Stork Reality

Vodka Baby - Excerpt from Stork Reality: Stories from Unplanned Fatherhood A friend of mine, who loved martinis, told me about an old habit he’d had before he’d given up drinking. He would take the toothpicks from his martini olives, and after finishing each drink, he would put the toothpick in his shirt pocket. He did this so he could remember to stop drinking after he had four toothpicks and so he would have some reference point for his total number of drinks after a blackout. There I was, staring at four toothpicks on the table while sitting across from my very pretty girlfriend. I was counting the toothpicks and trying to remember what I was supposed to do after I’d collected four of them when another round of martinis arrived for my girlfriend and me. In my bed an hour later, I asked my very pretty girlfriend if she was still on the birth control pill. Her response: “No. I stopped taking it.” After four—maybe six—martinis, this answer got all twisted around in my head, and I distinctly remember her saying, “Yes, I’m still on the pill. Don’t use any kind of protection. Let’s just enjoy this amazing moment and ride the roller coaster of new relationship endorphins.” I fell into a deep, postcoital sleep secure in the knowledge that my new girlfriend and I would continue to eat out every night and maybe think about planning a trip to Italy soon. My girlfriend’s mood began to have some significant fluctuations about five weeks after the above-mentioned evening of vodka consumption. At the time, I assumed these were run-of-the-mill PMS symptoms rearing their ugly heads for a few days. But after week six, I arrived home from work to find my girlfriend dissolved in tears. “I’m pregnant,” she said. My logical, male brain assessed the situation both in the moment and in the context of our entire seven-month relationship, and within .82 seconds I responded, “That’s okay. We’ll just get an abortion.” For some reason, the sobbing intensified. A voice somewhere in my head let me know that I may not have assessed this situation correctly. We spent the next week talking about all of our options; the possibility of a trip to Italy slowly faded to the background. We decided to make two appointments—one for a prenatal visit and the other at the local abortion clinic. For no reason whatsoever, we decided to go to the abortion clinic first. We walked up to the nondescript building and entered a waiting room filled with teenagers texting on their phones. The boys had baggy jeans and baseball caps on sideways. The girls were dressed like they were hoping to meet their next bad decision in the waiting room. We quietly found our seats and felt very out of place; it had already been a very absurd day. Our names were called, and we were met by an affable, young social worker. She went through the requisite forms with us, including options for adoption. Then she set us in front of a television to watch what can only be described as a how-to-deal-with-difficult-emotions video. We giggled as we watched the video with its poor production quality, and I think in that moment it began to become clear that we might, in fact, be having a baby. As a couple with good follow-through, we dutifully attended the rest of the appointment, which included a vaginal ultrasound given by the social worker. My girlfriend paused before this procedure and asked the social worker if a nurse or doctor should be the one doing the ultrasound. She told us that she had taken a training class and was able to perform this specific duty. We both shrugged and things commenced. As we walked back to the car not feeling particularly enthused by our visit to the abortion clinic, I asked my girlfriend why she was comfortable having a nonmedical provider probe around her vagina. She paused and stated, “Well, I’ve let people with absolutely no training into my vagina, so I figured I’d give it a shot.” I fell in love with my girlfriend because of her sense of humor, and in that moment of inappropriate humor I knew we were going to have a baby. It’s a strange feeling when you realize you are going to have a child. It’s an even stranger feeling when you realize you are going to have an unplanned child with someone you’ve known for a little over six months. You feel connected to each other, but you also feel very disconnected from the daunting journey that—until this moment—you had purposefully avoided your whole life. Would we tell our glorious story of conception at birthday parties and family events? I wondered. “And then I had a fifth martini and told her all the naughty things I was going to do to her when we got home. Guess what—she wasn’t on the pill! On our first try, we made this little creature that we almost aborted! Who knew vodka was such an effective fertility drug? So tell me about your experience. Oh. You planned it after being married for three years and buying your first home? That sounds incredibly boring!” Fermentation moved to conception, and it seemed my very pretty girlfriend and I were about to find out what was next.