The T.M.I. Pregnancy

New York Times

 JUNE 4, 2014 

Becoming a mother was so simple when I became a mother. Pregnancy was treated as a natural experience. You peed in a cup, and then once a month the obstetrician pressed his stethoscope against your belly and you watched his face for a smile.

“We’re going to have a baby,” my son, Peter, calls. I think about being a grandma and the grand continuum. I think about the wondrous ways my boy’s life is going to change. I do not think about sonograms, DNA testing and preeclampsia. I do not think about the endless forbidding stream of fetal data.

My son is stuck at work, so I get to take my daughter-in-law for her first prenatal visit. The doctor squeezes gel on Erika’s belly and rubs it in with a paddle. A white watermelon seed pops up on the screen.

“Your baby is 7 weeks and 5 days old,” she says.

Wow, I think. Yes, but will it get into Harvard?

Erika’s blood is drawn to test for three birth defects. Taking a personal history, the doctor discovers the watermelon seed will be half Jewish.

“We’ll be needing 18 tests now,” she says.

We pretend not to be anxious waiting for the results. From that first visit on, every time I accompany Erika for an ultrasound, we leave guardedly happy. “Normal” becomes our favorite word. I’m not a Luddite. Prenatal science has helped a lot people and people-to-be. But just because a patient can know something, must she? There’s so much information available now. Pregnancy is treated like a nine-month illness cured by childbirth. Odds are in this baby’s favor, yet every sonogram adds something scary to the pot. What is one of the most joyous times of life has turned into something ominous and fraught, loaded with the potential to go wrong.

Three months before Erika’s due date, the tech turns to us with a caliper in her hands. “The baby has a short long bone,” she says. “Its long bone” — a.k.a. femur — “is two weeks behind schedule.”

We leave the office and head for lunch. Holding hands, we wait for the light to change. I look down at the white parallel lines on the crosswalk. I’m not a religious person. I own three menorahs and my biannual brisket is held in high regard. But I don’t believe in God. Yet when the light changes, I make a promise to something somewhere. I make a pledge that is the opposite of modern science: “If I only step on the white lines, the baby will be O.K.”

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