Prior to getting pregnant, I was an actor. An aspiring working actor. Whether or not I was near success or not is barely important since it is so subjective. I felt like I was on the verge of something big, building up steam, gaining momentum, “this” close to… to… getting paid! Yeah. I mean really Paid!

Then my monthly visitor skipped my uterus entirely and went to some other uterus that belonged to some responsible woman down the road, who could count. Bitch! And suddenly there I was, looking at my scrambled eggs and thinking “Why do these taste like little pieces of buttered rubber?” SURPRISE! You win a brand new fetus! And there it was. And there we were. And that was it. Sure, we had choices but we chose That Baby. As usual, I imagined great things… in spite of pregnancy! I imagined continuing to run/jog into my 29th week of gestation - I read on a website somewhere that some insane monster of a woman did that- I imagined going on auditions and even *gasp* getting into a new play immediately which would be over at my third month into this little adventure, I imagined. I imagined. I imagined. I went into dry heaves in the bathroom at work. I went into dry heaves in my car, on the freeway on the way to my first round of commercial auditions while pregnant. And there it was. And there I was. And that was it.

I had “morning” sickness for six months. (”Morning” is a relative term. My “morning” sickness started at 11:00 a.m and went into the night.) When it did ease up slightly in the third month I began to look slightly pregnant and didn’t fit into my clothes. I had to let my agent know that I was starting to LOOK pregnant so that he could tell casting directors when he submitted me for work. I didn’t hear from him again until my last month of pregnancy, when I was on bed rest. The irony with this casting silence is that when I was called into auditions prior to being pregnant, I was always asked to go as the ‘young mother.’ Now that I actually was becoming a young mother, pregnant and all, no one wanted to use me. And I would become enraged when I would see a “pregnant” woman on a commercial and she would clearly have a pillow shoved under her shirt to give the “impression” of pregnancy!

Of course, the style mags will tell you, “It is hip to be pregnant!” Eeeee! “All the big stars are taking on the role of a life-time — motherhood!” Eeeee! “Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean you can’t be stylish!” EEEEEEE! Having babies is the in thing with the people in-the-know. Hm. I was under the impression that people had been having babies for years. At least for the last … uh, uhhhh… well… FOREVER! Apparently, it wasn’t cool until just recently. And apparently not cool enough because I still didn’t get any calls.

I imagined that after That Baby arrived, I would be up and at ‘em by the time he was six weeks old. I imagined the same body from before, same hair from before, same sunny disposition as before, same… I imagined. Sarah Jessica Parker was posing NUDE, for Christ’s sake, six weeks after she gave birth! AHHHH. Who are these people???? I was not. Posing nude that is, for ANYONE!

I called my agent about a year ago and told him I was ready to get back out there! I was not however the same body, the same hair or the same sunny disposition. Just recently things have started to pick up as far as audition quota is concerned. It has taken a year to get back out there — and I am nowhere near where I was before.

And now I take a partner to auditions. That Baby. I remember several years ago I was at an audition when a woman showed up for her audition, with her baby. A much younger baby than mine. And she had to leave it with the casting assistant while she was in the studio. The assistant didn’t seem to mind, but I remember thinking, “Oh NO. What is this girl doing?! Who would bring their baby to an audition? Hmph! I would never do that!” Funny that. Who indeed. I want to cry when I think of that girl now. I want to cry from guilt for thinking such absolutely ignorant and intolerant thoughts. I want to cry because it is so hard in this industry to have a family at all. I want to cry because whenever I go into an audition and I have left That Baby under the eyes of the casting assistant and other strangers, I am afraid. And when I sit in the waiting rooms in every casting office in town with That Baby in tow, I see other women (presumably) without children, looking at us and thinking those very same things.

Ultimately, I guess I tell this story because I find it frustrating. The business that I love, the craft that I would wrench my heart out for, the medium used specifically to tell stories of the human condition, is specifically resistant to the most human of conditions. Pregnancy or childbirth. And with that, one of the essential aspects of the woman’s condition.

Ricky: You can’t be in this show or any other show.
Lucy: Give me one good reason.
Ricky: I’ll give you one good reason. You’re a mother.