Knocked Up Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Praise

  THE FIRST TRIMESTER - a.k.a. The Longest Three Months of My Life

  THE SECOND TRIMESTER - a.k.a. The Fat Months

  THE THIRD (AND FINAL!) TRIMESTER - a.k.a. The Even Fatter Months

  AT HOME - I’m a Mother. I’m Still Fat!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  For SJC, a.k.a. the fiancé, my favorite person always . . .

  And, of course, for Rowan Joely, our baby.

  Praise for Knocked Up

  “Knocked Up is the best cure for morning sickness! Knocked Up is the answer to the postpartum blues! Knocked Up can cure preeclampsia! Yes, Knocked Up can solve gestational diabetes! Knocked Up even works on stretch marks! Like Prozac, and safe to take while nursing—this is a hilarious book!”

  —Molly Jong-Fast, author of

  The Sex Doctors in the Basement and Normal Girl

  “Knocked Up is a delightful story about getting knocked up, popping the baby out, and everything that happens in between. Rebecca Eckler’s hilarious and candid account of what seem to be the longest nine months of her life will go down as smoothly as a well-mixed cosmopolitan.”

  —Amulya Malladi, author of

  Serving Crazy with Curry

  “Incipient motherhood has never been so sexy. Rebecca Eckler reminds us of something too many people forget—that pregnancy begins with an act of lust. She takes us on a wild and funny journey as she stays hip enough and tough enough not to let a simple thing like conception slow her down.”

  —Claire Scovell LaZebnik, author of

  Same as It Never Was

  THE FIRST TRIMESTER

  a.k.a. The Longest Three Months of My Life

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 26

  6:45 a.m.

  OH SHIT!

  Did I . . . did we . . . did he . . . in me?

  6:46 a.m.

  I’m awake, right? I’m conscious, right? I don’t feel like myself. Something has changed.

  6:47 a.m.

  OH MY GOD! The elastic waistband of these boxer shorts can’t already be tighter. This cannot be happening. To me. Of all people. Oh God . . . I just felt something moving.

  6:59 a.m.

  Oh God, I HAVE THE FEAR!

  I can’t believe that I . . . that we . . . that he . . . in me.

  We did, right?

  SHIT!

  7:00 a.m.

  It’s way too early to be so awake on a Sunday. I’m going to sneak out of bed and quietly go to the kitchen and reheat what’s left of yesterday’s midafternoon Starbucks nonfat vanilla latte in the microwave. I need caffeine. There’s no way I can fall back to sleep now. I need to make the Fear Phone Call right away. I desperately need to talk to Lena. But the fiancé is still sleeping, or pretending to still be asleep. How can he possibly be sleeping at a time like this? Man, it must be nice to be a man. Men can sleep through anything. It’s freaking annoying. I can’t let the fiancé know that I’m f-r-e-a-k-i-n-g out. The fiancé can’t—under any circumstances—overhear the Fear Conversation I need to have with Lena, as soon as possible. I mean immediately. If the fiancé knew what Lena and I really talk about, he would never want anything to do with me—or any other woman—ever again. There is already a good chance that the fiancé already wants nothing to do with me after last night, and I’ve probably turned him off women forever.

  If I were a good person, I would go out and buy the fiancé bagels or something. I am a bad, bad person. Even if the fiancé wasn’t here, it’s too early to call Lena anyway. When I last remember seeing her, it was two in the morning and she was breakdancing on the dance floor, thrusting her pelvis up toward the ceiling. She didn’t look bad either, considering she was a thirty-eight-year-old drunken white girl dancing to Eminem. She, too, will have The Fear this morning and will be sleeping off her hangover until at least noon. Which is what I’d be doing too if The Fear wasn’t so devastating and hadn’t woken me up like a slap in the face so freaking early. I think I’m hyperventilating.

  Did I . . . did we . . . did he . . . in me?

  Shit, shit, shit . . .

