Thank you so much for the reviews! I can't tell you how much I love them, so please keep them coming!
I've got a little job for you guys: Suggest names for baby girl Cohen! I just can't seem to find a good name... so please help me!
I don't own anything.
Seventh Month
"I just don't understand how you even consider that!"
"Why? No one would let the dentist pull out a tooth without anesthesia..."
"Now, that's different."
"Why?"
"Cos you're going to miss something wonderful!"
"What's so wonderful about pain and yelling?"
"Forget about the pain for a second... all you have to do is breathe... breathe in ... breathe out..."
The guy sitting across from me, starts to pant like a dog.
"I just don't want to!"
"Don't queue up! Millions of women did it before you!"
"Yes and thousands died during the process."
"Don't be so negative. That's not good for your baby!"
"I'm not negative. I'm just realistic..."
"You just have to relax and abandon yourself. It's just like sex."
"Just like sex? No wiener is as big as a baby! Even if some men would like that!"
"Did you think about your little Honey once in a while? With a cesarean she just gets pulled out into the cool neon light in the OR..."
"Maybe she'll be happy to take the short form... you don't like traffic jam in a tunnel either."
"You again! A cesarean just isn't a real birth."
"That's the idea in the first place!"
"You'll feel terrible afterwards! Ask other women... depressions for weeks... they didn't feel connected to their child... didn't feel like a mother... My wife had all her babies at home. In the bathtub. Just a midwife and family. While listening to relaxing music. And you really notice it. Our child's are a lot calmer then others."
In front of me sits a expert to the subject of birth. Luke Ward. 33. Threefold father. We know each other from high school. He was a water polo-player who used to beat up Cohen. But they became really good friends after he discovered his Dad was gay. Long story... anyway, we met by a coincidence and when he saw my belly he insisted to invite me for a vitamin cocktail.
I take a sip while he keeps going on about his three births.
Ryan told me later that Kelly, his wife, put sleeping pills into his beer the last time, the contractions set in. She drove to the next hospital and had the baby with an anesthesia. She probably was sick of the wonderful home births in the bath tub.
Cohen wants a soft birth. Preferably a home birth.
I don't want a birth at all. I suggested that he has the baby while I'm going on a trip to Paris.
There is a wonderful book Kirsten gave me during her last visit. "The miracle of birth". She also told about giving birth to Seth. Thirty eight hours of contractions, plunger, blood, sweat and tears.
She said at the end she didn't care if he came out alive or dead. The main-thing was to get him out at all.
I don't think she really forgave him, till today...
"Terrific - the way you do that!"
I bang my boobs together, in a way that would make Cohen and every other guy really happy.
e feel the floor of our pelvis. It's the word of the hour. Till today I didn't even know my pelvis has a floor.
There we are. Ten women with different size of belly's. We're doing some kind of belly dance. Somehow I landed in a esoteric prenatal class.
But all classes are booked out so I'm happy to be in one at all.
I'm not afraid of giving birth.
I'm not afraid of giving birth.
I'm fucking afraid of giving birth!
Well maybe those guys can calm me down. I let my pelvis circulate. Can't be bad, right?
A strict looking women in her sixties, she reminds me of a sergeant not a midwife, asks us to tell something about us.
Rose is first. Rose is thirty and expecting her second baby. She looks so chunky and healthy that I really asking myself what she's doing here. She'll pop her baby out within two hours and go back to hay harvest afterwards.
"... after forty eight hours I was dilated five centimeters only and the doctor already wanted to do a c-section but I struggled myself against it and hung on. But it was just terrible. I'm afraid it's gonna be the same this time. I do all my practice and get acupunctures but..."
"Why don't you just get an anesthesia this time?"
Everyone looks at me.
Total silence.
What did I say?
"Why don't you just get a gun this time?" Maybe that's what they understood.
"I'm just saying... it would hurt a lot less... I've been told..."
The midwife looks at me pity full.
"Some women do it naturally."
"A injection in the spinal cord. No way!"
"That's no real birth!"
"You don't feel anything at all."
"Is that what we want?"
"No!"
"Doctors are devils!"
"Exactly!"
"Women had babies for centuries without that stuff!"
Ten faces looking at me with horror and disgust.
"I'm just saying... I'm afraid it might hurt so why don't..."
I just can't keep my big mouth shut.
Again silence.
"In theory..."
Silence.
"You've got to get through the pain, otherwise you shouldn't have babies at all."
