When Girlfriends Step Up (4 page)

Baby. I’m going to have a baby.
 

I’d forgotten for the past few minutes that I was actually going to have a baby.

“Do you have those mock-ups ready?” Janet asked, breaking my train of thought. I really needed to get into the motion of the workday.

“Mock-ups? Yeah, they’re done.” At least one thing was going right so far that morning.

“Can I have them?” she asked bluntly.

I moved small stacks of papers around my desk, searching for the early sketches she wanted of a project we were working on together. Normally I didn’t team up with someone on a book cover design, but the request to have “two minds on this one!” came from the top. We had to collaborate together, and where the design went from there neither of us knew.
 

I bet Janet wishes she knew. I bet she wishes she was a corporate bigwig. Ah, who am I kidding? She wouldn’t want to stick around to become a bigwig of some tiny firm like this.

Janet cleared her throat only as an audible sign of annoyance with my disorganized habits.

“As soon as I find them I’ll give them to you,” I said, hoping my nervousness wasn’t obvious by the timid tone of my voice.

She rolled her eyes and resumed her work. “Just make sure I have them before lunch.
I
don’t want to look bad by turning them in
late
.”

Late.
The one word that was quickly summing up my existence. Two months late. Pregnant. Nearly an hour late to work. Mock-ups late. Fired?

Suddenly my cell phone rang and I claimed it from my purse as quickly as I could, paranoid I would further tip Janet’s anger scale. I didn’t recognize the phone number, but then it dawned on me that I had left my number with various doctor’s offices that morning.

I answered the call, trying to keep my volume to a minimum. It was, as assumed, one of the obstetricians calling me back with appointment information.

“Uh, I don’t know,” I said to the nurse who was asking how far along in my pregnancy I thought I was. The last thing I’d want to have happen was let Janet figure out that I was knocked up. I knew exactly how far along I was, though. I’m unlucky in love, so that one-night stand was without a shadow of a doubt the “lucky” date. Yet saying things like “ten weeks” or “two cycles ago” would be a giant announcement that I was expecting. Especially when eavesdropping Janet already knew I had been calling the doctor that morning.

I lied, telling the nurse that I wasn’t sure, then she started estimating on her end and I gave her a sharp, “That’s probably it!” when she neared my number. A few more questions about a healthcare provider, whether I had been pregnant before, if I was seeing any “signs of a possible period,” and if I had taken a home pregnancy test (Hah! Try six!), and I started thinking,
Is this ever going to end? Janet and the whole freaking office are bound to find out now.

It was finally settled, and with as much discretion as I could muster. The following Thursday I was to have my first checkup, which included an ultrasound.

Ultrasound? Like a baby picture? Baby’s first picture?
 

I kept thinking about this as the nurse confirmed my appointment and information. I couldn’t shake the thought from my mind as I began to set about my day’s workload.
 

I’m seriously having a baby. It’s official. A baby.

As lunchtime neared, and after I found my mock-ups and shared them with Janet, I scribbled
Need Girl Night
on a bright pink Post-It note, with a little star above the ‘i.’ The baby was official. The first doctor’s appointment was official. It was high time to break the news to my girlfriends. Oh, yeah, and Brandon. Minor annoying detail there.

“Another challenge; one step at a time,” I mumbled to myself, causing Janet to turn in my direction. She asked me what I was talking about and I didn’t dignify her with a response. It was none of her damned business. I was going to have a baby. I was going to be a mother. And I was also going to get that PM position. I just had to!

***

I looked up from my computer screen, tearing my eyes away from the practically blank digital canvas I was working on for a new mystery novel, and checked the time. It was near closing time for the day and I wasn’t anywhere near where I wanted to be on this darn cover. My creative juices weren’t flowing very well; it was difficult to think of an appropriate image for a book filled with neighborhood robberies and a high stakes kidnapping when I had my first ultrasound on the brain.

What would the baby look like? Would I already be able to see its little hands? Its little feet? What about its face? Could I tell if it was going to look like me? Or like Brandon… Would it be a little boy? Or a little girl?

