The Three of Us

32. Shifting Gears, and The First Kick

"You've been out of school for two weeks now, Anne," Marilla said. "And I think I've let you mope long enough."

Anne was laying on the sofa.

Marilla sat down. "I know you're still disappointed about school. But we must face reality: the school phase of life is over, and it's time for us to move into the next phase of life."

Anne rolled over and looked at her. "What's the next phase of life?"

"The getting-ready phase," Marilla said. "It's time for us to begin preparations for the baby."

"Do we have to?" Anne asked, already knowing how ridiculous she sounded.

Marilla gave her a Look.

Anne sighed.

"Now, we'll have to go into town for fabric and yarn," Marilla told her.

"But I don't want to go into town!" Anne cried.

"You know Billy won't be there," Marilla said briskly. "He's gone now. There's nothing keeping you from town."

"Yes, there is!" Anne said. "Marilla, I am flabbergasted that you'd force me into such humiliation. Everyone would see me-" she looked down- "With this!"

"Anne, for heaven's sake, you are not even that big. Yes, a few people would be able to tell, but you are not yet that obvious, and-"

"What if the Andrews see me?" Anne protested. "Billy may be gone but Mr. and Mrs. Andrews aren't!"

Marilla said calmly, "I can choose fabric myself. I only thought you'd like to decide on colors and prints. ...I thought you might think it was fun to choose."

"I don't care what...it...has on. I just don't want to go into town! Please don't make me go!" Anne insisted.

Marilla went into town by herself.

--

Gilbert's father, hearing about Gilbert's many worries over Anne each day, had suggested that Gilbert order a book to help him.

"You're planning to become a doctor, so you'll have to know all about it, anyway, son- you may as well read now and try to quell your fears."

And so Gilbert had ordered Maidenhood and Motherhood, by a Dr. John D. West.

He began it one morning when he woke up too early, and thinking about Anne, could not go back to sleep.

The more Gilbert read, the more he felt sorry for Anne. Pregnancy sounded awful. He had always thought it was a beautiful thing- that it must be amazing to be a woman because you were doing the miraculous thing of growing new life, a whole new human being, and men certainly didn't have that kind of power. It was incredible.

But he hadn't known very much about it before, and the more he read, the more he felt it wasn't so great to be a woman after all. They had to deal with a lot, he realized. He'd never known about monthly bleeding, but found out about it through reading the book, and he thought that in itself was awful, but from there it only got worse.

The book talked about the various things that could go wrong during a pregnancy- and that was before the baby was even attempting to come out. Once it tried to come out, it brought with it a whole host of new problems- hemorrhaging, perineal tears, infection...the only thing that seemed good about pregnancy was that at least the monthly bleeding didn't happen during it.