No, I am not pregnant (yet)

just eatin good

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Every year, as the angry sun melts the Eucerin right off my legs, I feel the pull to Bernville. Bernville is where all roads are back roads and the only mistake you can make, save for leaving, is not adding a buttery soft pretzel to your ice cream order at the Amish spot. Bernville also happens to be where my best friend’s mom Jolee lives with her wife Meredith.

Let it be known that I am one of those friends who’s never satisfied with just you. I need your family, too! I’m a real parents’ girl. The kinda girl you (platonically) take home to your mama and (hopefully) leave feeling like your world just got a little smaller in that comfy cozy way. Now that I think about it, I have close relationships with at least six of my friends’ moms. Che bello.

I started going to Bernville with Rachel in, say, 2018. It quickly became home base whenever we needed fresh air and the distinctly honest and forgiving ears of women who are married to other women. I feel like I could walk into Jolee and Mer’s and announce, “alright, guys, just killed my entire family” and they’d be like, “we’re grilling zucchini and salmon at 7. Go get some sun and we’ll talk about it later.”

I arrived in Bernville earlier this week in a daze. I’d just gotten my period, which meant I’d just stopped taking the Prozac I’m now prescribed for 14 days of my menstrual cycle. LoopyyyY! Now, it’s important to note that I’m kinda the drinker around Jolee and Mer’s; I don’t often refuse a beverage when I’m spending the day poolside. So when Rachel offered me a selection of beer and seltzers and I passed, she hit me with the gravest side eye known to man…

“DANTE????” she shrieked.

Dante is one of Andrew and I’s baby names which, if my memory serves me, initially came to *Rachel* in a dream and was later reinforced by Knicks shooting guard, Donte DiVincenzo. So what she was asking was, “BITCH, ARE YOU PREGNANT????” So incredibly not with child, I told them I’d rip a shot of vodka right there if they needed proof. Sucked my bread-bloated stomach in a bit.

All evening, I found my mind drifting into babyland. Dante. Carmen. No, Graziella like Andrew’s zia. But what about Sloane? Oh, Andrew hates Sloane. Sloane is not Italian. Enzo. Francesca. Definitely Carmen. Marinara-stained onesies. Mafia baptism. Amen and grazie Dio, I was born to birth.

Rachel was not the first person to question my womb of late. “How’s the whole ‘trying, but not trying’ thing going?” another friend asked last month. “Huh?” I replied.

Let’s spend a second with that word, “trying.” I say '“I’m trying” a lot. Sto provando, I tell my Italian friends, despite knowing they would use cercare or fare in such contexts (maybe Sloane is the best option after all). I am “trying” to hold these jumpy fragments of life together and dizzy myself wondering, how am I gonna do all this as a mom? We are not “trying” for a child right now. In fact, the plan was to maybe start “trying” toward the end of this year, but as we gear up to Airbnb until we find a home, I can’t imagine “trying” to do much more than convince another seller to fix a roof.

—

I’ll be 33 on July 8th. I told that to my boss’s boss—an SVP at the big, scary company where I work—as we passed oysters around the table of a dark restaurant.

“Do you want kids?” he asked.

“Absolutely. We can’t wait to be parents.”

“My wife and I got married when I was 30, so we had kids a little later. And we had a lot of trouble, so I tell everyone that if you want them, get on it. We have three girls and we would have had four, if we could have. Seriously. Get on it.”

A shockingly tender conversation unfolded between us and I thought to myself, no way is this guy encouraging me to take the four months paid maternity leave already.

—

Back in Bernville, we were sitting by the pool, eating dinner as the sun bid its farewells. Yogurt marinated chicken, garlicky labneh, grilled veggies, white rice. Citronella candles burned their sweet poison into the atmosphere. This is summer, we all agreed.

“I can’t believe you guys thought I was pregnant. I’ve got beers to drink.”

“Girl, you’ve got all the time in the world.”