Safety Maven

"You're traveling?"

It was the middle of my second trimester. My husband and I had plane tickets to visit a friend halfway across the country. I could either make the trip without telling my mom, which seemed deceptive despite years of financial independence, or let her know so she'd be in the loop.

Telling her, I realized, was an invitation to worry, but she might be more upset if I didn't tell her. So I told her.

"You're traveling?"

"It's perfectly okay to travel in my second trimester. The most alarmist pregnancy literature says it's safe. My doctor says it's safe."

"You're going to be so uncomfortable. When I traveled six weeks before you were born, for a funeral, by the way, my ankles swelled up so much that I ran for the gate."

"The baby's not due any time soon."

"What if you have the baby while you're away? Wouldn't you rather have the baby in town?"

"If I have the baby while I'm away, it will probably die. I won't be that far along."

"The airplane is full of germs! You'll be in an enclosed area!"

Ugh. Maybe I shouldn't have told her. Yes, she cares about the baby and me--a very good thing--but a person can care without acting irrationally. Eventually, I figured out a reasonable series of counterarguments.

"It's a good thing I don't live in New York," I said. My mom spent the first part of her life in New York City.

"The subway's an enclosed area, underground. How often do they clean the cars? And the tunnels are full of vermin!"

"But the metal detectors!"

"Good thing I'm not taking the train to Washington, D.C., to visit our national monuments. And it's a good thing I don't work at one of our national monuments! I'd have to pass through those metal detectors all the time."

"Those body scanners are worse."

"So I'll get a pat-down."

"Are you going to an international airport?" she asked, inquiring about foreign diseases.

"At least I don't work in Midtown. It's full of Asian tourists, and they all have SARS!"

She laughed and said I should do comedy for a living. I promised to write down our conversation, and I finally did, months after it occurred. Maybe this is my version of nesting.

But that's not the whole story. 

The day before our departure, I had really bad heartburn. In the midst of a late dinner, I threw up, only the fourth time in my whole pregnancy. Neither symptom disturbed me.

The next morning, less than twelve hours before our 6 pm flight, I woke up to spots on the skin around my eyes. That freaked me out. What if my mom was right, and something horrible would happen on this trip?

Fortunately, the doctor squeezed me in for a midday appointment. Apparently, throwing up can break blood vessels if you hurl hard enough. Of course, I was fine.

I made it through both rounds of airport security without openly referring to George Orwell. We sat in the back of the plane on our departing journey, but my seat did not recline all the way. I was very uncomfortable, but that was the worst part of our whole trip.