Pregnancy
142-211_84183
10/31/05
10:55 AM
Page 165
Spittin’ Image after earning a B.A. and two graduate degrees—to a great-uncle who for fifty years stood on an assembly line attaching straps to bathing caps seems a dire fate indeed. After I get pregnant, I stare for hours at the dozens of photographs of my solemn ancestors and the very few pictures that remain of the forebears on my husband’s side. Individual photos in the family album show smiling boys in knickers and sailor hats ready to visit the 1939 World’s Fair; a girl in a drop-waist dress posed on a pony at Coney Island. Hard to believe—or all to easy to imagine—the fate of this happy little girl had her grandfather not emigrated at the turn of the century. Her pretty blond curls, ashes. The delicate locket around her neck melted for the gold. The war between our genes, fought in a split-second blaze of glory as the sperm collided with the ovum, inevitably was a nasty thing, and I have nine long months to speculate on its various foul outcomes: male pattern baldness. Long-lobed ears that produce too much wax. Wrinkles that cross thick necks like multistrand chokers. Knock knees that creak when you walk up the stairs. Toes that curl more than your hair. Short waists. Withered elbows. Deep bruises beneath the eyes. Double chins. Triple chins. Low hairlines. Ridged fingernails. Hairy nostrils. Hairy legs and hairy chests. Hairy everything!
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Job: 05-47076 Title: Little Big Book Of Pregnancy 150#B Dtp: 36 Page: 164-165