Well No One Ever Said Breeding Was Easy
A Braided Abecedarian
Attempted for years to have a child
gave up, adopted a child, got pregnant
Zipping your lips is what they call it
when you pretend it doesn’t hurt
Budgeted for four rounds of IVF
had three miscarriages, one healthy baby
You should just adopt, people said
Ceased taking depression meds
to do fertility treatments and grew suicidal
X-rays are what they call it when they squirt you full
of iodine to check your tubes
Delivered a stillborn baby, then miscarried
Wage gap is what they call it when women make 77 cents
for every dollar earned by men
Eclampsia is what they call the seizures
that land her in the hospital in her 8th month
Visa officers block pregnant women at the border
for fear of what they call anchor babies
Froze six embryos just in case
then got pregnant by accident
Uterine cancer is what they call it
when you’re exposed to toxic chemical waste
Geriatric mother is what they call you
when you are pregnant over 35
Transvaginal probes are what they put inside you
when you seek an abortion in 20 states
Had an abortion, had an abortion, had a miscarriage
Senile vaginitis is what they call it
when you’re in menopause
I lost at least one book, maybe one and a half
to raising my kids, she said
Ran a marathon while bleeding freely
blood staining her leggings
Just got home from the hospital with her newborn
when her wife left her
Quit her job, dropped off each kid
with a different relative, and drove away
Kept trying, kept trying, kept trying, kept trying
kept trying, kept trying, kept trying
Pregnancy wastage is what they wrote on her chart
meaning her baby was stillborn
Laughed out loud when she discovered she was pregnant at fifty
Other women were her main source of information
about what to do
Married for fifteen years and can’t convince her husband
to have a child
Not expecting her period, she wadded up toilet paper
in her panties but still bled through her pants
Never wanted to have kids and she’s now stepmother to three
Mother made her sleep in the cow shed until her period was over
Ovaries were hyperstimulated by IVF drugs
and she gained 15 pounds in a week
Luxury items are how tampons and pads are classified
for taxes in 33 states
Pretended everything was just swell
as she miscarried during a job interview
Keeps quiet when people call him the mother
even though he birthed their baby after transitioning
Questioned her choice to have a child aloud
and to strangers in bars for years
Jails and prisons in the U.S. force women to work 21 hours
for a box of pads, 27 hours for a box of tampons
Resolved to have a baby on her own
and met a new partner while seven months pregnant
Incompetent cervix or inadequate pelvis
is what they called it
Suffered through the loss of one twin in utero
the second lived in the ICU for a year
Hostile uterus is what they call it
when your body blocks sperm like a champ
Told no one she was pregnant, not even her partner
until the abortion was over
Good news, it hurts like hell, but I swear
you won’t even remember it later
Used a donated egg and smiles every time someone says her son looks like her
Fair practice is what they call it when she doesn’t get promoted
because they think she might have another child
Vacuuming the eggs out of her ovaries hurt more than expected
waking after the retrieval
Exhausted by people mistaking her for the nanny
because she and her son don’t have the same skin color
Why don’t you just adopt? people asked
Decided to give up her newborn for adoption
because she wanted to finish high school
X-rays of her fallopian tubes hurt more than expected
returning to work after the procedure
C-sections mean the doctor gets paid more
and he’s done in an hour
You should think about just adopting
people advised
Bought food but no tampons this month
because she was too broke
Zygotes are overrated
says her friend with no kids
Adoption isn’t an option, she can’t opt to adopt
because she’s broke, too broke
Rachel Galvin’s books include Elevated Threat Level, a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and Pulleys & Locomotion. She is the translator of Raymond Queneau’s Hitting the Streets, which won the 2014 Scott Moncrieff Prize, and co-translator of Decals: Complete Early Poetry by Oliverio Girondo, a finalist for the 2019 National Translation Award. Her work appears in Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best American Poetry 2020, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Fence, Gulf Coast, McSweeney’s, The Nation, The New Yorker, PN Review, and Poetry. She teaches at the University of Chicago.
