good mom
by Zoey Knowlton
Danielle looked over at her dresser. The gestation base unit atop it was newly installed, a quiet fan whirring, yellow lights growing along the base of it. Those same lights would be illuminated in green for the next nine months, just as soon as Danielle’s womb was transferred from her body to the freshly placed gestation unit. Currently, there was a large empty space, awaiting the tank that would hold her womb. The date of her operation was nearing, and although she was only a few weeks pregnant, she really felt like a mother.
Danielle had wanted to be a mother for as long as she could remember. As a teen, she had worked as a babysitter for all of the infants and toddlers in their neighborhood. In college, Danielle had been an aide in a preschool class. Danielle wanted many things in life, but she longed for a child to pour all of her love into.
Danielle laid on her bed, arms and legs outstretched, like a starfish. She stared at the ceiling, wondering about her future child. Would she have Danielle’s eyes? Her smile? Her far too loud laugh, that Maya always described as worse than a barking hyena?
Danielle supposed it didn’t really matter. Her child would be hers. Her child would be perfect.
And Danielle would love her.
***
Day 0
“But aren’t you, like, stoked? You get a baby, your own baby, but you don’t have to carry it. You keep your body, you keep your job, you get to sleep on your fucking stomach for the next nine months. I love my little shitlord, but if I could go back and do it over again, I’d have myself one of those fish tank babies just like you. I mean, damn, forty-eight hours from now you can sip a margarita with no worries.”
Maya looked expectantly across the table. Danielle stared down, slowly twirling the straw in her lemonade. Maya cleared her throat.
“Okay, yeah. Yes, I’m stoked. I’m just nervous, I guess. I go in for surgery tomorrow, then things will be good and all, but I’m just having some last-minute doubts. Like, what if something happens while I am at work. At least your baby was always with you. And I only get this one shot. One womb, one baby, one time.”
“Girl, calm down. You had professionals install that thing. You have a backup battery pack, earthquake proofing, the full package. You don’t want more than one. You never have. That baby is going to be safer in your bedroom than it would ever be in your ratchet-ass belly.”
Danielle laughed, despite herself, and flipped Maya off.
***
Day 1
Danielle awoke groggily. She could not remember where, or who, she was at first. Looking around the room, it all came back. The sterile, white walls. Various instruments. And, on the counter, a tank filled with fluid, housing a human womb. Her womb. And her baby.
“I see you’re up. No, no, don’t try to sit up yet. The general anesthesia is still wearing off. One of my nurses will sit here and keep you company until your partner shows up?”
“My… partner? I don’t have a partner.”
“Oh, of course. My mistake. I saw a young woman named Maya listed as your pickup person and made an assumption. Sorry again. You know what they say about what happens when you assume.”
Danielle said nothing. But she turned again to the tank on the counter. She stared unblinkingly. Danielle felt… detached. It was more than just the emptiness she was beginning to feel in her stomach. She was looking at her own womb, with her baby growing inside, and Danielle felt an overwhelming sense of apathy.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Danielle’s eyes snapped back to the doctor, who stood, looking appreciatively at the tank in front of them. “You are one lucky woman, Miss Livingston. Surgery went smoothly, and for the next eight months, you get to live easy until that gorgeous baby girl comes into this world. Your prescription to help with pain and hormonal adjustment is already waiting at the pharmacy. After a couple weeks in recovery, you’ll feel right as rain.”
Danielle felt a good many things. She was tired. She was sore. And she was euphoric as she looked over at her womb and daughter, who waited to be taken home.
***
Day 7
The euphoria of the first days had soured, and Danielle was plagued with doubt. She was worried she had made a huge mistake, both in visiting the IVF clinic and in selecting to move her womb to a gestational tank. But, doubt or not, she and her baby would be home soon. Maya was already on the way. Maya was late, as usual, no doubt because of her son’s inconvenient need to use the bathroom when they had somewhere to be. Soon, it would be Danielle who was running late. It was not something she looked forward to.
***
Day 25
Danielle’s emotions were unpredictable, at best. Her doubts had seemingly disappeared, and she was back in a euphoric mindset. Danielle was thrilled. She woke up most mornings beaming. She danced her way through showers and getting dressed, and sang lullabies to the gestation unit, the tank now illuminated a glowing green by the light strip along the bottom of it.
Danielle brought her positive attitude wherever she went, and it was contagious. At work, she smiled at everyone, and they smiled back. “You’re glowing.” And she was. Any time Danielle heard this, she felt ready for motherhood.
***
Day 100
“Would you like to come in?”
In reply, Brett leaned in and kissed her deep. He pressed his body against hers, and she could feel just how sure he was that he wanted to follow her inside. Danielle wanted him, and wanted him now.
The next few seconds were a blur. Hands groped, lips met, and they both stumbled up the stairs, through the door, onto the bed, and…
“Dani, wait. Are you pregnant?”
Danielle broke away then. Brett's eyes stared past her, to the gestation unit. His expression was hard to read in the dim light coming from the tank. But his body had gone tense in her arms.
“Well, yeah. But she’s not due for another five months. And I wasn’t really looking for anything serious right now, so I didn’t mention it.”
“I, uhhh… Well, I don’t really sleep with pregnant women. It’s just, you’re about to have a lot going on. And, I get you about nothing serious and all, but it just makes me feel weird. Like, you have another man’s baby growing in your uterus. And having it just floating there weirds me out. Sorry, Dani.”
“What do you mean, weirds you out? It’s natural. And, for the record, I don’t have a co-parent or ex-husband or anything. I went to a fucking IVF clinic.”
