Jonah/Krystle: Moira Ashlyn Kamen

January 22, 2017, 20.5 inches, 8 pounds.  Beautiful.  That last part is still true even if the middle seems like it didn't last very long at all.

Contractions started during church, and while I've tried to move on from thinking that God is trying to make some sort of object lesson out of me, there are times when you can't help but think that.  The Reverend wasn't doing a sermon on premarital sex or deadbeat dads or anything today, but, still, when you cry out because suddenly your body has decided to loudly announce a new way to hurt in the middle of a crowd of people who don't think they would ever let things come to this, the embarrassment is almost just as painful.

Krystle, bless her, recognized what was going on practically before I did, and quickly got me out to the car and was almost on the way to the hospital before my parents caught up.  That was actually kind of surprising; she had been reluctant to be much of a part of getting ready, not really wanting "Jonah" to be seem as too feminine or tagged as the father.  It's a weird thing that none of us really figured out how to approach, because Krystle isn't, the whole "cousin" story is meant to keep me from having this in my background later, and the actual guy who knocked me up has basically said "try and prove it".  But, when the moment came, she was there, even for the actual birth.  I guess she decided she wanted to see it.

I kind of wish I could have skipped out on experiencing it.  As bizarre as the previous months of being pregnant were, being hyper-aware of this other person inside you, that eventually started moving on her own while your body does all these weird hormone things that make no sense, suddenly having her want OUT, but still needing you to push...?  It's all that plus really terrifying, like something out of a horror movie.  And that's regular-girl stuff - halfway to the hospital, I looked at Krystle and asked what would happen if I didn't know how.  Like, I still have a guy's brain, and what if it didn't come pre-wired to push a baby out?  She looked kind of horrified for a second, then said that couldn't be the case, because I was able to do what was necessary to get knocked up in the first place, but I said I mostly just lied there.  We were about two minutes from calling Penny to find out if she'd had to have a c-section when another contraction came and bearing down seemed like the thing to do.

I can't really describe the feeling of it - I don't know if regular women find the whole thing unreal their first (or ONLY) time, but it was like I wasn't in the real world for a while.  The bits of me that I just thought of as hurting when I had my menstrual cramps suddenly needed to be used, Krystle and my parents were frantic, and then I pushed someone out and there was just a while bunch of stuff I wasn't ready for:  The placenta, the sight of the umbilical cord coming out of me along with her, little bits of unexpected hair...  They don't show that stuff when someone has a baby on TV, and I guess I missed health class being a grown woman for the past couple years!

And then she started to cry and I snapped out of it, really looking at her when the doctor put her in my arms, and kind of feeling amazed that she was alive and beautiful, and that I hasn't screwed her up.

* * *

Names were kind of a hot potato for a while leading up to the big day.  It's kind of due to us not really knowing what was going to happen after the baby was born, just having strong opinions on what wasn't going to.  When I asked Krystle about names, she said she didn't want to have anything to do with that, although Mom said she should, because she was going to be the baby's mother.  On the other hand, she didn't want a name from her family tree, because that would taint it or something.  I bought a couple of baby-name books - one kind of generic, one more African-American - but nothing spoke to me.

So when the nurses asked, it was another quick decision, but I decided to go with the names of the two ladies who had looked out for me whether they knew the whole truth or not.  "Moira Ashlyn" seems like an absolutely ridiculous name for a girl who seems to have gotten all the genes for dark skin that Krystle and I have between us, but in that moment, I wanted to give her a name that really represented that sort of love, and none of the ones that did mean that seemed to mean it as much as that one.

* * *

It meant Moira and Ashlyn had to visit and see their namesake, of course.  Ashlyn had to come up for the baptism, since I'd asked her to be the Godmother, but it was not exactly a hardship from the way they cooed and tickled and asked if they could hold her.  We'd never really had a shower, so Ashlyn took the opportunity to bring Changeling onesies, teddy bears, and a big box of diapers from the other waitresses.

She admittedly wasn't sure about the whole Godmother thing.  I don't know what she believed before visiting the Inn, but she's not really a churchgoer these days - as much as the experience shows you that there's some sort of greater force out there, Ashlyn had met a lot of Inn visitors, including a creepy stalker, so it's hard for her to see it as part of God's Plan.  She's not quite a non-believer, I don't think, but she's not devoted.  Still, I can't think of anyone is trust to raise this little girl more if anything happened to me, Krystle, my folks, her folks...  Putting it that way seemed to take a load off her mind.

They were the easy visitors.  Momma Kamen and Karla also came up for the baptism, and it was uncomfortable.  Krystle's mom really was not keen on being presented as some sort of distant relative so that "Jonah" could have his reputation intact, and that disdain clearly hurt Krystle.  She also REALLY doesn't get along with Karla, no matter who she looks like.  The good news is that babies can magically smooth over a lot.  Moira's cousins were really excited to meet her, so Karla put a happier face on for them, and "Momma" may have been upset at my family, but she seemed to feel good when she got to hold Moira, and privately suggested that maybe being in this new place was good for me, keeping me from falling back into old habits.  

The funny thing is, she kind of doesn't know how right she is, in that Krystle is doing real well being me.

* * *

I've never been as popular with the girls in my class as I was a a pregnant woman and now as a new mother.

Part of "me" being popular is Krystle, of course.  She hooked up with a couple of the girls that went to the Inn, they spread the word that "Jonah" was a terrific lover who really knew how to please a girl, and things happened from there.  I didn't exactly like the reputation as a player he was building for me, but it's difficult to argue too much when you've got a baby on the way.

Still, all the girls who went to the Inn with me have gotten even nicer since Moira was born.  All the complicated stuff seems to have been replaced with "OMG BABY!!!!"  Maybe it wouldn't quite be the same with the other girls at school - if you were taking a trip with your church youth group, your probably a bit more traditional - but they seem to enjoy hanging around and helping out when they can.

One, in particular, has gotten real close.  She doesn't really like to talk about it, but I think she had a near miss on having to make the sort of choice I did.  At any rate, she's around a lot, speaks up to defend me when someone suggests that they think there must have been another way, that sort of thing.

It really feels like there could be something there when things get back to normal, and that's a wonderful feeling, since most of the time, even with Mom and Dad and Krystle and everyone helping, Little Moira takes up enough of my life that "back to normal" seems impossible to conceive.

-Jonah/Krystle

Jonah/Krystle: Ready to pop

Missy went to Australia for New Year's before coming back to Boston, and when I said that was a lot of flying, even in first class, she agreed, saying that by the time you're almost home, you aren't sad about vacation being over any more, you just want this flight to be done.  I can relate, and I was never particularly excited about being a woman, let alone pregnant!

The word thing is, there are bits of things I miss.  Don't get me wrong, it was hard as heck to go to work and be on my feet for most of the night, but I was kind of independent, managing things, and that felt good.  Since coming up here, though, my "job" has been having a safe, healthy pregnancy, and as much as it's tough to actively do a whole lot else now that I've blown up to the size of a small car, I'm kind of bored.

I thought that maybe I could help Krystle out with "being me", but the fact that someone else was in my life for a year before Krystle and so many of my friends went to the Inn and don't expect her to act like me means it's not so urgent.  And, in other stuff, I'm behind.  Like, I was never really that great at math, but the guy before Krystle was, so he signed up for some higher-level courses, and it turns out that Krystle has surprised herself with how good she is.  She'd always treated knowing how much had been shoved into her panties within a few dollars by the end of the night, no matter how wasted she was, as just a weird little trick, but it turns out she's good with numbers generally.  It's kind of made studying for the SATs and applying to colleges weird - she does well on math, writing not so much, so while I'm thinking that after graduation, I always wanted to study religion and follow in Grandpa's footsteps, she knows she's going to do better on other parts of the tests and interviews.  I'm writing the application essays, but she's going to be doing the interviews, and neither of us can really talk much about the biggest experiences in our lives.

So, I just kind of sit around being pregnant.  Not so much sitting around - I try to get some chores done and run the occasional errand, but that's become a little harder as I'm waddling and there's snow on the ground.  I kind of also think that my parents don't necessarily want me leaving the house too much.  They haven't told the neighbors that "Jonah" knocked me up, instead coming up with a cover story that I'm some sort of poor cousin from the city whom they have graciously agreed to take in during this difficult time, but people whisper.  They haven't hit on the truth, or as much of the truth as the Inn's magic will let them believe, but there's been a lot of talk about Dad.  It makes me sick to consider, and while he says he doesn't mind taking the hit to his reputation if it lets me have a future, I hate the idea.

Mom really hates it.  I only really see how it affects her at church, where other people will stare at her and me, sometimes nodding to each other (no matter who in the family I sit next to, people seem to think it means something), and I've heard some variation of a conversation with Mom saying Christian charity is more important than how people talk a dozen times.  Only two sermons about the evils of sex out of wedlock and how bad it is for a child to not have both a mother and a father.  I can't say I liked being used as a bad example; it makes me both want to shout about how people don't know the whole story and remember to lean more heavily on forgiveness and helping out if I ever earn my way behind a pulpit.

My friends have mostly been great.  I talk with Moira, Missy, and Benjamin on-line all the time, and Missy in particular likes sending me baby toys - she'll see something and just drop it in the mail, even if she's in Hong Kong or Australia.  My friends from school who also went to the Inn kind of split along gender lines - I freak the guys out, especially the ones that turned into girls themselves, I guess because they know that this could have happened to them, and their white male brains don't want to face it.  The girls are mostly cool, though - they're really polite about asking if they can touch my belly, a lot more so than other people, maybe because they know what is like to have other people acting like they've got a claim on your body.  I also think that most of them wound up in relatively good situations, and hanging out with me gives them more of a connection to something they remember fondly that they're afraid will fade as we go to college and just have regular lives.  And sometimes they're just curious about what the future has in store when they start families.  I don't know how many will follow up in terms of promised babysitting, but we'll see.

And then there's Krystle.

It was really weird between us at first.  She was still mad at me for he not being able to get back to her life for an extra year and how she'll have a lot to explain when she does, but the fact that I am living her life and maybe something else where the baby's concerned gives her some sort of maternal/paternal instinct to protect us.  Even if she would really rather I'd used a condom, she's the one that tells me that sometimes a woman with not much else but a good body will have to use it as a resource, and while people will try and make you feel bad, it's mostly just hypocritical B.S.  Nobody, she says, ever told the bouncers outside the strip club that they shouldn't exploit the fact that they're six and a half feet of solid muscle.

I also seem to be the only person she can relax around. Dad calls it "code-switching" when she starts talking black, for lack of a better description, although technically the actual switching had been talking like the mostly-white people around her ever since first becoming someone else a year and a half ago, and you can see that he and Mom don't really approve of the bad grammar, pronunciation, and seeming to put random words in bold.  I didn't really like it at first either - I mostly grew up around white people and my folks said I'd never get anywhere if I sounded ignorant - but I got used to hearing it living Krystle's life (Momma Kamen may talk like that a bit, but I'd never think of her as dumb), so I don't look down on her when she breaks it out (I hope).  I guess I'm the one she can be herself with, even if it's just swearing a bunch when we play Xbox, since even the other folks who know about the Inn aren't really cool with her being that way.

Plus, I guess she's gotten to the point where she likes being me for a while.  She enjoys being on the basketball team, and though she's hated the part of school that's taking standardized tests, I've seen her looking at community college courses for when we switch back, because knowing you can do something is a big deal, and I guess she never knew she could do more than turn a guy's head before.  She also says high school is a lot more fun when you know just which parts don't matter.  It's also apparently a lot of fun when a girl who also went to the Inn whispers that "Jonah" really knows what a girl likes.

Despite that, like I said, she's making plans for afterward, which is a relief.  As much as I know I'm not going to feel like a whale anymore any day now, I still can't wait to be myself again.

-Jonah/Krystle

Jonah/Krystle: 31 Weeks

This has been sitting in "Drafts" for a couple of months, seeming too personal for most of that time, but if I'm going to post again, I guess I'd better put it up...

How do you know I've turned into a for-real pregnant woman?  I'm measuring it in weeks, rather than the "nine months" that people who haven't discussed milestones with an OB/GYN use.

With a due date in January, I'm pretty big by now, although I've got a ways to go and grow still, and I don't know if I'm living up to Penny's claims that former guys make the craziest pregnant ladies, but there are certainly days when I feel completely insane.  I cried at a movie the other night, and it wasn't some thing about somebody's husband dying of cancer - it was Mad Max Fury Road, a spectacularly bad idea on Moira's part.  I mean, it's a fantastic movie, but as soon as Moira remembered what happened to Splendid, she tried to drag me out, although it was Furiosa realizing she had brought the wives to certain doom that got me.  All that on top of not being the great way to celebrate a woman thwarting a bloated jerk Moira thought it would be, either.

I am so going to miss President Obama.  Mom and Dad always said I wouldn't appreciate what he meant for them, but given what the next four years may hold, I just might, and if nothing else, I don't know how I could have gotten through all this without Obamacare.  Doctors' visits are expensive, and even bosses as understanding as Ashlyn don't give hourly employees that kind of benefit.

It's crazy.  As much as I haven't had to spend too much of my salary on just being pregnant - Karla handed me down some maternity wear, though I've had to buy new bras as these breasts somehow got even bigger - it's insanely stressful, and I just wake up in the middle of the night wondering how I'm going to screw this up.  Not being a mother, but just carrying this baby and giving birth.

I didn't worry about being a mother because Krystle (Krystle-slash-Jonah, if she wrote here) was ahead of the game in searching out adoption agencies, even going so far as to start making assortments for me to meet prospective couples, but that was before yesterday, when I was getting dressed for work when my phone buzzed with a text.  "were on r way 2 c u", it said, then "ur mom looking in ur computer is f-ed up", and "told her all shed believe".

I stared at the phone for a few minutes, and then collapsed on the floor.  As prone to panic as I am over this whole situation, I really never have much thought to what would happen if we didn't get away with it.   I just assumed that I would have this baby, go back to the Inn, and whole Mom and Dad would think I'd been weird for a while, we'd eventually get back to normal, and they would never know how I had let them down.

It's going to sound weird, but my first instinct was to make sure they thought it wasn't their son's fault.  I called Moira to say I wouldn't be in because my baby's father and his parents were making a surprise visit, and then I looked in the closet to see what there was.  Should I dress like a slut, or would it just make them more disappointed in "me" to think that their son had been taken in by someone so transparent?  I shouldn't look reluctant.  I messed around with makeup, trying to look younger so that we could say we were mistaken about each other's ages, tried heels for the first time in months, and chose a top that really emphasized my cleavage.  How could a kid resist those when their owner showed an interest?  Then I puked for the first time in a few weeks, hating the idea of lying to my family.

There was no time to change back, though, and soon the doorbell was ringing.  I went through the charade of asking who was there, Krystle said "Jonah", and when I said if come down, I heard Dad say they would come up.

It's weird to see my family as a family, including Krystle in the part of me.  She's kind of uncomfortable, my mom is furious, and my dad finds his eyes drawn to my chest, and suddenly emphasizing that seems like a really bad idea.  I grab the neckline of my top and try to pull it closed, and he looks away.  Krystle tries her best to stifle a laugh at that.

"Something funny, young man?"

"No, uh, Mom, not really."

Mom looks at me, not happy with what she sees.  "If it was another teenager, I could almost understand it, but you..."  She looks around the apartment, sees the kids' things.  "And it's not even your first!"