Okay - that's it! I grab my stuff and I'm outta here. May these chicks feel as much pain as they want to, but without me!
I think nothing in the worlds splits us some much as the subject of birth.
I'm not telling anyone anymore that I consider a cesarean. Cos the few times I did they reacted like I just told them I want to quarter Honey.
It's interesting that every men I told about, agrees with me... besides Luke but he doesn't really count, cos he's is an idiot.
If men would be the one to give birth there would be a complete pain free technique by now. Or they wouldn't be any births at all. What man would push out a ping pong ball out of his wiener (which is the right criterion in my eyes)? That's right! Not one! They would just get a sterilization.
But they expect us to have babies like back in the dark ages...
"Three weeks left."
"It's a little bit more, Summer. Your due is not until..."
"I'm not taking about the baby, jackass. I'm taking about my job-interview with Vogue. It's in three weeks."
"So? That's great?"
I'm looking at Cohen. Men are clearly from Mars. Maybe they're of a whole different solar system.
"That's great! Am I supposed to show up there with that belly?"
"Why not?"
"Cohen, were do you live? Nobody hires a pregnant women these days. And even if... how I'm supposed do handle that? Baby's, cry, shit and get sick..."
"Uh hu..."
"I think I just cancel the interview... or I show up in a bunny-costume. That would distract. I could also tell them that I will hire five nannies that care for the baby 24/7 and the only baby I take care about is my new one. Called Vogue."
"Good idea!"
"Or you could do the child-care. There is maternity-leave for men you know... It's not so unusually these days."
"No good idea!"
"Why not?"
"Cos I make more money than you."
"Not if I get the job..."
Cohen is starring at me. He's sweating like a pig.
"A child needs its mother."
"And its father."
Touchè. Show me how you get out of that one.
"I can't sit at home all day. I'll go crazy. We never agreed on that! You just can't ask me to do that, Sum! She's your daughter!"
"It's okay, Cohen...", I get up and grab my purse.
"Where are you going?", he's looking at me concerned.
"Getting a bunny-costume."
With that words I close the door behind me. If women would talk such crab like he just did we wouldn't have any baby's. That was just classic men-talk.
But I really can't ask him to give up his job. After all it was me who set down the pill.
Without his knowledge.
A few days later Cohen is still insecure because of our little fight. He keeps on having phone conversations behind closed doors. I know that one. He's talking to my father. Getting tips how to handle me.
At that subject they like it each other. Just let me screw something up and they are best friends. Right now he gives him a lot of smart sayings like:
"Let her bawl!"
"Don't spoil the child!" (He missed that boat years ago!)
Oh, and I don't have to get myself a bunny-costume. Those guys from Vogue rescheduled the date.
Hopefully that'll happen a few times, so I'm thin again when we have the interview.
Alexis 555-701-234
I just found that note in a drawer of Cohen's desk.
Alexis?
Who's Alexis?
And for what was I looking in his desk anyway?
A lot of very good questions and I can't answer one of them.
All I know is that I don't know an Alexis and Cohen better doesn't too.
I was looking for his life-insurance-policy. Just to check if me and Honey are taken care of in case something happens to him.
Shit! I just should've asked him. Now I feel like a stupid sniffer.
And I can't also can't ask him about Alexis...
"Who's Alexis?"
"What Alexis?"
"The one who's number is in the upper drawer of your desk."
"What were you doing at my desk?"
"Dusting."
"Dusting, you?"
"Yes me."
"Inside of the drawer...?"
No... I clearly wouldn't get out of this one.
I'll just forget about her and take a bath.
"Hello? Hello, somebody there?"
I drop the handset noisy. No wonder. I just got out of the tub and am still all wet.
I just couldn't stand it in there anymore and had to call that Alexis. And some Alexis really answered.
She sounded very attractive and very young.
But now let's forget about her! Cohen loves me. I'm going to make myself a sandwich.
Red Hair. And Cohen's rolls around with her. No wonder. We didn't have a sex life for the past few weeks... And if we did then just stupid spoon-style.
Ouch.
I just cut my finger.
"Blond hair."
"How would you know?"
"I just know it!"
"Sum, take a hot bath!"
"Already did!"
"Then it was too hot."
"I was only in for three minutes."
"You're hysterical."
"Am not!"
"You're pregnant."
"Yes, but..."
"No 'but'. First you just saw buggy's and baby-bottles everywhere and now your neurosis found a new object."
