Ariel Gore: Pregnant Again

Folks say I’m not supposed to tell everyone yet, but I’m pregnant again. Ha, ha!

By Ariel Gore

Editor, Hip Mama

Author, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights

I don’t remember feeling quite this uncomfortable the first time, but it’s been seventeen years.

I remember barfing a lot back then. Now I just feel nauseous. My belly aches crampy, I have to pee, I’m breaking out, and my tits feel heavy with the occasional shooting pain from the side.

Some things don’t change: I’m still uninsured. But this time I’m in America, where we think universal health care is an evil communist-terrorist plot to take away your freedom. I’ll have to pay a visit to Adult & Family Services tomorrow and see if they can hook me up. Otherwise, it’s $3,300 for the midwife. and just hope we don’t end up in the hospital.

All that aside, I’m super-psyched. It’s easy to lose track of the joy of life-force in the presence of an evil biological-societal plot to get us bogged down in the physical and capitalist details.

Weird cultural things:

1) So, right. You’re not supposed to tell anyone until you’re twelve weeks along. This is, apparently, because you might have a miscarriage— and although it’s fun to share good news, it’s taboo and embarrassing to share bad news.

But doesn’t the silence make death in general and miscarriage in particular just that much more unspeakable? If I had a miscarriage, would that not be part of life?

2) Every stinking thing I read about pregnancy still seems to refer to “your husband” or “your partner.”

If they’re talking about second pregnancies they mention “your preschooler in the house.” WTF do they know about my husband, partner, or preschooler?

3) The first reaction of a certain close relative who shall remain nameless was:

“WHAT? Is this a joke? Well, did you go to the NOBEL Sperm Bank? WHY didn’t you go to the Nobel Sperm Bank? I would have PAID for you to go to the Nobel Sperm Bank!”

(One Nobel Prize-winner approached by said bank is rumored to have responded, “You want to produce people like me? Ask my dad. He’s a cab driver.”)

4) The internet. I know information is power... but from the Trying to Conceive “TTC” people to the newly pregnant “BFP” (Big Fat Positive) ones blogging about the ultrasounds they get every fifteen minutes to see if their blastocyst has turned into an embryo has turned into a fetus and grown the appropriate millimeter? Or, "This cramp is normal but this one means you’re going to die?"

Sometimes it seems more like a World Wide Swamp of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Paranoia breeds in there. I know life is worrisome, but the attempt to micromanage things you can’t control doesn’t help. Makes it worse. It’s like this culture is so stuck on itself that we can barely handle something so human and average and chaotic as women getting knocked up and having kids.

ONE DAY LATER

I paid that visit to Adult/Family Services this morning. I qualified for state insurance, the worker told me, but I’d have to provide proof of my pregnancy.

“I just did a home test,” I explained. “I haven’t been to the doctor yet because I don’t have insurance.”

The worker handed me an address. “They’ll give you a free test,” is all she said.

I found myself, about a half-hour later, trapped in a pink wall-papered room with a frail blond woman about ten years my senior lecturing me on “the kind of relationships GOD wants you to have,” and handing me a brochure entitled The Only Safe Sex is No Sex Until Faithful Married Sex.

“Are you for or against abortion?” she asked.

“I’m pro-choice.”

"FOR ABORTION" she wrote in all-caps across my intake sheet.

Later, my seventeen-year-old daughter Maia yelled at me for not yelling at the woman. It’s funny, she's  accustomed to seeing me pitch a fit in her defense, but when it comes to my own defense I’m shy.

“It’s intimidating,” I try to explain. “These people have the power. They decide whether or not you’ll get insurance. I’ll file a complaint.”

Maia shakes her head. “Oh, no. You should have gone off on her. If they deny you insurance for going off on someone who went totally Christian on you, we will sue them and we will win!”

What can I say? Hallelujah.

Ariel is an old friend and writing mentor of mine. Yes, that's her tummy at the top, from her recent book tour.  Several months ago she interviewed me for  How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead. Despite its seemingly hyperbolic title, I recommend it for its stark honesty and dark humor... her advice is sound— and her pregnancy is going well!