Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado

went to the local Planned Parenthood and requested a blood test. But after the nurse heard about all the tests I’d already taken she just laughed and went straight for an ultrasound. Sure enough, within three seconds she told me that I was already six weeks gone.
    I didn’t think about the pregnancy much to begin with; I had a job to finish, then we’d sort out what to do next. I knew that I’d be facing weeks of unemployment after Election Day, and I could sort out prenatal and baby products and such then. The pregnancy prompted our decision to send my husband to school; we’d been thinking about it since he came home from Iraq, and it seemed as good a time as any to have a guaranteed income. The GI Bill, along with paying for tuition, pays a living stipend. It would just cover all of our expenses if we were careful. I could stay home with the baby until I was ready to go back to work, and then we’d be in a decent position until he graduated. The stipend wasn’t so much that we wouldn’t qualify for Medicaid, so the birth itself would be covered.
    It didn’t exactly go according to plan. First, we qualified forMedicaid, and I started looking for an OB. There weren’t a ton of doctors accepting new Medicaid patients. Planned Parenthood doesn’t do prenatal care. I found my clinic through a flyer, advertising that it did in fact accept Medicaid and was enrolling NOW! In the waiting room for my first appointment, I realized that I was at a faith-based clinic. It was a church ministry.
    Now, normally I’m cool with the Jesus folks doing the poor-people tending. It’s sort of their mandate, and I honestly do not care about the religious beliefs of anyone willing to make sure my kid gestates properly. But there are the charities that happen to be church-run, and then there are the church charities. I was at one of the latter. That distinction is important: Some ministries are set up by churches to provide a service, and some seem to be set up to proselytize, tacking the service on as an afterthought.
    When I showed up, I was ushered into an office, where I did the initial paperwork and learned about all the things the woman helping me praised Jesus for. Her pencil didn’t break, praise Jesus. The weather was decent, praise Jesus. I honestly do not know what was in the paperwork she was walking me through; I was much too fascinated by this person who was nearly finished with the third page, praise Jesus.
    After that, I was taken to an exam room, where I was greeted by a lovely young woman who took my blood pressure and asked me if I had a church home. She was followed by a nurse who told me that Jesus had a plan for this baby and congratulated me on making the decision to bear it. I askedabout maybe getting another ultrasound—my weird hormones and the sudden ability to bear children had me freaking out that this kid wasn’t viable, and I was terrified of coming to terms with having a child only to discover that it wouldn’t make it. But I was told that they only did ultrasounds in the third trimester unless there was a problem.
    And that was the end of my appointment. No reassurance, no actual medical advice, no real exam. Just some routine tests and the clear message that Jesus wanted me to have this baby. I, certain that Jesus also wanted me to have an ultrasound and pretty sure that I could manage a pregnancy just as well without that sort of help, never went back. There didn’t seem to be much point in returning to a place that gave no better advice than to drink a lot of water and not get into a hot tub, which were both helpfully bullet-pointed on the packet of papers they sent home with me.
    I did take a few stabs at finding a different clinic. The ones with open spots didn’t take Medicaid, and the ones that accepted Medicaid were full. So instead, I read a lot of books, called all of my old friends who had kids, and compulsively Googled things to find out whether they were normal or whether I should