Day 7. A Pregnancy Journal

Day 7. What We Are Doing About It and Who We've Consulted.

She's gonna keep it one way or the other. The doctor called and everything is right on track. She's five and a half weeks. Every step of the way my hope and her doubts have been erased. I might as well just chew it off.

The doctor tells her she has a couple of weeks if she wants to terminate, and also, that at her age, the chances of getting pregnant get lower everyday.

I'm depressed. I don't feel like my life is in my hands. Some may say welcome to the club but I never wanted those sacrifices.

And I think it's rotten of her. I think it's a bad choice, a mistake. I also think that if she loved me the way she keeps going on about that she wouldn't do this thing that makes me so unhappy. It's not a moral or religious issue with her, not a bit. She's using an unfortunate situation to take what she wants, what she's always wanted, even if she downplayed it a little when we first met. She can talk all she wants about the miracle that has taken up inside her, all the more so because it's mine and she loves me so much, she says. But how can she be so sure after six months? Nobody with all their faculties would go on like she does, like it's all just gonna work out fine because of love.

For one thing, she has to realize that I've lost respect for her. I thought she was stronger than to trap a man like this. I should've listened better though. I'm sure the signs were there. The quirks anyway were charming, the occasional crazy eye or a glimpse into some thinking that proceeded without the facts, indeed ignoring even what has been laid out if front of her. Even yesterday on the phone, to give a minor example, after it had long been established that we would chat later, each to our separate evenings, as I was saying good-bye in fact, she replied: Oh, so I guess I'm on my own for dinner tonight. What? You're not gonna come over? Where were you just now, in the last five minutes?

She's not thinking clearly. And besides that she's complaining after a day and a half apart and so what does she think when she decides to raise this child without my consent? That I will be there? Out of what? Out of a sense of responsibility? Out of love? It's ill advised. She's broke. Worse, she's in debt. Is it fair to ask her family to compensate when the whole thing could be avoided? Why make such a choice at a time like this? I find it interesting that her therapist didn't want any part of this one. He told her she'd find the answer within her self. That deep down she knew what to do. Ok, I respect that as a right we all enjoy, even those of us who've been diagnosed, but doesn't he owe her a little more than that? Why doesn't he walk her through some of his concerns?

She keeps telling me that she knows she wants a family. Suddenly this notion is the driving light in her life. It wasn't back when of course but I understand that, given the situation and the hormones but let me ask: what kind of a family is she envisioning? An unhappy couple and a child? A reluctant, resentful father? A single mom? Or is she convinced that love will prevail, and the trinity itself?

She also sights her brother and his wife, who live above her, as a very special situation, that could only help, even saying that she would be crazy not to take advantage of - and true, she expects that they will be having children in the next year or so, and now suddenly there is this extended family and I can see the appeal but the truth is that they can't be bothered to clean up the shit in the common yard from their two dogs. Where exactly do they come in? Of course, her sister-in-law is encouraging. It's not difficult to see why. She and her brother are twins for one, and he's a somewhat working rock musician. In other words, he's gonna hold out on the matter of children as long as his wife does.

I wonder if it's not time, while there still is time, for some tough love. As a friend, knowing her even as well as I do in our short time, I would advise her against this. I wonder if she's talked to any other men, besides her therapist - who obviously doesn't count - or her brother, which was second hand, through his wife's tight grip on his balls. I could have predicted last week, of those friends I've met so far, who she would and would not consult. And I was right. She went straight to the rich lesbian couple who adopted last year, avoiding her other lesbian couple friends with no children in their future. And then the recently married, but of course, and the recently crushed.

And me, who have I talked to? The first person I told was my neighbor at the elevator. He's in his late sixties and is always telling me to respect my body while I'm young. His hips are giving out. He took the party all the way through his fifties and we all know how hard a gay man can go at it. Anyway, I told him and he cringed as though I was getting snipped. Didn't your mother always tell you to wear your rubbers, he asked? I got sloppy I said. He chuckled and repeated it under his breath.

Then I told the young kids at the cafe a few days ago. I can never remember their names but we talk from time to time, once a month maybe. I call them kids but they're in their late twenties and grew up in war-torn Yugoslavia, in separate camps. One's a Serb, the other's Albanian. They are a bit traditional where family is concerned - honor and responsibility came up - as did the man's usual prerogatives, that's is, to carry on outside the family, in such cultures. Not so interesting perhaps as indicative, they were of the opinion that women in the States had all the power in relationships. They assumed that most American men were pussies.

That's it. I haven't consulted any of my good friends, fathered or otherwise, and maybe it's time. Maybe this journal is skewing things toward the sound of one hand clapping.

Day 7 [Continued]. Declaration of Independence and How It's Going To Be From Now On.

One, you're not going to get a conventional commitment from me. I don't want to have a child and I don't want to marry you. If you insist on having this child, you've done so completely on your own and under no false pretenses.

Two, I will fulfill my obligation to the child but that does not mean anything for us. What happens to us, as a couple, is unrelated.

Three, I will not move in. Rather, I will stay in the neighborhood and remain at hand so that I can participate in the child's upbringing.

Even on paper it doesn't feel right, but neither does the fact that she's trying to push me into something. I wonder if I just came out and told her I didn't love her and under no circumstances was that going to change. Would she opt out then? Would her grief snap her out of this delusion?