‘A brief interlude when neither The Child nor any of her friends were expecting’

You may have read some alarming pieces lately saying that the birth rate is low and going lower, and blaming this decline on everything from the economy to iPhones.

Using our iPhones to FaceTime with both babies at once

Well, the people who are writing these stories must not know my daughter or her friends. She and her cohort, iPhone-users all, are busily working on a new demographic, popping out babies right and left.

Most of The Child’s buddies have at least one youngster and several of these, including Her Childness herself, have a second.

The SIL, AKA Dad, enjoying both first and second baby

Things seemed to be slowing down a bit, gestation-wise, when Dude-Man’s nephew and wife came for a New York visit. I had even stashed my baby-sweater patterns and teensy needles.

Second baby (and sweater-recipient) belonging to one of The Child’s friends

But not so fast. The young couple had just stepped through the little red door of the Ken and Barbie House for a pre-dinner cocktail when my eyes were drawn to the Young Missus’s midsection.

She noticed my gaze, nodded and gave me a beatific smile. Needless to say, The Dude and I were thrilled. I was also vastly relieved that I didn’t have to guess whether she was pregnant. I’ve been burned before — once with an Aunt (“But Mom! She looked like she was having a baby!”) and once when I asked a fellow elevator passenger when she was due. “I am NOT pregnant,” she huffed. It was a icily silent ride to the 22nd floor, where we both got off and proceeded to a conference room where we spent four tense days judging an advertising creative show together.

Pregnant or not? The Child was actually preggers in this photo. She just hadn’t told us yet

From that day on, I never ever ask if anyone is pregnant. The person could be howling and panting on the floor, and nope, my lips stay locked. Though I have to say, it’s harder to tell these days since there seems to be no real distinction between maternity clothes and regular clothes-clothes. The bathing suit in the photo at the top of this post is not a maternity suit per se. Though I suppose it has to be, since The Child is pregnant while wearing it. See? Confusing.

The Child wearing an actual dress repurposed as maternity clothes. And yes, that’s a Waymo

In my case, which I’ve written about before, in “Burn this, please”, I only owned one piece of actual maternity clothing, making due with oversized items in my own closet and borrowing from The Dude’s as well.

This is me, hugely pregnant and wearing the only thing that fit at the time — the soon-to-be-burned overall

I was somewhere in my eighth month — when nothing fit but that godawful stone-washed overall and when I could no longer shave my legs or tie my shoes — when I realized that any fear I may have had about the actual birth process was completely gone. I was so tired of being pregnant I would have gladly given birth through a nostril or even an enlarged pore. Anything to get that baby out.

And here she was.

Just hours old, The Child in all her stonewashed-stretching glory

New York City. June 2026