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When my second trimester rolls around, thankfully, the tiredness starts to subside. But as one thing fades, another takes its place: now I have medical appointment after medical appointment. Every other week, I go up to the sixth floor of the clinic downtown, check in, and take a seat with about ten other pregnant women. It always seems to be a different nurse that calls my name, and when the doctor finally comes in, she’s very obviously in a rush. She runs through the list of questions she needs to ask and things she needs to look for based on the number of weeks I’m along, and she does that efficiently. Then I leave.
As I ride the elevator back down with a bunch of strangers, I can’t help but wonder if any of the staff actually cares how I’m doing. It sure doesn’t seem like it. I feel more like a number than a pregnant woman.
Some would say that I shouldn’t complain because at least it’s paid for. Beggars can’t be choosers, and all that. And that’s true: it is being paid for. Because Scott and I don’t earn very much money, and we don’t have medical insurance offered through our jobs, we have health insurance through the state. I show my card every time I check in for my appointments, and half the time the clerk behind the desk pulls an attitude over it, rolling her eyes and raising her nose. I hold my ground, though, and refuse to feel embarrassed. Maybe it’s because I feel that health coverage is a right. Besides, I’ve worked hard in this country, and continue to work hard, and I feel like it’s not really my fault that medical insurance isn’t offered in some other way. Through the state is the only way that it’s available to me, so that’s how I get it.
I remind myself not to let it get to me, and I try to push it from my mind as I drive home. I take a deep breath and turn into a grocery store to grab some snacks for while I work on my essay later. I know I’ll be hungry. That’s another thing about the second trimester: my appetite is going crazy. Now, instead of being tired all the time, I’m hungry all the time.
Every day between classes, I drag my classmate Carrie with me to the Burger King on the edge of campus, where I religiously order four things from their dollar menu: a salad, onion rings, french fries, and a pie. As I pack it down, we talk about parenthood and what kind of mother I’m going to be. I will not put my child in daycare, I tell her. Never. My child is not going to be shoved off on to someone else to look after. My baby will be the most important thing in our lives.
“That’s awesome!” Carrie says. She tells me about a friend who worked in a daycare and took care of little three-month-old babies. “There was never enough time, you know, to give them all the attention they needed, so basically they just sat there hanging out, nobody paying any attention to them unless they cried.”
“How terrible!”?I say, because it seems to me like there’s something wrong with a system that devalues babies like that. I’m so glad Scott and I have planned it so that one of us will always be at home with our child. I’ll have our baby right after school ends, and I’ll have the whole summer at home.
But there’s a lot to do before then. I start going through our stuff, thinning out, making lists of things we need: crib, blankets, mobile, lamp, rocking chair, baby books, picture frames. Scott starts clearing out the spare room, placing our computer in the corner of the entryway, moving our spare bed up to the attic, making room for a crib. He wonders if our landlord will let us paint the walls.
“I’ll give him a call later this week,” Scott says. “I need to remind him that it’s time to renew our lease anyway. I’ll ask him about painting. What do you think, should we go with a light green?”
“I think a pastel yellow would be cool. Why don’t you grab some paint color samples from work and we’ll pick a color together?”
Later that week, Scott meets me at the door when I come home from school. “Bad news,” he says.
“What?”
“We have to move.”
My first thought is that he must be kidding. But of course he wouldn’t joke about something like that, so my disbelief is quickly replaced with a wave of panic. I don’t want to move. We’re comfortable here. The baby’s going to be here in four months. I don’t want to have to look for a new place to live, and pack. “Why?” I demand.
It turns out that our landlord wants to get rid of the separate apartments and rent the whole house to a bunch of college students. He can get more than he’s making now if he rents it to a group of college students for three hundred each. It’s not personal, he said. It’s business.
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