Jen Kirkman - I Can Barely Take Care of Myself

I left the mall without the NYDJ jeans, but I treated myself to a frozen yogurt because I felt I’d earned it after walking and standing for thirty minutes in a row.

The people who will tell you the truth in this situation are gay guys and your mom. I don’t really have any gay guys in my life anymore. (I have a theory that gay guys are closer with straight women when they’re both at a period in their lives when they realize that they like penises but aren’t quite sure how to go about interacting with them. Once gay guys come out, it’s just a constant hunt for dick, working out at the gym, and buying dog beds. The straight-girl friend isn’t coming over for any more Friday-night sessions of singing into a hairbrush to En Vogue’s “My Lovin’ [You’re Never Gonna Get It].”)

But it took a gay guy to make me realize that my stomach full of burritos looked like a baby.

I was at a happy hour with a friend. We were standing around chatting when a gay man-friend of hers came running over. It was pretty loud already (we were in a gaycentric restaurant, so it’s always a nightclub no matter what time of day). Natasha introduced me to her friend and said, “This is Jen. She just got married this year!” The oontz-oontz of the bass was too loud for him to hear her correctly, but he could tell that a woman was standing in front of him and another woman was excited for her and there was news. He shrieked in support and you didn’t need a quiet bar to hear the international language of “someone thinks you’re fat.” He put his hand on my stomach and said, “Congratulations! When are you due?” I wanted to go back to my local senior center and undo my vote in support of gay marriage.

MY MOM GETS to see me on television about once a week on Chelsea Lately . She’d been at home reclining in her chair over the past few months and noticing that her daughter Jen’s normally pointy chin was becoming very round. She thought to herself, This is beyond the camera adding ten pounds. I wonder if Jen is pregnant. She’s been married for seven months. She could be.

One day, I was sitting in my Spanx and eating my second bagel of the day in my office, e-mailing with my older sister Violet, who is also a member of the childfree-by-choice club. (She has three cats, a pony, and two horses; she prefers her living, breathing responsibilities to have fur, a shorter life span, and no need for a college education.)

I waddled away from my desk to head to the kitchen for a third bagel and I forgot to lock my computer. I left my Microsoft Outlook open. Chelsea walked into my office and composed an e-mail to my sister.

Violet, I’m pregnant. We didn’t want to have kids. It’s a mistake. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep the baby. I want to talk to Mom about options. But you have to tell her. So call her on my behalf tonight.

Chelsea walked out of my office. I waddled back into my office. The only thing I saw was an e-mail from my boss Sue, telling us we could go home early. I shut down my computer, never checking my sent messages. I stopped by the kitchen to grab a fourth bagel for the ride home. My cell phone started ringing during my commute. It was Violet. I was driving, so I ignored it—I was too busy singing along to Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” in between bagel bites. My sister calls me a lot and usually she doesn’t even want me to pick up, she just wants to narrate The Bachelor into my voice mail. “Jen? It’s Violet. What’s up? Oh my Gawd this girl is such a geek. She’s cryin’ because she didn’t get picked to go on the helicoptah ride.”

I went to bed that night having never called Violet back. In the morning, I listened to her messages.

First message: “Jen, I got your e-mail. What the hell is going on?” I was still waking up and thought, What the hell is going on? What e-mail?

Second message: “Jen, you’re pregnant? You really want me to tell Mom? Let’s at least talk first.”

Third message: “Jen, I called Mom. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her but I did tell her that you have something to tell her. So call her this morning.”

I called Violet and she read me “my” e-mail to her. She believed me when I told her that Chelsea wrote the e-mail, but convincing my mom that nothing was wrong would be another story. I bit the bullet, called my mom, and said, “So, Violet told you I have something to tell you?”

My mom couldn’t stop the panic in her voice: “Jennifah, what is it? Is something wrong in yah marriage?”

“No, Mom. Everything is fine. Listen, Chelsea broke into my computer and e-mailed Violet, telling her I was pregnant.”

The panic in my mom’s voice shot off like a rocket: “Jennifah, you’re pregnant ?”

“No. I’m not pregnant. Chelsea was playing a prank.”

“Well, Jennifah, why would she do that if you’re not pregnant?”

“Mom. Do you know what a prank is? You don’t spread truths about someone if you’re pranking them. She was kidding. This conversation that you and I are having now is exactly what Chelsea wanted to have happen.”

My mom’s rocket tumbled back to earth and now her voice was somber. “But you really ah pregnant, aren’t you?”

And she was off and running before I could even get a word in. “You know this is so funny, Jennifah, because I was watching you on TV the othah night and you know I think you’re a beautiful girl but your face is so round. It’s just like a pregnant woman. You look like you-ah filled with water, like a balloon…”

“Mom!”

“Oh, Jennifah, what ah you gonna do ?”

So my mom had just done two things that are probably not in any handbook called A Normal Parent’s Reaction to Things. First, she lamented that her married, thirty-five-year-old daughter might be pregnant. Typically moms are laying a guilt trip to convince their thirty-five-year-old married daughters to have children. I’ve always thought that mothers who ask their children to provide them with grandchildren are acting like Joe Francis, the mastermind behind Girls Gone Wild: Come on! Take your top off for the camera because it will benefit me! It disturbs me on one level that suddenly, marriage invites people’s parents into the bedroom. At a certain point, we all have to admit that parents asking their children for grandchildren is really just a polite way of parents asking their kids to get down and fuck. Come on, honey! Take your pants off and let my son-in-law penetrate your vagina without a condom. I know I raised you to be modest but I must ask you, just this once, to put a pillow under your butt and get those legs up over your head so that when he ejaculates his sperm inside of you, it just slides right into your uterus and makes me a grandchild on the first night of your honeymoon!

Second, my mom essentially confirmed that the camera had added its magical ten pounds to the twenty pounds that I’d added to myself and I looked like a human water balloon.

I stood outside of a Starbucks, shouting into my BlackBerry, “Mom, don’t worry, I’m not pregnant!” as people stared while making awkward attempts to hold the door for me. It was like the opposite of the conversation that Madonna had in her song “Papa Don’t Preach.” I wasn’t in trouble deep and I was not going to keep my baby—because there wasn’t one.

I’M NOT MAKING fun of my mom and I’m not just saying that because she’s going to read this. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love having a mom who, if I were pregnant, would automatically ask, “But what about your career?”

There’s an article tacked to my corkboard that my mom ripped out of a magazine. The headline is “Child-Free by Choice” and the byline is “Not sure motherhood’s for you? You’re not alone.” My mom wrote on a Post-it note: