Breathing Lessons
Childbirth class was our couple's counseling.
by Jenny Feldman
April 7, 2009
"And where does this baby fit in your lives?" Our childbirth educator was enthusiastically making her interrogation rounds on the first night of class. We sat on floormats, which Michael had already noted reminded him of yoga, something that filled him with suspicion. I could feel myself slinking back into the pile of bulky pillows as it got closer to our turn to answer our teacher's questions.
"First grandchild on both sides," one couple chirped, before launching into their entire life story. The wife was at least six inches taller than her husband, and far better looking. I tried not to stare.
"Keep ours short," Michael mouthed. We'd wordlessly agreed that I would make our introductions. After all, enrolling in the class had been my — or rather my midwife's — idea.
When our teacher Bonu's imploring gaze found its way over to us, I coughed up my first half-truth. "It's our first," I said, feeling my cheeks grow hot and wondering if everyone in the room could tell that my pregnancy had been ill planned. To start, we weren't married yet, just engaged.
I'd gone from childless girlfriend to pregnant stepmother in twelve months flat.
To make matters more complicated, just six months before our own daughter was conceived, Michael had become a father. His high school girlfriend — with whom he'd had a one-night stand when he and I were taking a break and "figuring out the direction of our relationship" — had gotten pregnant, announcing her news when already in her second trimester.
Now, almost a year later, Michael was supporting her and a baby girl. This meant that I'd gone from childless girlfriend to pregnant stepmother in twelve months flat. It also meant a perpetually self-replenishing stock of drama, from Michael's impending court date to get more visitation with his kid, to my bitterness over the fact that his ex was a stay-at-home-mom living off him, while I held down a demanding forty-hour-a-week-plus job as a magazine editor and paid my own bills.
Compared to the other people in the class, who all appeared comfortably married (I couldn't help it; I surreptitiously scanned their hands for wedding bands) and older than us — we're in our late twenties and most of the people we know, at least in New York, are still stuck in the get drunk, hook-up, go to brunch rut — I felt like we might as well have been marked with a scarlet letter. I didn't mention my self-consciousness to Michael, because I knew what he'd say: "Why do you care what other people think?" I couldn't answer that question, but I cared all the same.
©2009 Babble Media
About the Author
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Jenny Feldman is a senior writer at Glamour. She lives in Saugerties, New York, and Washington Heights, NYC, with her fiance, Michael, and her daughter, Piera.
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