Enough was enough. Another thirty minutes or even an hour at my current project wasn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference. I would come in early the next morning and get a jumpstart on it. Until then, I needed to round up my girlfriends and set up a get-together. And I deserved to go home. It had been a rough day, having already thrown up twice—once after a turkey sandwich for lunch and once after I mistakenly had a bite of an oatmeal raisin cookie from the break room. Cinnamon was still off-limits, at least until my second trimester rolled around, at which point my morning, afternoon, and all-times-of-the-day sickness would pass. That is if that baby book knew what it was talking about.
 

“Going home?” Janet asked, while I started to power down my computer. “Already?”

Oh she could get on my nerves. I calmly replied with, “Got done what I needed to for today.” She looked at me skeptically and went back to her business.

Before gathering my belongings I typed on my cell phone:
Must do girls nite!! Dinner+drinks Thur at my place?
I scrolled through my directory and selected “Claire,” “Jackie,” and “Lara,” then hit send. Hopefully all of the girls could make it. I had some
big
news to share. The thought of having to wait a couple of days until Thursday night was driving me bonkers.

“Have a nice night, Janet,” I said, toting my stuff out of the office as I began dialing Sophie’s cell number.

Janet made some response, but I was distracted by Sophie’s chipper answer.

“Hey, Sophie,” I said. “Guess what?”

“You got your raise?” Sophie’s voice was full of excitement.

“Yeah, I wish. That’s not until the next month or so. Still a ways off. But I
did
get myself a doctor’s appointment.” I tossed my purse and files into the back of my car, then quickly surveyed the parking lot beforehand to make sure no one could overhear my baby-bundle news. “And guess what? I’m getting my first ultrasound then!”

“Oh my God! Like, baby’s first picture?”

“Yup,” I said, smiling ear to ear. “I’m so excited.”

“I was going to ask how you’re feeling about all of this. This is some heavy stuff, girl. But it sounds like you’re really positive about it. Like you’re happy.”

“Well, ‘happy’ might be a little bit of an overstatement right now. I mean, I guess yeah, in a sense, I’m happy. This is a pretty crazy thing happening to my body. To my life. Getting to see this little guy’s picture—”

“It’s a boy?” Sophie shrieked.

“I don’t know yet. I was just saying—guy, girl—whatever.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Anyway,” I said, “It is exciting and crazy what’s happening, but I’m still really…scared. I guess it’s still surreal right now. Maybe it’ll become more real when I actually see the little guy. Or girl.”

I didn’t know if it was the pregnant woman hormones that made me feel elated one minute, and scared to death the next about the pregnancy, or if it was the simple fact that I was going to be a single mom. And I had big baby-daddy problems ahead of me. One moment I’d be happy over this big life change and the chance to really do something special, like raise my very own baby, and the next I’d think about the whole mess of a situation and how none of it was ideal. It was an emotional roller coaster, and I was ready to get off and leave the park. Too bad I had another seven months to go.

“The appointment is next week, on Thursday,” I told an eager Sophie. “You want to come?”

“I was going to ask if I could, but that day’s no good. I’ve got a
huge
order that night. There’s no way I could ask Katie to let me off the hook.”

Sophie worked for a bakery and catering company called
Katie’s Kitchen
over in Belltown, a bit of a ways from where I worked, across Lake Union. She had big dreams of some day owning her own bakery and café. And last I heard she was heavily pursuing them, trying to get a business license and all that stuff figured out. I hoped she did open her own shop up. She had the determination and ethics it would take to run a successful bakery in the competitive culinary capital of Seattle. And she made a mean pastry. And her cupcakes! I could be on my deathbed from eating too many sweets, and if she walked in with one of her vanilla-raspberry swirl cupcakes, I’d willingly die one happy woman.

“I wish I could go with you, Robin,” she said. “I can’t get out of it at all. I bet Lara will be free. You should definitely call her.”

Before Sophie could inevitably ask when I’d share the baby news with Lara, I said, “That’s another thing. I texted the girls that we need a girls’ night. Wanted to see if you were free this Thursday? After work? Dinner, drinks, whatever—my place? Figured I’d spring the news then.”

