I Really Did

There is a not-so-subtle suggestion among my school mentors that one should take Human Reproduction as part of one's general education. The idea behind it is that it's a really easy class and it'll satisfy your math/science requirement. After all, when you're busy making important films, who's got time to worry about calculus or molecular biology?

So, during my final year at school, I signed up for the class, along with my dear friend/suitemate Karen. It was all fun and games (and old movies about sex experiments by Masters and Johnson) until we had to take the tests. There were three tests for the class. I know, for sure, that I failed two of them. Badly. Like in the 20th percentile. I'm pretty sure I failed the last test. I was as clueless about that material as I was with previous tests. Now I am certainly not the most attentive student so I may have missed a few details here and there but I will go to my grave swearing the stuff on the tests was not at all what was covered in the lectures. And if you don't believe me, find Karen (who now goes by Haiyen) in Chicago and she will vouche for this. What was on the tests then? Well, tt was more like, uh, molecular biology.

When my semester grades were posted, my proudest achievement was a whopping C- in Human Reproduction. By any other definition, this mark would be the infection in my otherwise spotless transcript. But I could care less. I passed, although I'm pretty sure I only passed because of a data entry error. Still, I managed to graduate college with honors. Now that's America for you.

Perhaps if I would have paid better attention in class, I would have not missed a few key details, the main one being this: Assuming you will have fertility problems and difficulty conceiving for at least two years is not the most intelligent planning strategy when you are 28 and otherwise quite healthy. And Mexican.

In retrospect, it wasn't my skewed memory of Human Reproduction that failed me. It was my inability to recollect Lifetime classics like "Fifteen and Pregnant" and "Too Young to be a Dad". It only takes one time, Mabelle. Duh. Stupid. So on our first shot at "trying", John done got me knocked up.

So here we are now. I've got my prenatal vitamins, my maternity jeans (more on that later), and a few pictures of my blob-like kid. I'm doing this blog because I'm trying to keep a scrapbook for my kid but I'm faster at typing than at writing with a pen (how pathetic is that/what kind of a world are we living in/oh whoa is me). The reality is this, like everything else that I seem to write, will be chock full of profanity and inappropriate content so my kid will have to turn 18 before I let him/her read such filth.

Jesus, they'll let anyone be a parent...