  The Fear is what happens when vague memories of drunken stupidity instantly become clear as crystal. The only thing to do when the sheer terror of The Fear hits is to go back to bed, bury your head under the comforter, and never, ever leave your house again. Either that or make the Fear Call to your closest girlfriend to try to piece together the puzzle of fogginess by detailing what little you both can remember from the previous night. You can really only stay in bed for so long, no matter how mortified you are.

  The Fear Phone Call, the morning after a night of way too much drinking, can last hours. The Fear Phone Call always, always begins with “Oh God, I have The Fear” and carries on with much laughter, gossip, and good-natured (and a lot of not-so-good-natured) bitchiness. It always ends with promises to “never, ever drink that much again.”

  If this was a typical morning after with The Fear and the fiancé wasn’t asleep—or pretending to still be asleep—in the next room, I would tell Lena how I flirted with my boss, that one of my married colleagues came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and whispered in my ear, “Just because you’re engaged now doesn’t mean we can’t get together, right?” I would tell Lena how I think I remember yelling at a drunken, sloppy guest for spilling her entire drink down the back of my $900 dress so that the material clung to my skin, like a bad date you’re trying to lose in a crowd. Or was that me who spilled my drink? In any case, all of that did happen at the party last night. But all of that seems kind of innocuous, considering what happened after the fiancé and I somehow managed to make it back to my apartment. How did we get back?

  Did I . . . did we . . . did he . . . in me?

  Lena would tell me how she kissed a man whose name she never knew, and that she doesn’t remember how or what time she got home—which is always what happens when Lena drinks too much. We’d laugh until we wept, and we’d groan about our foolishness until our stomachs hurt. We’d reassure each other that what happened in our intoxicated state wasn’t so bad. Surely everyone else was too drunk to even notice our bad behavior. Truth is, I look forward to the Fear Phone Call. Actually, I adore the Fear Phone Call. Because if you’ve made the Fear Phone Call, it usually means you’ve had an incredible night. The longer the Fear Phone Call lasts, the better and more memorable the night.

  But this is not a typical morning with The Fear. I have super freakin’ crazy fear. I got into bed last night drunk on alcohol and high on exhilaration, snuggling in with my drunken fiancé, thinking how wonderful my life will be with this man, how much I love him, and how lucky I am that he loves me. I didn’t even brush my teeth before pulling him down on top of me. Now I’m anxious and guilt-ridden and sober as a nun. There’s a good chance the fiancé will dump me after what happened, after what I begged him to do. It was entirely my fault. Sort of.

  The fiancé and I celebrated our engagement last night at a party we threw for 150 of our closest friends. The party was also my fault. Everything that happens in a relationship can be blamed on someone, after all. It was my “brilliant idea” to celebrate our engagement. What was I thinking?

  I was the one who called him at work one morning, two months ago. “We are having an engagement party. This is what people do when they get engaged. We’ve been engaged for two months already and I want to celebrate with our friends. We are having a party and I don’t care what you say,” I informed him. We had fights about the party. He wanted to wait until we were both a little less busy, which would have been never. I told him that he wouldn’t have to do a thing, that he’d just have to show up. He wouldn�
��t even have to buy a new outfit. I really meant it, at the time. I did. But then, after I hired the party planner and made my guest list (sixty people I liked, sixty people I didn’t, and thirty payback invites), I got bored with it all. The fiancé ended up talking to the party planner more often than I did. He picked the menu (mashed-potato bar, seared ostrich, individual cups of green tea ice cream), the drinks (twelve-year-old scotch and champagne were a must), and the music (top 40 and soul funk). He paid for the whole thing, too (about a year’s rent). All of which is typical. It’s always me who has the “brilliant” ideas, and then, much to his annoyance, he is invariably left to see them through. The fiancé is responsible and finishes what he sets out to do. I am not responsible and can’t even finish a sandwich without getting bored of what I’m eating halfway through. A new rule was created in our relationship as a result of planning our engagement party. “Beck, whenever you have one of your brilliant ideas,” he advised, “we are going to have a five-day cooling-off period to decide if it’s really something we want to do. That’s how it’s going to be from now on, okay?”

