She is pregnant. Glowing. The perfect Brooklynite mother-to-be, just out of her yoga class (or Pilates maybe?). Her hair is hardly touched, her body tight in last season’s Lululemon leggings (I am now enough of an expert to know that there are seasons — I mean, real trends — for leggings).

She doesn’t show. Or rather, only her stomach does. Her smile too somehow. She is one of those. Those …lucky ones? Whose ass, ankles, calves, and face understand they are not supposed to be part of the process. Who only know about stretch marks, orange peel, and water retention from what they read in magazines. Who other women envy but cannot resent (“immunity of the pregnant woman”, Simone used to call it)

She steps into the elevator. My fellow passengers can’t see anything but her. She is glowing. I, on the other hand, can’t see anything but her stomach. Her hands, already loving, rest on it in this universal pose I have seen so many times before. I’m not sure if the idea is to tell the outsiders about the insider or to comfort the insider about the outside world. Get on the bus — hands on belly, everything is ok here. Enter a building — hands on belly, everything is ok here too. And so on, all day long.

I look at her pregnant stomach and, for some reason, today something about it blows my mind. Nothing new; absolutely nothing I have not seen before, but today it is just as if I discovered something. It kind of weirds me out initially. The way I just thought about this pregnant woman. Almost embarrassing (If people knew!). But her stomach gives the impression of having turned into an appendix to her own body. It does not entirely belong to her anymore, it is inhabited by another human being. Like an animal (nothing more than an animal?), the woman carries — C.A.R.R.I.E.S human beings. Who grow and feed themselves out of her body, push her organs and press her bladder. How archaic this is strikes me (and only me?) for the first time.

Gestation.

The fact that humans never overcame the womb thing seems absolutely crazy to me. Of course, urination and defecation also should belong in the past. I think about it for a minute. But gestation haunts me.

I’m seriously obsessed about it. Offended too maybe. No — offended, period. All that technology. Our phones guide us, tell us what directions to take, control our home temperature, open our garage doors, and remind us of aunt Martha’s birthday. Meanwhile women are still deeply trapped into their female condition.

Not so much embarrassed by this thought anymore, not totally at ease with it either, I joke about it. With my husband, his parents, our friends. People laugh. Share their anecdotes.

My husband asks me why I talk so much about it. Well. Because I can’t think about anything else, because I don’t understand, because it hurts me. Because I saw a shadow and pulled back the curtain to see what was behind it, because I would never have imagined how many questions were hiding there. Because I don’t have any answers, because more I think about it, less I understand, because letting the curtain drop again is not an option.

Is the fact that we got rid of sex before the gestation a mystery for me only?

Then, comes the question. Inevitably. Later, but inevitably, the question comes in male/female terms. If men had to carry future generations too, would things be different?

I start to play my questions on repeat. Pretty soon out loud. I ruminate. Wonder. So much that my husband’s colleague tells me his story. His successful wife’s story.

I am fascinated. I drink up every word. I drink other wine glasses too. The bar filled up since we arrived. It might as well have closed I would not have realized. We emptied some bottles already, everything but our conversation has blurred. What we say, argue about, agree on, gains an authority that only wine can provide.

She decided to use a surrogate. I have no idea why I don’t ask to meet his wife right there, because really, I wish I could hear the story from her instead. Yet, I go with M.’s second-hand version. I let my own imagination fill the gaps.

She decided to use a surrogate. Holding back her career, slowing down her restless routine, taking a break when the (br)others don’t stop. Cleared. For about 100.000$. Not much for them, I understand. For half a second, I am convinced that she managed to liberate herself from the burden. Outsourcing her pregnancy. THE solution. The dream solution. Except that. Except that she did not liberate anyone. Did she just turn her back on us?

My smile tenses. Humm. I don’t know, I kind of have a problem with using another woman’s body… I mean… Using her body, a woman’s, a sister’s, seems problematic. Not to say unbearable. And I don’t say it. Something cultural? That the US forbids prostitution but allows surrogacy sounds absurdly incoherent to me. Understanding prostitution but not surrogacy probably makes me equally incoherent.

Is this the right scene? Now I can hear the crowd again, the music, the clatter of plates being piled, I see my neighbors again, my husband’s three-day beard (just how I like it), the waiters’ back and forth, the red rings recounting the glasses’ steps of the night on the table cloth.

I don’t push the discussion further, I barely start it. Keep smiling and listen. I let myself sink. My husband and his colleague disappear. Time, space don’t exist anymore. I am by myself with the woman.

I am still thinking about it, curled up onto my sofa, neck trapped between the armrest and the cushion. My tea, twice reheated in the microwave, is getting cold. I jump from one thought to another. From reproduction to surrogacy and in vitro fertilization. The woman is (nothing but?) a device. Even when there is nothing romantic or natural about the reproduction act itself anymore, still, the woman’s body is used, appropriated to nurture the produced fetus.

Seriously. Is the fact that we got rid of sex before the gestation a mystery for me alone?