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shop with six or seven racks of black, white, denim, and khaki pants and one Asian-styled top in several cheery prints.
    At first I was disappointed. I just couldn’t get excited about the same plain pants in four colors, all with a thick elastic band around the waist. But then Blanca, the very gentle and attentive saleswoman, suggested I try the pants in a small changing room and nodded approvingly at my reflection when I did. As she admired, I berated myself for being such a snob. The pants were fantastic, and I decided in a matter of seconds that I was never taking them off.
    In my determination to “network with other moms to ensure the success of my baby,” as advised by the editors of the Fit Pregnancy magazine I scoured in my ob/gyn’s waiting room, I started talking to the other trying-to-stay-cool mamas trying on pants. One woman was five months “along” and had a gigantic one-year-old knocked out in a stroller. Even though she couldn’t stop herself from telling me that her son was in the ninety-fifth percentile for weight and height for his age group, I was terribly impressed with this mom. She was dressed casually, in a simple black T-shirt and jeans, and had her dark, curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was confident and friendly and seemed very down to earth. She had great cheekbones and lovely lips that were lightly rouged.
    Because she wasn’t the total mess I expect a woman with a baby in a stroller and one on the way to be, I asked for her secret. She said humor and a stay-at-home husband. Then she began extolling the virtues of the Japanese Weekend pant, namely the elastic band that sits below the belly and can be folded over in the later months. I fell more in love with her when she called the pants she was looking for a “piece,” and then pulled the pants she thought would be good for me from the sale rack.
    The second mom-to-be to share the mirror was a little more high-strung. She looked like a corporate lawyer on her lunch break, and she tore through the options Blanca handed her with alacrity. We asked each other what I have surmised to be the stock mom-to-be questions: How many months, is this your first, do you know if it’s a girl or a boy, and have you picked a name? She was four months pregnant with her first, a girl, with no name. When I congratulated her and said, “Oh how exciting, you’re having a girl!” she grimaced and said, “Well, I don’t know, girls are easier in the beginning but much harder later on. You know, the whole mother-daughter thing.” I was so shocked by her candor that I just nodded and ducked back into the dressing cubicle. But I can’t stop thinking about what she said. I just want my baby to be healthy, but I know what she means.

May 9
    Mother’s Day.
    Went with my mother to see a documentary about a guy who eats McDonald’s food for thirty days. After the film, I told her that I’ve been feeling depressed, and she told me she was depressed throughout her pregnancy. She said that she always assumed it was because she was isolated in Mississippi, where I was born and where she was working with my father in the civil rights movement, but maybe it was hormonal and genetically so. She said she was practically suicidal, and there were days and days she couldn’t get out of bed. She said between the nausea (check) and the depression (double check), she almost lost her mind.
    When I spoke with my father on the phone last night, he confirmed her memory. I asked how he dealt with it, and he said, Well, it was hard. Then he told me a story I’d never heard:
    My mother wanted to go to Mexico after her first trimester because she was convinced that the sun and getting out of Mississippi would make her feel better. The only problem was that they didn’t have any money. So my father put their car, the VW Bug his mother bought him when he graduated from law school, up for sale. Your car? I screech. You sold your car to go on a trip to Mexico? He laughs,