down. Tried not to look Steve in the eye. He was raving about the clam chowder when..."Are you ok?" I assured him in my most casual voice that of course I was, and tried to shovel a spoonful of chowder down my quickly closing throat. Shit, he was on to me. Staring now. "Um, you didn't, you know, open...a...um...didn't do, you know...". He couldn't even spit the words out. I knew by now the test had a result, and all I had to do was look down in my bag next to me to see it. I couldn't speak. "You did, didn't you?"
I looked down. Two lines - one in each window, one blue, one pink. I frantically tried to remember what the little diagram looked like - two was positive, yes?? I mean, why would they have a line appear in both if you weren't pregnant? Yes, two was good. Oh, so very good. I looked across the table through my tears into my husband's coffee brown eyes, wondering if our baby's would match. He leaped out of the booth and threw his arms around me, then suddenly backed off and wrapped me in a tender embrace, as if I had in that moment become something precious and fragile and needing to be protected.
And, of course, I had.
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