  I agreed.

  At least for the guests, the party was a success. We showed that we are a fabulous couple who can throw a fabulous party for our fabulous friends. There was a fabulous open bar, and I got into bed last night feeling like a fabulously sexy woman, on top of the world, a woman who can get away with dancing in six-inch stiletto heels, a woman who has married men hitting on her with her fiancé in the same room, a woman who is comfortable flirting with her boss—I can handle married men hitting on me. I can handle flirting with my boss—it makes work that much more interesting. What I can’t handle is what’s going on now. This cannot be happening to me of all people.

  I woke up pregnant.

  1:00 p.m.

  Me? Pregnant? It’s like a sick joke, an oxymoron. It’s so not me. “Lena! Thank God! I have THE FEAR,” I cry into the phone. Finally, I was alone, and, finally, Lena had picked up. I had been trying to get through to her for the past five minutes, pushing the redial button as furiously as a crack addict who needs a fix from her dealer. I knew that eventually Lena would pick up. You can only ignore a ringing phone for so long.

  “Christ. Was that you who kept calling? Okay, what happened? This better be good. I think I’m still drunk,” says Lena. Her voice is froglike. She sounds as though she’s been run over by a truck.

  So I tell her. “I’m pregnant.”

  “You are not pregnant,” replies Lena, sighing and making some dreadful noise with her throat. “You just have The Fear.”

  I can’t believe it. Don’t I deserve more of a reaction than a sigh, a clearing of the throat, and a patronizing tone? I got more of a reaction when I told her, during the last Fear Phone Call, that I found out that our friend Shannon’s ex-boyfriend, who broke her heart, had recently slept with another one of our mutual friends, unbeknownst to Shannon. In fact, I got more of a reaction from Lena when I told her Scott Foley and Jennifer Garner split up. What I just told her is so much bigger. It’s life altering.

  The fiancé left about half an hour ago to catch his airplane. I think we were being awkward with each other. He could barely look at me.

  “I didn’t sleep at all,” the fiancé said, shoving a rumpled heap of his clothes into his carry-on luggage.

  “Really? Why?” I asked, playing dumb—though I was pleased to learn he had only been pretending to sleep. “I thought for sure you would have passed out.” He had drunk a lot too—way too much, in fact. For him to do what he did, he must have been really plowed. He is a corporate lawyer who thinks everything through, which is why I admire him. I think nothing through, which up until now I think he always thought was one of my quirky charms. He really should have known better than to listen to me moaning, “Just come in me. I really want to feel you in me.” I mean, really. What happened to the five-day cooling-off period? It was his bright idea to have a cooling-off period in the first place.

  “I just didn’t sleep,” he said, grumpily. The Fear apparently hit him even quicker than it hit me. I had passed out after “it” happened. So at least I had a couple of hours of alcohol-induced slumber. I wonder if the fiancé stayed awake worrying all night about what we had done or if he just couldn’t sleep for another reason entirely, like that the room was too warm.

  I wanted to pretend that what happened didn’t really happen, so I didn’t even go through the motions of “Oh, don’t worry.” I figured that if I didn’t bring it up, maybe it wouldn’t be real.

  Some would say that the fiancé and I have a screwed-up relationship. I say we have a “modern” relationship. We have never lived together, have never really discussed—even after we got engaged—living together. We live in different cities and visit each other a couple of times a month, which means we always miss each other, something I can say about almost no other couple I know who live under the same roof. We are happy the way things are. He has his life and I have my life. When you don’t live with your partner, especially when you don’t live in the same city as your partner, you can act single. Being in a long-distance relationship is like having the best of both worlds. I’m not quite ready to completely give up my single life. It’s way too much fun to flirt. Even after I became an engaged woman and got to walk around with a two-carat diamond ring on my finger I would sometimes forget I wasn’t single. The fiancé likes his single life, too. To him, the most awful thing in the world would be if we morphed into one of those boring couples that do everything together, including sharing the same e-mail address. Yuck. We have always said we will NEVER become one of those couples. I never come down hard on him when he stays out late with friends because I never really know what time he comes home. He can’t yell at me for leaving my dishes on the coffee table for days on end because he doesn’t have to see it on a daily basis. We have the perfect relationship.