Brett flinched away from her anger.
“Look, Dani, I just can’t, okay? I’m sorry, I am. But I need to go. Good luck with… everything.”
***
Day 107
Danielle hadn’t sung to her baby in a week. In fact, she had actively avoided looking at her still expanding womb as much as possible. She slept on her couch, downstairs, and spent evenings working on her laptop instead of talking to her future daughter. Now, on Friday night, a week after Brett had left so suddenly, Danielle couldn’t take it anymore. She marched up to her bedroom.
“Do you see what you’re doing to me? Putting you in there was supposed to make my life easier. Things were not supposed to change. And yet, here I am, on a Friday night, alone. After Brett left, I put my pregnancy on all my apps, and that was it. All my matches dried up. Thanks for that. God, sometimes I wish I had never decided to have you.”
Inside the tank, Danielle’s womb shifted slightly. The baby must have kicked. It was the first time Dani had seen it. She felt her heart flutter, but her bitterness still had not subsided.
“Why are you doing this to me? You get me the rest of your life. I just wanted a few more months. I mean, was that so much to ask?”
Tears traced lines down Dani’s cheek, and dripped from her chin. Whether they were tears of anger, or sadness, she couldn’t quite tell. But she picked up a sheet and draped it over the gestation unit, nonetheless.
***
Day 108
Danielle woke up in the middle of the night, on the couch, feeling guilty. It was a deep-rooted guilt, instinctual, raw. She had wronged her daughter. Danielle would be this baby’s only support, and here Danielle was, covering her daughter with a sheet. The sheet had to be removed.
Outside, a storm had taken shape. Rain thundered down on the roof of the house. Thunder roared nearby, shaking the windows. Lightning flashed. The neighbor’s dog barked in response, as if to ward off the foul weather. Thunder sounded again, startling Danielle fully awake.
The lights flickered.
With sudden urgency, Danielle got to her feet. Her untied robe hit the ground, but the cold didn’t matter. She needed to check on her baby. Danielle lunged to the stairs and started up them when the power went out.
“Shit!” Danielle tripped over the step she was on, falling to her knees, but catching herself on the banister. She continued up the stairs. She half-crawled her way to the bedroom, cursing herself for not having flashlights available or bringing her phone with her.
The inside of the room was pitch black. Dani never realized how dark her room could get, and she had become so accustomed to the dull green glow of the gestation tank, that it made the darkness seem alive.
Danielle fumbled around until she found her nightstand, then rummaged frantically for the small light she kept stashed there. Once the tiny light came alive, she went over to the gestation tank, ripping off the sheet that was still covering it. She reminded herself to breathe, that the units would be fine for at least an hour with no power.
Dani looked over to where she had placed the battery backup. Something was wrong. The backup should have its own glowing green light, but the light lay dormant. She looked behind it, and saw that the power strip it was plugged into had been tripped and shut itself off. There was no telling how long ago. The only thing she could tell for certain is that she was in a house with no power, with a baby that needed power to live, and that her only backup was dead in the water.
“Oh, fuck. Fuck me. Okay, baby girl. I’m going to go get help.” Dani placed a hand on the tank, trying to reassure herself and her unborn child.
Darkness still enveloped the house and the street, but that didn’t stop Danielle from bounding down her stairs two at a time. She ran out of her house, still in just her tank top and panties, heading for her neighbor Ted’s house. Ted was a crotchety old man who barely nodded back to her when she would wave hello in the morning. To the best of her knowledge, he had no family, no friends, and no pets. What he did have, though, was a gas generator that ran obnoxiously loud every time Danielle’s block lost power. It was running already.
Danielle pounded on the door, suddenly very aware that her white underwear had become rain soaked and no longer left anything to the imagination. She hoped the light was dim enough for her not to feel totally exposed. Ted opened the door slowly, eyeing her suspiciously. Danielle covered herself as best as possible, but if Ted cared about her lack of clothing, he certainly didn’t show it.
“Hey, I’m so sorry, but I need -”
“You live down at 440, right?”
“Yes, I -”
“You need to mow your yard more. Looks like a jungle right now.”
“Look, Ted, please let me finish. I need your help. My daughter doesn’t have power and I need your generator.”
“Your daughter?”
“Yes, she’s in a gestation unit and -”
“Well, damn. Why are you standing around talking to me? Let’s get this generator over there.” Ted looked at her again. “On second thought, let me grab Brian from next door. We’ll be over in two minutes. And, miss? Maybe put some clothes on.”
***
Day 265
“Oh my God, Dani, how excited are you?”
“I’m nervous. What if I’m not a good mom? What if I mess up?”
Maya pursed her lips. “Girl, you’re gonna mess up. You already did, right? Didn’t charge the backup. Blamed your baby when nothing was her fault.”
Danielle put her head down on the kitchen table. “Really making me feel better, Maya.”
“But what happened after? You did what you had to do. You realized you fucked up, and you took action. You’ve been a shining example of a mom ever since. Nesting and all that shit. My point is, everyone makes mistakes, but you turned it around. Your girl couldn’t ask for a better example. Besides, she’s got me for an auntie.”
“Thanks, Maya.”
“You finally decided on what to name her?”
“Yeah, I think I have.”
Photo of Zoe Knowlton
BIO: Zoey Knowlton (she/her) is a transgender author who lives amidst the redwoods in the Pacific Northwest. By day, she works with at-risk teenagers. By night, she reads, writes, and spends time with her wife and children. As a woman in recovery and transitioning, Zoey enjoys themes of change, progress, and uncertainty in her writing.