The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant by Savage Dan

Author:Savage, Dan [Savage, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2000-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Laurie called back as soon as I hung up the phone. Melissa was with her. I asked Melissa to give us all the details of her drinking. We needed to know everything. She drank when other people bought beer, but she didn't spend money on it herself. Some weeks, she drank five or more days a week, and some weeks she drank less. She almost never got drunk, she never blacked out, and she never threw up. Two weeks during the first or second months, she didn't drink at all. Melissa was traveling at the time, riding the rails, and didn't have access to beer. That was all she remembered.

I thanked Melissa and Laurie and said that Terry was getting off work at ten tonight, and we would sit down and make a decision.

“We'll call you tomorrow morning,” I said.

A few hours later, Bob and Kate's doctor called. Terry had already faxed him the ultrasound results, and he listened to me describe Melissa's drinking.

“The risk for FAS, I would say, is minimal. Considering everything else you know about the mother and the father, you should worry more about this baby being predisposed to depression or mental illnesses than about FAS. Most people on the street are mentally ill, a lot are schizophrenic, and there's a hereditary predisposition to many mental illnesses. That's what you should be concerned about.”

I didn't want to take the time to explain gutter-punk culture to Bob and Kate's doctor, so I told him we'd think about it and got off the phone.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang. It was my mother.

“Where have you been? I've called a million times.”

Should I say anything now?

“We were in Portland, doing some stuff with the adoption agency.”

“Did you get picked?” My mother was already hip to the open-adoption lingo.

“No, we had to go and do one more interview. We're in the pool now.”

There was a pause.

“You told me you were in the pool two weeks ago. Did you have to get out of the pool and get back in?”

Now what do I tell her? I could tell her the truth, I supposed, but telling my mother meant telling everyone else on earth, and I wasn't ready to do that. I didn't want gifts to start coming in the mail, and I didn't want to jinx anything.

“We forgot to sign something,” I lied. “So we went down and signed it. Now we're in the pool, officially.”

There was a longer pause.

“Mom, when we get picked, I'll call you right away, okay? You'll be the first to know, I swear.”

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