Krystle started to look upset, so I said it was, but my sister...  Mom makes a little sound, Dad shakes his head, and I want to defend her, but see Krystle rolling her eyes and I guess that would be out of character.  Mom looks like she's going to say something else, but Dad steps in, saying he just doesn't understand how this happened.  Krystle snorts, saying he should know where babies come from, and I cringe.  Dad gives her a look, but then says he just wants to know how we got to that point.  Was it an on-line thing, who went where, all that.

We don't really have a story beyond the barest facts, so we improvise - "he" took a day trip to Boston during April Vacation, we ducked into a doorway during a downpour, more people did, so bits of us were touching...  I guess we had lunch, something about a date from a friend of Krystle's...  Then she was going off about it being a threesome, and I'm thinking, whoa, is that something Krystle does?  Or maybe it's just a way to get Mom to shout that she doesn't want to hear any more; she's been in my home long enough to know what pushes Mom's buttons. 

It gets her to change the subject, at least, saying that how "that one" ended up pregnant didn't matter, but that she wasn't going to let us give her grandchild up to some stranger.  She takes another look around the room and asks me if I had any plans to get a place of my own, since "Jonah" says I have a job.  Krystle jumps in there, saying "she does, but it is NOT going to have a nursery".  Mom looks at her and says that's hardly your decision, so I try and salvage it, saying I'm not ready.  Dad asks if I think "he" is, and I'm totem Berwyn answering it the way I hope Krystle might, saying a kid still in high school isn't, and the way I think they would want me to if I were my right self, stumbling.  That's when Mom says she wasn't exactly ready to be one of those women raising her grandchild,  that she couldn't imagine me ever putting her in that situation, and that's when I start crying like crazy.

I don't feel like I'm having any sorry of revelation or change of mind or anything, but I let it spoil out that I never wanted to disappoint her, or either of them, but it didn't feel life I had a choice.  Mom says...  Well, I forget how she says that even if she's known Krystle existed, it wouldn't be possible for her to be disappointed in that girl, but it's crushing, and I almost can't help telling them everything. 

It gets real quiet, and Dad seems shaken, not quite believing it, but kind of rolling everything I'd said around in his head.  Mom takes a moment and decides to go with "how dare you suggest I don't know my own son", while Krystle gives me this open-handed "you crazy?" look. I sigh, feeling a little more crushed, because I hadn't done this as a long shot but just because I'd had to, and now I'd made things worse.

Then Dad asked a question, and I answered, and then there was another, and a third, and Mom really didn't know what to say, which gave Dad a chance to tell me to pack some things, because I was coming with them. 

Mom said no way, but Dad told her that this was how it was always ending anyway - they weren't just going to leave this girl waiting tables and riding the subway and trying to fit a seventh person into a two-bedroom apartment,  especially with the baby due in the middle of winter, were they?  And if I was telling the truth, my friends - who, remember, were acting awful weird for about a year - might be able to verify it.

I ran up to hug them both, which was awkward in different ways - Dad didn't seem to entirely believe me, so it wasn't entirely like his son hugging him, and Mom was very reluctant to show any potential for affection to this girl who had messed up her family's life.  I wobbled on the heels, and gratefully whipped them off to throw across the room, explaining that I never wore them but was trying to scare them off.  I practically forgot to close the door before getting into sweatpants and a hoodie.  Neither Krystle or her family had a real suitcase, so I threw some things into a couple of Karla's shopping bags, including the sneakers Missy got me and some stuff out of the laundry.

My folks hadn't changed my mind when I got back out, so I ran to the door before they did, thinking of all the people I'd have to call.  I was pretty sure Ashlyn would forgive my quitting on such short notice, although Moira would be a more difficult conversation, more so than Jordan/Missy and Annette/Benjamin because she didn't know why I would just up and leave with the guy who knocked me up right away.  Nor would Momma Kamen, but I figured she might secretly be a bit relieved to have a little more breathing room, as well as expecting some impulsive, not great-looking decision-making from Krystle. 

Who, seeing how things had switched around, felt free to drop out of character.  "How the f--- you get them to go for that?  I spent like three f---in' months before tryin' to get through!"

