Carrie Friedman - Pregnant Pause: My Journey Through Obnoxious Questions, Baby Lust, Meddling Relatives, and Pre-Partum Depression

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible if Newsweek hadnt published my essay in the summer of 2007. I thank them and everyone who responded to my article for inspiring me to write this book.

I interviewed a vast number of incredible women and men for this book and am extremely grateful for their time, generosity, and thoughts. I thank my agent, Stacey Glick, for her tireless efforts and persistence. I dont have the words to express how much I want to thank my editor, Danielle Chiotti (though, being the brilliant editor she is, shed probably find those perfect words). I also want to thank Amy Pyle and everyone at Kensington for acting as the glue that holds this book together more firmly than the binding.

Many thanks to my earliest readers for being brutally honest, and to my friends and sister, Meggan, my mother, Lili, and my brother, Andrew, for indulging in lengthy discussions with me and offering terrific insights. And I cant forget the great Nicky Weinstock, who introduced me to Jane and Miriam in the first place.

A final thank you to my phenomenal husband for buoying me with his love, patience, and support all these years.

CHAPTER ONE

The Baby Train

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

ELIZABETH STONE

It was our third hour at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, and my husband, Stephen, was practically making love to his audio guide, a long telephonic device he held to his ear and listened to as if the female recording was whispering sweet nothings to him. If he could French-kiss her he would have.

We were in a fight. Over breakfast at our hotel that morning, Stephen read in an American newspaper that men also had a biological clock. He then went on to say, quite casually, that hed like us to hop on the baby train sooner rather than later.

For him to say this aloud meant hed been thinking about it a great deal. Stephens a brilliant writer; he does not throw words around. The newspaper article was probably just the cherry on the sundae.

WHAT? I shrieked so loud youd think I just found a roach in my Flakes di Frosted.

The explanation for my scream was simple: we had said we would wait. For the last two years, wed been enjoying each other, traveling as much as possible and focusing on our careers. Twelve years Stephens junior, I had assumed my youth was a gift: we could put off having kids longer than most of his friends, who by now were in their forties and saddled with three or four children.

Not once did I consider how it must be for Stephen to have no child-free friends leftno one to go out to movies with at the last minute or out for drinks and a guy chat because most of them coached their kids little league games after work or raced home to spell the wife while she took a much-needed rest. I never thought about how this was affecting him.

Am I holding you back? I asked him, as we took an after-breakfast stroll through the Piazza del Duomo.

Stephen thought about this. (He had to think about it!)

No, he said, a little too hesitantly for my taste. But if we start now, Ill only be 59 when the kid graduates from high school.

My heart sank. Another side of his struggle I hadnt even thought abouthis age and issues with mortality. Im an awful wife, but, in my defense, its easy to forget Stephens age because hes so young at heart, runs ten miles a day, and takes care of himself so well.

Im reminded of this fact as we climbed Giottos bell towerall 280 feet of it. I tried to keep up with him as he took the steps two at a time. Meanwhile, I lost feeling in both my arms. Between my huffing and puffing, I told him, This isnt a unilateral decision, you know.

Oh, I know, he said. Hence, we dont have kids yet.

Had he been making concessions all this time? And if so, why didnt he speak up sooner?

But Im not yet 30! I said, pausing on the seemingly never-ending stairway to a view of Florence that had better the hell be worth it. Ive got a lot of life left to lead!

Its not a degenerative illness, Carrie. Its having a kid.

He had a point. Why did I associate having children with an end point? Ive always loved kids, yet I felt like Id be giving up my own life in order to bring another one into the world.

I think Im going to throw up, I said, and sat on the steps in the dark, mildewy stairwell. I felt a swirling, all-encompassing nausea. If my fingers and toes could throw up, they would have. Believe me, it wasnt the heat or the stairs. It was terror. Suddenly, I was seeing stars. And plastic primary-colored baby equipment littering our custom-designed living room back home. I saw spit-up in my hair and on my shirts. I saw my computer and social life collecting dust.

As we photographed the bronze doors of the Baptistery, I thought about how different it was for men. They could say casually, over eggs in a foreign country, that it was time to bite the bullet and start a family, and that was it. For a woman, it was to say good-bye to her life and body and career as she once knew it. Everything will be turned upside down. And while Ive always wanted to have children, would I ever fully be ready to give my life over to that kind of insanity? Stephen could go back to work the day after the birth if he wanted. He could escape.

Right before we left for our Italian adventure, Stephen got a phone call from one of his best friends who told him he and his wife had their baby that morning. My husband asked the name, weight, and details. Not two seconds after the baby information was imparted, the friend changed the topic and started discussing Battlestar Galactica and the latest exciting episode. I couldnt believe it! For a second, I thought it was a different phone call with someone else. But it was the same friend. They talked for twenty minutes about Battlestar Galactica. Now look, I know its a great show, but the man just became a father. Was the TV show really that good?

When my husband got off the phone, I asked who brought it up. He said his friend did. I was shocked. His wife, I guaranteed, hadnt had a conversation of that naturea normal conversationsince giving birth and probably wouldnt for the next four months. All her conversations would be about breastfeeding, sleeping, pumping and will include lovely words like nipples and engorged. If a female friend of mine told me shed had a child earlier that day and I basically said in response, Cool! Hey, did you catch Greys Anatomy last night? Id be unfriended swiftly and for good reason.

Someone told me that men almost need to talk about something else in order to convince themselves and others that nothing has changed. Yet the mothers are forced to face this change head-on, with baby and breast pumps suddenly replacing all the time they had to watch TV, let alone brush their teeth. Stephens life will go back to normal in a matter of dayshell return to the office and go about his routine. But my career will take a brief hiatus at best, and at worst, itll disintegrate entirely as I learn a new vocabulary of baby words. Stephen can play tennis the same week I deliver, should he so choose, whereas Ill be a waddling mess of leaky fluids.

Looking up at the stunning cupola del Brunelleschi in the cathedral, I whisper-yelled at Stephen, Well of course youre ready to have kids! You wont be the one who has to take care of them! Even my whispers echoed off the walls.

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