Motherest by Kristen Iskandrian

Author:Kristen Iskandrian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2017-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Priscilla from Healthcare 4 Women gives me a hug when she sees me. I hug her back as long as she lets me.

“How have you been, Agnes? How are you feeling?”

I don’t know where to start. Suicidal, elated, nauseous, starving, sore, waterlogged with exhaustion, terrified.

“Pretty good.”

“I see you missed your last appointment. Everything okay?” Priscilla is looking in a folder. I feel momentarily excited that I have my own folder, that there is a record of me, that at least here, if not in my own life, I am a member. I am part of a system. A system of folders.

“Everything is fine, I think,” I say.

“Any complaints?”

“Physically?”

Priscilla smiles. “Or otherwise.”

“Well, um, I’m tired a lot. And having some trouble sleeping, but that’s nothing really new. Food doesn’t always agree with me. And my skin—I mean, my belly—I’m just really itchy.”

Priscilla is nodding. “That’s your skin stretching. It can be very distracting. I recommend a heavy moisturizer. Some people swear by shea butter, which you can find in a lot of drugstores. Is the nausea debilitating? Do you want me to prescribe something for you?”

“No. I don’t think so. I mean, I can manage.”

Priscilla closes my folder and looks at me closely. “Is there anything else?”

I wish she were my friend. She knows how to look at me, how to ask. I imagine myself making an appointment every day for the rest of my life.

“No. Just, you know, going along.”

She opens the folder again. “This name, on the insurance card you gave. Your father?”

I nod. “We’re all—I mean I’m—on his insurance.”

“Okay. That’s good. Let’s get you weighed and check your blood pressure, and then I’m going to send you down the hall for your ultrasound. Your insurance—your dad’s—covers it.”

I step on the scale. I have gained three pounds since last time, which seems to please Priscilla. She wraps the blood pressure cuff around my arm and pumps it up. The pressure feels good. “So do you want to know the sex? If not, make sure you tell Allie not to tell you. Allie is the technician.”

“Do most people want to know?”

Priscilla shrugs. “It’s a personal thing. Everyone’s different.”

I nod, easygoing, as if to say of course, of course everyone is different, as if we are two people at a street vendor talking about ketchup and mustard, as if I were not going to have to make a decision in the next ten minutes, a decision about a baby that will soon no longer be just a baby but an actual boy or an actual girl, and not in a theoretical way but in a son or daughter way.

“We’re done here. Let me go make sure Allie is ready for you.”

Priscilla exits the room, my folder under her arm. She comes back a minute later. “You can go on down the hall. Let’s see you again in four weeks, all right?”

I slide-hop off the table, my thighs sticking to everything, to the air even. “Oh, um, last time you mentioned a

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