Read Online What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir by Alice Eve Cohen - Free Book Online
Authors: Alice Eve Cohen
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of survival, and returning to my creative work, now that my adopted daughter is finally big and strong and happy.
I try every day to want a baby.
At age forty-five, 75 percent of pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriages. I reread the twelve pages of small print in the ERT prescription patient information insert. “Not for use during pregnancy. . . .” The abnormally high level of estrogen might have relaxed the muscles of my uterus, preventing the contractions that would likely have ended the pregnancy in miscarriage. This miracle pregnancy may be the result not of prayer, but of chemicals—the pregnant horse estrogen in my uterus. Nay! Neigh!
Riddles
I call my father to tell him I’m pregnant.
“Congratulations! You’ll finally know what it’s like to be a mother.”
“I’m already a mother!”
“You know what I mean. Julia’s adopted. Now you’ll be a real mother.”
I miss my own mother.
When is a mother not a real mother?
What makes a mother real?
Biology?
Unconditional love?
Can a real mother’s love be conditional?
Is she a real mother . . . if she doesn’t yet feel love, hopes it will awaken in her, and in the meantime gives up everything to protect the child?
Is she a real mother . . . if she thinks of her body as a mobile hospital, her womb an incubator, her pregnancy as the nursing task to which she devotes herself to protect this small life inside her, until its lungs are formed and its heart is strong?
Is she a real mother if she does exactly what she’s told to do?
If she doesn’t kill herself?
Is she a real mother if she is terrified at every waking and sleeping moment for the safety of the child?
Is she a real mother if she will sacrifice her life for the child inside her?
Is she a real mother if she said, out loud, when she first saw it on the video monitor, that she didn’t want it?
Is a mother who contemplated aborting her six-month fetus a real mother?
What prevents a mother from loving?
When a woman is forced to be a mother.
When being pregnant makes her feel imprisoned and insane.
What is an infertile woman who has a baby?
Why did the baby leave the womb?
To get to the other side?
Because of the Hormones?
Because she is a Miracle Baby?
All of the above.
When is a baby a miracle?
When is a baby not a miracle?
Aren’t all babies miracles?
What is a mother who loves all children except her own?
Is she still herself if she doesn’t recognize herself?
Aunt Phyllis
I called my Aunt Phyllis.
“Alice, dahling, listen to me. You’re being too hard on yourself. When I was pregnant with your cousin Walter in 1949, my obstetrician said—I’ll never forget this!—he said, ‘Phyllis, I like to deliver a small baby, a six-pound baby. I don’t want you to gain more than twenty-five pounds.’ So he put me on a diet, and I called him and said, ‘But Doctor, I get so hungry,’ and he said, ‘Phyllis. If you get hungry, eat a candy bar.’ And I called him again, and I said, ‘But Doctor, I’m still hungry after the candy bar,’ and he said, ‘Phyllis. If you’re still hungry after the candy bar, have a cigarette.’ So I followed his instructions, and I smoked cigarettes all through my pregnancy. Do you think Walter suffered? He’s nearly six feet tall and he’s the dean of the graduate school at Cornell University. So stop worrying.”
Scene 6
Solo Theater
On the last Monday night of September, I get out of bed unsteadily, get dressed, and cab downtown to teach my solo theater class.
My class is enrolled to capacity. Fifteen students. New School University undergraduates and graduate students along with adult education students. A sixteenth student waits outside the classroom door and pleads with me to let her enroll. She’s white-haired, blue-eyed, stout, seventyish, with folds of pale white skin. Under the wrinkles, her round face is like a little girl’s, as is her
I try every day to want a baby.
At age forty-five, 75 percent of pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriages. I reread the twelve pages of small print in the ERT prescription patient information insert. “Not for use during pregnancy. . . .” The abnormally high level of estrogen might have relaxed the muscles of my uterus, preventing the contractions that would likely have ended the pregnancy in miscarriage. This miracle pregnancy may be the result not of prayer, but of chemicals—the pregnant horse estrogen in my uterus. Nay! Neigh!
Riddles
I call my father to tell him I’m pregnant.
“Congratulations! You’ll finally know what it’s like to be a mother.”
“I’m already a mother!”
“You know what I mean. Julia’s adopted. Now you’ll be a real mother.”
I miss my own mother.
When is a mother not a real mother?
What makes a mother real?
Biology?
Unconditional love?
Can a real mother’s love be conditional?
Is she a real mother . . . if she doesn’t yet feel love, hopes it will awaken in her, and in the meantime gives up everything to protect the child?
Is she a real mother . . . if she thinks of her body as a mobile hospital, her womb an incubator, her pregnancy as the nursing task to which she devotes herself to protect this small life inside her, until its lungs are formed and its heart is strong?
Is she a real mother if she does exactly what she’s told to do?
If she doesn’t kill herself?
Is she a real mother if she is terrified at every waking and sleeping moment for the safety of the child?
Is she a real mother if she will sacrifice her life for the child inside her?
Is she a real mother if she said, out loud, when she first saw it on the video monitor, that she didn’t want it?
Is a mother who contemplated aborting her six-month fetus a real mother?
What prevents a mother from loving?
When a woman is forced to be a mother.
When being pregnant makes her feel imprisoned and insane.
What is an infertile woman who has a baby?
Why did the baby leave the womb?
To get to the other side?
Because of the Hormones?
Because she is a Miracle Baby?
All of the above.
When is a baby a miracle?
When is a baby not a miracle?
Aren’t all babies miracles?
What is a mother who loves all children except her own?
Is she still herself if she doesn’t recognize herself?
Aunt Phyllis
I called my Aunt Phyllis.
“Alice, dahling, listen to me. You’re being too hard on yourself. When I was pregnant with your cousin Walter in 1949, my obstetrician said—I’ll never forget this!—he said, ‘Phyllis, I like to deliver a small baby, a six-pound baby. I don’t want you to gain more than twenty-five pounds.’ So he put me on a diet, and I called him and said, ‘But Doctor, I get so hungry,’ and he said, ‘Phyllis. If you get hungry, eat a candy bar.’ And I called him again, and I said, ‘But Doctor, I’m still hungry after the candy bar,’ and he said, ‘Phyllis. If you’re still hungry after the candy bar, have a cigarette.’ So I followed his instructions, and I smoked cigarettes all through my pregnancy. Do you think Walter suffered? He’s nearly six feet tall and he’s the dean of the graduate school at Cornell University. So stop worrying.”
Scene 6
Solo Theater
On the last Monday night of September, I get out of bed unsteadily, get dressed, and cab downtown to teach my solo theater class.
My class is enrolled to capacity. Fifteen students. New School University undergraduates and graduate students along with adult education students. A sixteenth student waits outside the classroom door and pleads with me to let her enroll. She’s white-haired, blue-eyed, stout, seventyish, with folds of pale white skin. Under the wrinkles, her round face is like a little girl’s, as is her
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