Unbeknownst to each other at the time, Janet and I were very practical. We both knew the most important task after high school was to learn a skill that would make us money the rest of our lives. After that was accomplished we looked for jobs. Once we had regular paychecks coming in, we started looking for someone to love and marry. We met at a conference dinner and started dating. She lived an hour’s drive away, so I proposed quickly. If she wasn’t interested in me, I wanted to know fast so I wouldn’t continue waste gas money on her. (Okay, we didn’t live like we were in a romance novel.) Once we were married we agreed we wanted to have two years to have fun together and learn to live together with as little conflict as possible. When we accomplished all that and the doctor confirmed that Janet had conceived, we announced it to her parents, Maude and Jim.
And we were not ready for the response.
After staring at us for a long awkward moment, Maude said, “Your cousin Patty Belle and her husband just bought a new car and their old one wasn’t that old—“
Jim interrupted. “Oh, Maude, you don’t know what you’re talking about. They bought that car five years ago….”
Not another word was spoken about our announcement. A couple of months went by before Janet couldn’t stand it any longer and she phoned her mother.
“Why did you ignore us when we told you I was going to have a baby?”
“Well, I assumed you just thought you were pregnant. After all, we waited eleven years to have you.”
Janet assumed she was pregnant because her doctor showed her conclusive scientific evidence that there was a bun in the oven. And the reason her mother waited eleven years was that she had an inverted uterus and could conceive only after a sledding accident flipped it. In actuality. Janet and Maude were both 27 years old when they conceived.
I can’t remember what finally convinced Maude that Janet was—as they used to say—in a family way. Maybe Janet got a signed note from her doctor: “To whom it may concern: the holder of this memo is indeed preggers. Yours cordially, Dr. certified obstetrician.” Or maybe Janet showed her the sonogram. But Maude would have thought Janet had accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed and it was sprouting.
Anyway, even though she had to admit the obvious, Maude still kept up a steady conversation on what other family members were up to, which was generally no good.
By the last month no one could deny Janet was on her way to mommyhood by the size of the baby bump. I didn’t know how she could maintain her balance. To keep herself occupied, Janet decided to decorate the small bedroom as a nursery. We put up zoo animal wallpaper on one wall and painted the other three yellow. She didn’t want the traditional pink or blue.
Maude didn’t want us to do anything with the bedroom until after the baby had been born and had survived at least three or four months of life.
I should have known better but I asked her why.
“If the baby were stillborn or died after a week or two, then the decorated room would make Janet sad.”
No, losing the baby would make her sad, not the color of the bedroom walls. Also, the room was already painted and papered. It was a little late to take it all out now, and expensive to put it back when the baby was okay. Finally, yes, we knew bad things can happen, but we always wanted to anticipate the best. We thought life worked out better that way.