Bavarian Bull$h!+

Mandatory bed rest made me 
far too familiar 
with the ends of the Internet.
Still, I stopped mid-scroll on the day 
I encountered a post 
in my Mama2Bee group 
from a woman hailing from Vegas 
who had taken her baby-to-be's 
repellant mass production
infant bucket car seat 
to a vehicle upholstery shop to:
“get the seat redone properly” 
in whole grain Bavarian leather
to match the seashell hue 
of her 2012 Rolls Royce interior. 

She was complaining, 
of course.
“Do you know how hard it is” 
she went on, 
“to source a tenth hide”
 from the same batch of scar-free bull skin
“as covers the rest of the Ghost?”

I did not understand 
any of those words 
in that order.
And yet.

Her post garnered 478 notes 
of concern and understanding.
“You got this, Mama!”
“Praying for you”
“Color matching to an existing Rolly? 
Yikes! That really is so tough.”

I glance down at the rough cream hide
of unknown origin, comprising 
the arms and pillows and frame
of my first floor couch 
a/k/a my bed prison.

The same sofa 
I'd negotiated 
in response to 
a Craigslist ad.

I’d driven 
to a strange address 
an hour away to collect
without any thought 
of where the cows came from
— in a wobbly $17 a day
rental moving truck.


(Nor did I pause,
mind you, where did my concern for my own safety go?)

It dawns on me, 
while I palm 
the sticky second-hand leather
that this custom car seat I’m reading about
owned by this pregnant woman
— and that might 
be used 
by her future babe 
for all of six months — 
will have a more privileged existence 
than my actual, living human baby.

In this moment
It becomes evident 
That simply sharing a due date
Does not mean we breathe the same air
And does not imply our babies 
would ever be allowed to play together.

In our shared group of hundreds 
of incubating women
sharing glimpses of our pregnancies
I realized how much separated us

and...

I never felt so alone.