I didn't have an answer beyond what everyone says about it sometimes being possible at big changes, which disappointed her.  "Well, s---.  Thanks to Karla, finding out that your daughter's knocked up ain't no big thing to Momma.  B----."

Mom and Dad started to scold her about language, but seeing their "sun" suddenly talk like a lower-class woman who spotted stripping more out of necessity than lack of interest seemed to have just as much effect on them as the pregnant woman making a reasonable case that she was really their son.  It wound up being pretty quiet on the way to the car and on the ride back to New Hampshire. 

And now I'm home, and it's weird.  Krystle and I both went to my bedroom at first, until we decide I should probably take the spare room for appearances.  Dinner was uncomfortable.  This is going to take some getting used to. 

-Jonah/Krystle

Jonah/Krystle: People Who Have Seen This Body Naked

Given that Krystle used to be a stripper, I guess that's not a small group, but there's a somewhat smaller group for whom the current situation is personal.  Still, I sometimes have a hard time thinking of Krystle as having a life before me; Ashlyn says it's typical of being young, but I don't know about that.

Anyway, I'm past the halfway point of my pregnancy now. I'm not barfing so much, but I'm showing and I've got to pee all the time.  My cravings are weird - I've developed a real fondness for fried clams, for whatever reason, although the ice cream right after gets the taste out of my mouth.  I half-suspect that my breasts getting bigger and softer right now is half down to the ice cream, because I think that's not really supposed to happen until later.

Most of the time, it's so impossible that I almost float through it, like I'm dreaming because this can't possibly be real.  But the last few weeks keep reminding me that it's not just me involved in this.

First was when this pretty blonde came into The Changeling and sat in my area, was really nice, asked about my baby, and then dropped a $300 tip.  Which, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the heck out of, but which I also couldn't help but think must have been a mistake.  I told Moira that she'd left am earring and ran after her, finding her by the nearest bus stop.  I told her it was too much, but she said it wasn't because...  Well, because her boyfriend had put me in this situation.

I gasped, because it's really weird to talk to a stranger and realize you've met them with another face.  She'd been Joseph for about a year, having a ton of fun being a teenage boy, playing sports, and the like.  She says she didn't realize her boyfriend was going to extort me, and what he was going to take as payment.  She should have, she said because of just how uninterested in her he was once she wasn't a pretty girl, but by the time she figured it out, it was too late.

Forgive me for feeling okay with taking the money then.  I didn't find myself hating her, but kind of resenting her - like, this whole thing amounted to a fun vacation for her, and when it was over, she just came away with the knowledge that she should break up with her boyfriend and not date another one like him.  I mean, that's nice, but I'm pregnant here!  That's supposed to be a blessing, I know, but there are a lot of days when I don't feel entirely blessed.

Like the day I met Lamont.

I wonder how much the Inn giving you someone else's body includes giving you their brain, and how much it changes you.  I've met so many people who had who they are attracted to flipped that I can't really start to deny that part, although I don't really think it's happened to me (I didn't really respond that one time I did it).  But as much as I always assumed that Joseph got harsher just because of his environment whole in prison, I wonder how much of it was because the real Lamont was like that.  He scared me.

I didn't recognize him at first when he was waiting around outside the apartment building; Joseph had shaved his head and gave, but while Lamont was smooth up top, he had a beard, and he apparently celebrated getting his real body back by getting some new tattoos.  He'd kept the muscle that Joseph had put on, though, and it hurt when he grabbed my arm, saying something about me being the little freak that was keeping him and his Krystle apart.

I don't know too much about who Krystle and Lamont were while Joseph and I lived their lives; all I've gotten from Krystle was that though neither changed gender, being a couple was out of the question, and getting things back to "normal" with Lamont was not exactly her first priority afterward.  But sometimes it seems like guys don't really recognize this, and Lamont either didn't have any idea Krystle felt that way or couldn't accept it.  I'm no exception; I was furious when my first girlfriend dumped me, and I don't know that I ever really believed the things Mom and Dad said about how acting like some right of mine had been violated until this moment.

