The Switch by Abby Rotstein

Last time I went to the gynecologist, he inserted something warm and stiff into my nether regions.  Some will claim it’s all part of the exam; I say he tried to knock me up. The speculum is usually cold.

Perhaps my doctor didn’t try to get me pregnant, but he did ask when I wanted to have a baby.  He was insistent, not because I was getting old (I’m 32), but because my ovaries have problems.  I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which sounds scary until you talk to your girlfriends and find out (most) everyone has it – your cousin, your aunt, Mother Teresa – everyone, at least, with a vagina.  Generally people with PCOS tend to be fat, hairy and acne prone.  I am not. Those are only the most common symptoms.  I have others, including ovulation problems that make it hard to get pregnant.  Not that I was trying.

There was a time, a few years ago, when I didn’t have a period for nine months.  I was at my skinniest then, and my doctor insisted I take a pregnancy test.  “But I’m not pregnant,” I said, patting my belly.

“Still, it’s protocol,” he said.

I looked from the doctor to my flat belly.  I pointed at it.

“It’s protocol,” he said.

“I’m gay,” I said.

“Still.”

So I did the pee test, mainly because they were also testing for other things – hormone levels, ingrown toenails, a vestigial tail.  Negative all around, except for PCOS.

So I’m gay and have screwed up ovaries and am in my thirties.  This convergence of issues makes it imperative that my doctor ask—every time I see him—if I want to get pregnant.  There’s something in the way he says, “Do you want to have a baby?” that sounds very unlike an invitation. I wonder what would happen if I asked him to be the sperm donor.

Unlike many lesbians—TV lesbians anyhow—I didn’t think I wanted children.  Typical TV lesbians are tall and pretty, have good jobs and like to have sex in front of men. When the network wants to flesh them out, they give them the let’s-have-children storyline.  Because lesbians can’t do anything else.  Because a lesbian who doesn’t want children (or to have sex in front of men) just isn’t a lesbian.  None of these lesbians are fat, hairy or acne prone.  They don’t have PCOS.  But they do have cats. I have two, one of which has a shrunken head, which I’m pretty sure is my fault.  I didn’t hex her or anything, but sometimes I forget to feed her, which, I think, contributed.

As much as I liked perfect lesbian-TV-mom hair, I was perfectly content to live without their storyline.  I did not want kids.  For most of my life I could see a baby and not coo.  I preferred cats. I couldn’t raise them worth a damn, but I preferred them.  And then my sister got pregnant.

I don’t believe in a biological imperative to have children.  Nor do I believe that if you don’t want children you’re somehow less of a woman.  And—belief number three—there isn’t a magical switch that flips and your desire for children is ignited, forcing you to see the faces of children everywhere and hear the sound of a clock ticking in your uterus.

A friend told me she always knew I’d want children.  I just had to wait—as if this desire were imprinted on my soul.  Too much mysticism; I didn’t believe.

But, also, I didn’t want to be a cliché.  I was already a lesbian with cats.  Add to that a desire for children and you get: token sitcom lesbian.  The producers might need laughs, and trot me and my very pregnant belly out to say things like, “I’m so horny I could sleep with a man.”

When my sister told me she was pregnant my voice rose octaves but all I could say was wow.  In hindsight, maybe a mystical transference of estrogen seeped down the phone line. Turn wow upside down and you get mom.

There was nausea and pickles, ice cream and back pain, but mostly the pregnancy went smoothly – until my niece went on a mission to be born early.  My sister was checked into the hospital, and put on all sorts of medication to stop the contractions.  My family prayed.

When I called, there was a vigorous thumping in the background and that could only mean one thing.  “Is that the baby?” I said, my eyes welling up.  My sister said Yes.  She was hooked to the fetal monitor and the sound I heard was my niece’s heart.  That was the moment, the turning on of the great mystical desire; the switch.

I love to watch my niece, I can stare at her for hours.  I love it when she falls asleep in my arms.  She gets fussy moments before, as if she doesn’t know how to get rid of that tired feeling.  It’s annoying and uncomfortable and her cry says to make it stop.  But then, finally, she falls asleep.  I hold her against me and feel her heart beat.

I’ve decided that if (when) I get pregnant I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth.  At any hour of the day I will bark orders at my family.  Get me an orange.  Get me a potato.  Get me a raspberry.  When they refuse I’ll point to my belly.  I will use my pregnancy to skip ahead in lines.  I’ll make complete strangers perform mundane tasks.  Open the door.  Make me dinner.  Drop and give me twenty.  When they laugh, I’ll say, “This isn’t a sitcom.”

I have yet to tell my gynecologist that I want to have children.  I’m afraid he might do something irrational, like hug and kiss and want to have sex with me.  Or maybe he’ll give me options—lists of sperm banks, fertility doctors, medication to get me ovulating.  All that is entirely too real.  Instead, I’m taking incremental steps.  I feed my cats every day.  I remember to brush my teeth.  I fold my laundry.

About the author:

I graduated from UC Davis’ writing program a few years back and am now living an absurdly normal life in Las Vegas. Very soon I’ll have an essay published at FreshYarn.com. More of my work can be seen at abbyasks.com

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