"Coop, the note was real."
"Summer, I'm in the middle of a meeting here... We have a major-crisis! There are people with reals problems here, you know. Call me if you catch him with some other women in bed, what won't happen, because he loves you. So get yourself a cup of tea, put on some Mozart and take your vitamins!"
Click.
She just hung up on me.
Coop just hung up on me.
She's crazy, thinking I'm crazy.
I need some vodka! Something to calm me down. Well, I guess I have to stick with Evian.
Whatever! I just have to get out of here.
The lighthouse is jammed that day. A lot of beautiful people in designer outfits. I wear tracksuit pants. The only normal that still fit. I'm also the only woman around here with a little overweight. All the others are more underweight. I don't care. I produce life. Or at least a somebody to pay my pension.
I wedge myself into a corner, not without almost threw some glasses of the other tables.
I order a big piece of chocolate cake with a lot of cream and a meat loaf. My eating habits are still weird sometimes.
I'm just going to forget about that whole crab. Coop is right. I'm hysterical. In another month I probably start crying if a horse kicks a horse in the northern Mongolia.
I eat a piece of my meat loaf and shove a bit of cream into my mouth when I notice another cutie.
Five tables away. Black suit. White shirt. No tie. No jewelery. Expensive watch. Sassy handsome. With a even more sassy smirk.
Brad Pitt left Angelina Jolie.
George Clooney dyed his hair.
Robert Redford got cloned thirty five years ago and that's the result.
I didn't even know that guys like that exist.
And he's looking in my direction. That's at least what I imagine.
Oh my God. What's that beating? Do they still redecorate?
Wait a sec. That's my heart. What's going on with me? I love Cohen! And Cohen has some Alexis number in his desk.
He smiles at me.
Maybe there's a nice picture at he wall behind me. Nope. Yellow wall.
On my left a couple making out. On my right a couple fighting. Maybe he's amused by that.
He peers! That's it! Poor boy.
Okay let's just smile back.
His smirk is getting wider.
Yes! A man is checking me out! That didn't happen for months! Well since the belly is visible.
Now I know what's going on. The tabletop covers my stomach. From where he sits I look like every other women. Not like a ton.
That's brilliant! If you wanna feel good as mother to be you just gotta come here and hide your belly under the table.
I feel like a new woman. I'm sexy. I'm hot. I'm nervous.
Shit.
Then he gets up. Probably home where eight naked models are waiting for him. Well, it was nice to feel at least for a few seconds like before the pregnancy. I bite into my chocolate cake for comfort.
"May I sit with you?"
The cake spreads over the table like a Jason Pollock.
All I manage is a small nod.
"You know I like women who can enjoy. Most women sit there with a bottle of Evian for hours. And who already put on weight if they just look at a cake. May I invite you for a piece of apple pie?"
I nod again - spineless.
If he'd know the real reason for my excited appetite.
We talk for two wonderful hours. But then I feel it. More and more.
I've gotta pee. Right now. Get me a bed-pan. Get me a catheter. I don't care.
Sebastian - that's his name - talks about everything under the sun and it isn't just nonsense.
"...and that was when..."
"Ouch... yeah interesting... ouch..."
"Is everything alright?", he looks at me concerned.
I nod slowly. Honey just kicked my bladder. It's about to explode any minute now.
Sebastian goes on talking. He still sounds clever.
"Blablablablablablabla..."
"Yes... yes"
It's no use. I don't even understand him anymore. I need a toilet. Now. Right now.
I put on a charming smile and get up.
"Would you excuse me for a second?"
His eyes are par with my belly. He looks like I just pulled out a chain saw and run amok with it.
I smile at him brave, while going through the tables.
"I'll be right back, then we can go on talking."
When I come back Sebastian is gone. Of course. What did I expect? As soon as a guy sees my belly I turn into a neuter. Not that I wanted in bed with him. I love Cohen. I can imagine sleeping with somebody besides the father of my baby. There're probably women who have no problems with that, but there's no way I could do that.
When I sit down I notice that he already paid the bill. He also left a little note with his phone number. He apologizes. His pager. He wishes me luck with the baby and I shall call him when I had it. Or if I wanna talk sometime.
Hey, that guy isn't just good looking. He's also nice.
Now I'm invisible again. Time to go home.
Cohen has some Alexis-number - I flirted. I think we're even.
So I paddle home happy. To my darling.
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