“Count me in, girl! And I’m sure Claire can make it without a problem, too,” she said. “I’m pretty certain she doesn’t have anything going on this whole weekend, in fact.” Sophie was still temporarily living with Claire and Claire’s long-term boyfriend, Conner, since Sophie had moved out of Brandon’s apartment when they broke up. I thought Claire and Sophie hung out together all the time before, but now that they were roommates it was rare to see them apart. If they did have to separate, they were at least woven into each other’s planner somehow each day.

“Oh and I’ll see you in a few, right?” I asked. “You’re still up for coming over tonight and helping me figure out the, uh,
situation
?”

“Thirty minutes sound good?” Sophie asked, ready to get back to our plans of telling Brandon the news.

“See you then!”

During my drive home, while getting three ebullient texts, all from the girls letting me know that they were certainly game for a girls’ night, I started to reflect on how I would approach Brandon with the news that I was carrying his child. Sophie would be meeting me at my apartment any moment to help me figure out just that, but I had no idea where to start, and we hadn’t gotten very far in our plans the previous night.

What would I do? Pick up the phone, dial his number, and then once he answered just sit there, mouth agape, speechless? Or randomly show up on his doorstep and say, “Hey, guess what?” And what if he wasn’t home? What if he didn’t pick up the phone when, or
if
, I called? Would I gather enough courage to attempt a second time? A third? Would I
ever
be able to reach him? And how would he react if I
did
get the chance to tell him?

At that moment, I thought I felt a tickle in my tummy, as if the baby was giving me a little sign that he or she was really there. It was probably silly, since my baby book said I wouldn’t be able to feel any movement until my fourth month or so. And even then it might only be very light and unnoticeable.

“Probably just nervousness,” I said to myself, as I turned into my neighborhood. “Probably butterflies.”

***

Sophie poured me another glass of cold, refreshing water as I dug into my Caesar salad.

“Thanks for grabbing dinner on your way,” I mumbled through my mouthful of lettuce, parmesan cheese, and croutons. She told me not to worry about it, that I needed proper nutrition and strength since everything I did was for two now.

Sophie took another bite of her salad while fanning through the pages of the baby book, then suddenly said, “Oh! That reminds me.” She pulled some items from her oversized bag. “I picked up some stuff for you today while I was out at the market getting some ingredients for work. Here.” She produced a bag of tea leaves, some dried Chukar cherries, a bag of mixed nuts and dried fruits, and a small bag of organic, gluten-free cookies.
 

I couldn’t help but chuckle over the healthy options Sophie scored for me. “Gluten-free and organic?” I asked her, looking bemusedly over the ingredients listed on the back of the brown, paper bag-like packaging. “Does it say somewhere in that book I can’t eat any gluten? Or that I’m restricted to eating cage-free only eggs or roam-free bird eggs or whatever the heck they are?”

She playfully rolled her eyes and explained, “They just looked good. Figured you could try them out. They won’t do you any harm. But this other stuff is really good for you. And beneficial for the baby. Like this.” She held up the bag of tea. “This is
decaf
tea, Robin. You can’t drink caffeine while you’re pregnant, so try this.”

“What?” I think I had heard somewhere long ago that pregnant women couldn’t consume caffeine, but I’d never paid much attention to it. Back then, it wasn’t like I was going to get pregnant any time soon and needed to heed anti-caffeine warnings.

“Why not?” I asked, snagging the bag of less-than-appealing tea from her hands. “Why on Earth not? I’m still supposed to go to work, right? I’m still supposed to wake up in the morning and function, aren’t I?”

“Chill, girl!” She snatched back the bag of tea. “The
book
says you need to stay away from caffeine. It’s not healthy for the baby. The book says that it can stimulate the baby, like it stimulates you.”

“Well I hardly doubt one tiny cup of coffee is really going to stimulate the baby. It hardly stimulates me.”

She gave me a childish headshake. “Baby comes first. No caffeine.”

At first I conceded reluctantly, but the more I got to thinking about how this baby was relying on me for every single thing, the more comfortable I became with readjusting my life to suit the baby’s important needs. It wasn’t that I was
going
to be a mom. I was
already
a mom. Everything I ate, drank, and did would directly affect my baby.