  “I am pregnant,” I tell Lena, reheating yesterday’s Starbucks latte for the fourth time and lighting a cigarette. I can’t be expected to quit just like that. Smoking is an addiction. Plus, I’ve only known I was pregnant for what, five hours now?

  “How did this happen?” Lena asks, suddenly (thankfully) sounding more alert. Maybe my news has just shocked her into nonchalance.

  “Well, a boy and a girl get together and get naked and the boy puts his—”

  “Okay, stop! You know what I mean.”

  “Can I blame it on the cosmopolitans? Can I blame it on the dress?” I ask. “It was the cosmos and the dress. It was a toxic mix that made me do things I’d never, ever do sober or while I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I should’ve worn jeans and drunk Perrier all night. My life would be totally different this morning.”

  I had worn a sexy black dress, the type of dress that it is impossible to wear a bra under. I was showing cleavage, something I am not used to doing and, apparently, something the fiancé is not used to seeing. I think he liked it. Maybe even a little too much. I have always been jealous of women who could show their cleavage off comfortably and fearlessly, like my friend Amy, whose breasts often make public appearances. Amy will say things like “I’m bringing the girls out tonight” when you ask what she plans to wear to a cocktail party. When she “brings out the girls,” we know we’re going to see her two perfectly round globes of flesh. Not only are Amy’s breasts talked to at parties by “tit talkers”—the type of men who look at your breasts while speaking with you—her breasts are also talked about after she leaves. And you know what they say: the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. The same thing is true about breasts. Just one night in my life, I wanted my breasts to be talked about. Is that so wrong?

  At last count, I had drunk six cosmopolitans and a couple of flutes of champagne. I should have stopped after two glasses of champagne, which is about the time I first began to feel tipsy. Of course, that was about fifteen minutes after arriving at the party. I have always been a cheap drunk. But I couldn’t help but drink a lot last night. It
was a celebration, after all! The cosmos, with real cranberries floating around in them, went down like Kool-Aid. I like Kool-Aid. Oh God, I am a twenty-nine-year-old woman who likes Kool-Aid—definitely not mother material. I cannot be pregnant. Except for the fact that I know I am.

  “It was an amazing dress,” agrees Lena. “And those drinks! They were spectacular. I had about twelve of them.”

  I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth—even though I tell Lena almost everything. That it is my fault that I’m now pregnant, not entirely the fault of the dress or the booze.

  “You are not pregnant,” Lena sighs once again. “What are the chances?”

  “You’re right. But I do feel different. I feel pregnant.”

  “How could you possibly know you’re pregnant five hours after having unprotected sex? What exactly are you feeling?”

  “Well, for starters, I have a headache and I feel nauseous, like I have morning sickness. I’m queasy, like I could throw up any second.”

  “Oh my God!” says Lena, enunciating each word. “You have a hangover! Ouch. Don’t make me yell at you. My whole body hurts. You have a headache and feel like throwing up? So do I! Maybe I’m pregnant too! Sadly, I didn’t have sex last night, but we do share the same symptoms. I’m probably pregnant as well.”

  “Enough, enough. I see your point. You’re right. You’re right,” I agree. “I just have a hangover. There’s no way I could have sex one time without protection and end up pregnant. There’s no way. But Lena?”

  “Y-e-s-s-s-s?”

  “I am pregnant.”

  “I’m going back to bed. I’ll call you later. You are not pregnant. I have The Fear too. Do you know that I can’t remember how I got home? I think I remember kissing someone in a taxi and jumping out before it went further. I’m not sure who the guy was, though. I am never, ever drinking that much again.”

  That’s Lena. Though I have just shared the biggest news, taking the Fear Phone Call to a new level, the conversation always comes back to her. It’s sort of her charm. You learn to love it after a while.