RITA HAZAN MOVIE
RITA HAZAN SERIES

If blue confetti rains down, the father almost always seems instantly relieved he walks a few steps away, his eyes wide and his hands behind his head.

Often these couples do not embrace immediately. Watching them feels impolite, like IвЂ™m peering in on something intensely private.ДЄfter the couple punctures the balloon and pink or blue confetti cascades down onto them, or the slice of the knife reveals the interior of a cake, dyed a pastel shade, I start to notice a pattern.

Even though I canвЂ™t see them, I can feel the presence of their audience-the family members and friends behind their iPhones-as the couple smiles nervously, bracing themselves before they strike. IвЂ™m taken aback by the pressure these videos capture. In them, anxious couples stand a few feet apart, looking awkwardly at a large cake or a suspended balloon.

RITA HAZAN SERIES

One night I embrace the algorithm and lie in bed, scrolling through suggested videos: a series of gender-reveal parties. My timeline is filled with targeted ads for maternity clothes, and my explore page is all pictures of babies, bellies, stretch marks, signs that say 12 weeks, and tips for expecting mothers. INSTAGRAM KNOWS IвЂ™M pregnant before most of our close friends or even my parents do. My husband has no physical symptoms in вЂњourвЂќ pregnancy, another reminder of how different a woman and manвЂ™s experience of life can be.

RITA HAZAN MOVIE

There is no one to feel it with me-the sharp muscular aches in my lower abdomen that come out of nowhere while IвЂ™m watching a movie or the painful heaviness of my breasts that now greets me first thing every morning.

Despite having a loving partner and many female friends ready to share the gritty details of their pregnancies, I am ultimately alone with my body in this experience. Pregnancy is innately lonely itвЂ™s something a woman does by herself, inside her body, no matter what her circumstances may be. ItвЂ™s kind of a joke, but just like the remark we make about our childвЂ™s gender, there is truth behind it. вЂњIt just seems unfair,вЂќ I say, and we both laugh. I resent that his entire familyвЂ™s DNA is inside of me but that my DNA is not inside him. My husband likes to say that вЂњweвЂ™re pregnant.вЂќ I tell him that while the sentiment is sweet, itвЂ™s not entirely true. As my body changes in bizarre and unfamiliar ways, itвЂ™s comforting to obtain any information that might make whatвЂ™s coming feel more real. But no matter how progressive I may hope to be, I understand the desire to know the gender of our fetus it feels like the first real opportunity to glimpse who they might be. I like the idea of forcing as few gender stereotypes on my child as possible. Who will this person be? What kind of person will we become parents to? How will they change our lives and who we are? This is a wondrous and terrifying concept, one that renders us both helpless and humbled.

There is a truth to our line, though, one that hints at possibilities that are much more complex than whatever genitalia our child might be born with: the truth that we ultimately have no idea who-rather than what-is growing inside my belly. WHEN MY HUSBAND AND I tell friends that IвЂ™m pregnant, their first question after вЂњCongratulationsвЂќ is almost always вЂњDo you know what you want?вЂќ We like to respond that we wonвЂ™t know the gender until our child is 18 and that theyвЂ™ll let us know then.

Rita hazan