I was scared, not really knowing what to say to him, and I wouldn't actually realize until later that I was just as worried about him doing something to hurt the baby in my belly as I was of him hitting me anywhere else.  Is that another girl's-brain thing or does everyone have maternal instinct but not the opportunity for it to play out?  So I just said I was sorry, which I was, although looking back it seems kind of stupid.  Sorry for inconveniencing him?  That's stupid.

He's telling me I had better get back to the Inn the first chance I've got after squeezing that thing out so that he can be with his b---- without there being some sort of f----- in there, making me wonder if he really cares that Krystle specifically be the one with this T&A.  I tell him that nobody wants that more than me and Krystle.  I think he's about to slap me but he backs down.  Karla and her latest boyfriend have come out of the building behind me.

Karla starts screaming at him, asking what he's doing around here, because it's hard to find more concrete proof that I don't want to be tied to his black jailbird a-- than this, going on about how I'm clean and going to church and he needs to step off and find some b---- who isn't familiar with all his b.s.  On the one hand, I'm kind of embarrassed - it's the sort of outburst my real mother always said we can't have last the neighbors think the worst of us - but on the other, being an only child, I've never really seem the full force of "nobody gives my sibling a hard time but me!" before, and it's kind of amazing.

Plus, there's her new boyfriend.  Lamont is a big guy, but this one looks like he could play in the NFL.  He's really a giant teddy bear - he's really amazing with Karla's kids, and was a total gentleman the time he found out I needed a ride to a doctor's appointment - but I've seen him at work (he's a cop) able to be pleasant and funny with five people and treat one of them just different enough that is clear that, if he gets angry, his rage will be focused.

So Lamont lets go, tossing one last insult, and Karla yells two more.  We look at my arm, decide it's not going to bruise, and Karla once again tells me that I really should get my baby-daddy to do something for me, because it's hard enough as is.  I say it's complicated, she says it always is, and she's able to walk away back to thinking I'm a fool, like nothing has changed.

I'm off to work, and I don't want to being this up with Moira, so I don't get much of a chance to bring this up with the real Krystle before I get "home".  When I do, there's already an email waiting for me from her.  It starts out with stories that are half-complaining and half-funny about my friends and how they are trying to help her out even while dealing with what other people living their lives for a year has left them, and some bits about how my parents are crazy and there's nothing to do in our small town.

Then she puts down a whole bunch of links to adoption agencies.

It's another thing I shouldn't be surprised about, but I am, because I still think like a guy and I've just be assuming that when we change back, she'll just take care of the baby.  It's a stupid thing to assume - it may technically be her own flesh and blood (and mine, too, though I don't think of it that way, just that I should probably be some part of the kid's life without really imagining how), but it would be something just dropped on her that she had nothing to do with.  Why shouldn't she be looking for the best way to get her real life back?

It still seems kind of cold to me, like she should have said she had an idea, asked me, and then done the research, rather than just getting three quarters of the way there and pointing out that I'd have to go the rest of the way because I'm the actual pregnant one.

I've got to think on it, I guess.  My grandfather preached a lot about how men have a responsibility, which is certainly important, although I have to start thinking right now about how possible it is to make some of these decisions with such strong beliefs and desires motivating them, even if you're more sure about who you are and will be to a child.

-Jonah/Krystle

Jonah: Krystle Year Two Is a Real Thing

I didn't really feel like I decided to stay Krystle Kamen for a second year so much as I can't do anything else - the guy who had been living as me since last summer knocked me up and I can't imagine what would happen if I went to the Inn like this.  Jordan/Missy pointed me to a page online saying that at two months it's just an ounce of cells, but that's not what I was raised to believe.  She asked if condoms also weren't something I was raised to believe in, and as much as it was a really awful thing to say, I can't deny she had a point.  I tried to explain to her, and, separately, Benjamin, that when you don't think you're going to have sex until you're married, you just don't think of precautions.

