What Would Mariska Do?

At 43 years old and freshly divorced, I decided to have a baby. It’s very glamorous, don’t you think? Very Mariska Hargitay. That’s how you should think of me, like a 40-something Hollywood celebrity daughter of ultra-glamorous Jayne Mansfield. Because when you think of me as a 43-year-old schoolteacher living in the Bible Belt - and not just The Bible Belt, but the crucifix-encrusted buckle of the Bible Belt - with no plans to get married, it’s not quite as enchanting.

“But I’m going to have a baby,” I thought as I lay on that gurney in the darkened room and the ultrasound tech spread gel on the sonogram wand. “I’m just like Mariska Hargitay.”

I’d waited till my period (so regular you could set a clock by it) was six weeks overdue because I was pretty sure I was in menopause. There’d been 30 months of insomnia and hot flashes and mood swings they could design roller coasters after. There’d been advanced osteoarthritis and X-rays of hand and hip, with X-ray techs asking, “Is there any possibility you’re pregnant?” We know you’re too old was coded in the apologetic explanation that inevitably followed: “We have to ask.”

But after six weeks and Paul’s observation on a camping trip (“Are your boobs getting bigger?”), I did an OTC pregnancy test. I did it right in the pharmacy bathroom with Paul pacing and waiting in full view of the teenage boy from whom I’d just purchased the kit. (One of the great advantages to being 43 is that when you buy things like Super Size tampons and Preparation H and pregnancy tests from pimply-faced cutie pies, it isn’t embarrassing. At least, it isn’t embarrassing for you.)

But even that big, fat, positively iridescent blue + sign didn’t convince me I was knocked up. I still kinda thought it might be menopause. I worked at an elementary school where 75% of the teachers were 25 and a half. I’d attended no less than seven baby showers in the past six months and the common query bandied about by the mid-life moms of teenagers - “When are you going to have a baby?” - was never directed at me. No, in practically the same breath the matriarchal 50-something was leaning conspiratorially in with the pink, plump mother-to-be, dispensing wise words and glancing askance at me there fanning myself from my latest hot flash and nodding, “I’m glad to have THAT behind me!”

Yeah, you can’t be pregnant, you skipped that part, launched straight into the Change of Life, do not pass GO, do not collect 200 gift cards to Babies ‘R' Us…

And when Ultrawoman inserted her magic wand the next day at the doc’s office and said, “There’s the heartbeat,” I almost asked, “Whose?” But there I was, all Mariska Hargitay, the most glamorous first time forty-plus mom in history, holding hands with my boyfriend (already a father of three) like we were still teenagers ourselves staring at a black and white picture of our baby, the size of a grain of rice.

It was a grand feeling.

For two weeks I just glowed like a Hollywood celebrity and rubbed my imagined bump and read all the hospital brochures and thought of spectacular baby names and pictured myself in cute frocks and Danskos, pushing a baby jogger. I pushed from my mind questions of how to pay for amniocentesis and a private birthing suite (and college). I pushed, pushed, PUSHED from my mind the inevitability of telling my parents and the look of incredulity that would no doubt cross my principal’s face. I just walked around for two whole weeks and glowed and thought “I’m having a baby! I’m really doing this! I’m having a baby!”

I wondered, how did Mariska Hargitay break it to her dad?

Before I could figure that out, I miscarried.

And suddenly, I was just a frumpy, childless 40-something from the suburbs again, a washed-out middle-aged perimenopausal screwup with a LOT of gray hair and ten new pounds to lose.

On the plus side, there was a tiny glow of Mariska left inside of me. I may be too old with just one ovary, but the life I've lived has taught me that there is no obstacle I can't conquer. Sure, I’m a late bloomer. But I may just have a baby yet.