Singing the Preggers Blues

Like everyone else in our patch of Brooklyn, Andy and I spent last Sunday at the Atlantic Antic, a sort of giant block party-cum-street fair that takes place on the normally vehicle-heavy Atlantic Avenue every September.When we lived in Manhattan, we got used to street fairs routinely shutting down chunks of Amsterdam and Columbus avenues. But, despite some overlap in street fair food offerings, the Antic has a distinctly different feel. Here, the vendors are much more homegrown. Where you could buy irregular socks at a Columbus Avenue street fair, at the Antic you’d find a stall filled with the latest variation of Brooklyn T-shirt carried in neighborhood boutiques. All of the stores and restaurants on Atlantic set up tables outside. Upper West Side street fairs were things you sort of stumbled onto, but the Antic is something you make your way to. We always bump into at least a few people we know there.“Who do you think we’ll see today?” Andy asked as we made our way Antic-ward.The ninth month of pregnancy had made me grouchy, so I said, “My money’s on Matthew and Courtney.” Matthew was my platonic childhood friend and Courtney was his wife, my as-pregnant-as-I-was nemesis. It wasn’t just that I was grouchy; we tend to see them everywhere.“I just realized something depressing,” I said as we passed a tempting display of pots and pans in front of a Cook’s Companion.“What’s that?”“You know that way-too-expensive-for Brooklyn store?” I said. My husband looked at me blankly. “You know,” I told him. “The one that’s like a mini-Barneys?” His face again registered no recognition. “The one that’s run by the sort-of mean sisters?” Still nothing. “The one where you got that pair of shoes? The Campers?”“Oh yeah!” he said. “I got them at this sale a year ago.”“Exactly,” I said. “They have great deals, but I can’t shop for any clothes this year.”“Well,” he said, “they still have shoes.”“Andy,” I said, pointing downward toward my Flinstonianly swollen feet, “these dogs are not something you want to be shopping for.”He gave me a sympathetic “this pregnancy is really wearing on you, isn’t it?” look and said, “You’ve only got a few more weeks.”“Let’s hope,” I said. Though pregnancy is the ultimate means to an end, it was starting to seem as if I’d be gestating forever. I mentioned this to Andy.“Actually,” he said, donning his “I went to med school” voice, “plenty of people give birth a little early. You’re at term now. The end could come any minute.”I gave him a look that said this was an equally terrifying thought.“That reminds me,” he said. “You need to give me that list of e-mails.” I knew exactly what he meant: the addresses of people we wanted to send our birth announcement e-mail.As we already knew from being on the receiving end of many a birth announcement e-mail, gone are the days when a customized card with a pink or blue stork arrives in the mail to announce the new arrival. While those more traditional announcements are still sent out, it is usually to relatives and parents’ friends and done because one or more of the new baby’s grandmothers insists on it. And even then, they aren’t really “announcements,” they are unsubtle requests for baby gifts.These days, when people actually want to tell their friends “we’ve had the baby,” they do so electronically. In general, the baby announcement e-mail is a straightforward affair. Written by the dad, its subject line is usually the new baby’s name, its content the date and time of the birth. One or two digital photos are attached.Sometimes, however, this last part deviates and some friend’s overeager husband attaches a link to a photo gallery containing all 300 unedited shots of the complete labor and delivery. But usually, people send a shot of a cleaned-up, sleepy-looking newborn, to which you can sincerely reply, “Congratulations! So cute!”Andy and I had already discussed our approach to the baby announcement e-mail. He’d be keeping it simple with just the facts and attaching a photo or two. In fact, the only thing to be determined was a potential subject line: We still had no boy name yet. But we did know that if we had a girl, we’d be naming her Annie, after my grandmother.He was right, after all; I could give birth any day now. Before I could give this any further thought, a sign caught my eye. It read: “Fresh corn and mozzarella arrepas.” Here was something to take away my end-of-pregnancy, no-good-shopping blues. We headed over.Almost as soon as we took our place in line, we heard someone calling our names. We turned to see our friends Allison and Josh making their way across the crowded Anticway.“I guess you were wrong about Courtney and Matthew,” Andy said as they approached.“The Antic is still young,” I said.After a typical round of salutary embraces, Josh looked at my belly and said, “So I guess you’re next, huh?”“Yeah,” I said. And because they were friends with them, too, I added, “It’s either me or Courtney.”They looked at us in surprise. “Courtney had the baby,” Allison said. “Did you get the e-mail this morning?”“We haven’t checked e-mail today,” I told them.“Oh,” said Allison. “Well, it’s a girl!” she said, smiling. “And they named her Annie.”The Brooklyn Chronicles, a work of fiction, appears each Friday. Previous installments are available at www.nysun.com/archive_chronicles.php.The dauthor can be reached atkschwartz@nysun.com.

Singing the Preggers Blues

Singing the Preggers Blues

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