But, this is my life for at least the next nine months or so, and while I suspect some of the other Inn people might have done something different, I was scared enough that Momma Kamen noticed, and asked me what was wrong.  When I said I was pregnant, she...  Well, she didn't look disappointed, at least, just resigned, looking around what was already a pretty small apartment considering Karla's kids, probably trying to figure out how to make it work.  It's an awful feeling, knowing not just that am I not going to get my own life back, but I've made things harder on this good woman who is already struggling to keep her family afloat.

The good news is, contrary to what you might think from reading this blog, you can mostly get your life back if the times line up right and you're conscientious.  For my friends, it happened on the Eighth of July - well, early on the 9th, technically.  Everyone became themselves again, and then they came down to Boston to visit me, which they really didn't have to do.  All the girls wanted to know what it was like, and asked to see my belly.  At three months, I wasn't really showing, although I'm not quite as slender as I was when I first inherited Krystle's body, but I think that's mostly because I wasn't keeping in "stripper shape" so much.  Still, they were all kind of cool about it, saying they wanted pictures and updates, and it didn't sound like it was in a mean way.  One of them said she'd had a crush on me before, and now that I knew so much more, she really liked me.

Not that I'm likely to reap the benefits of that, although the new Jonah might.  The weird thing is that the new Jonah is also the old Krystle.

I'd informed her that I was pregnant, of course, before posting about finding out here, and her first response was to send me the name of the doctor she went to the other time that happened, which didn't really surprise me but did shock me, if you know what I mean.  I've been living her life for about a year and I still get people who see me holding down a job, not drinking or doing drugs, going to church, and saying I've really turned my life around.  I say I figured it wasn't good for me to have a boyfriend right now, and they're like "what? you were always the biggest slut out of all of us", sometimes with malice, sometimes without.  The point is, Krystle had a lot of sex and not the best reputation for being careful, so of course she's had at least one abortion.  Still, I don't really know her, and in the back of my head, her past is kind of like me, too, and I would never do it.

At least, I think I would never.  I've thought about it.  I feel kind of awful even acknowledging that I've thought that, let alone telling my friends that, but being pregnant is terrifying.  I mean, just look at the two-bedroom apartment I'm in that currently holds three grown women and three children!  How can I add to that?  And then I've started looking at Karla's books and listening to Penny, and it's even scarier.  My body's going to go through all of those changes?  I'm going to need to go to the doctor on a regular basis and worry that every single decision I make could affect the entire life of some kid?  I'm going to wind up missing my last two years of high school, so how can I possibly handle this?  You do the math, and you start to think, maybe, if nobody knew about it, I could do it; I've got my whole life to make up for it so that maybe I don't go to hell.

I eventually told that to Krystle, and she was not happy.  I should probably be thankful that the Inn put her in a situation where she could get a little more grounded, because she at least tried to reason with me between claims that this was just an excuse for me to steal her amazing body and skip out on school.  I think that when she first decided she was going to take over my life, it was just out of anger as much as anything else, like she was holding it hostage like the last me did, but soon she said that at least the room wouldn't have someone else in it while I made up my mind, and then, finally, she figured that this would be the best way for us to keep tabs on each other.

It was weird talking with her, though - aside from the whole "in each other's bodies" thing, the last person to wear my body had left me in this situation.  You can tell she really wants to be herself again.  We headed to the bathroom so that I could strip and she could look me over, saying I needed to work on my butt and that I needed a better bra because she didn't want to come back to saggy boobs.  She doesn't like that I'm not straightening my hair, and no amount of Ashlyn and Penny saying they really liked the Pam Grier thing I had going on would dissuade her.  Still not going for a perm, though - it costs money, among other things, which is also part of why I don't wear nearly as much makeup as she thinks I should.  It was weird, kind of - I think I'm uncomfortably attractive like this, and she thinks I'm not doing enough, even if she really doesn't want me to get a boyfriend any more than I do.

I barely talked to Joseph, which is kind of fine - we barely spoke after he got out, and he just made sure to give me the keys to Missy's place so that I could give it back.  I don't think he's talking to everybody else much, either.  It sucks, because he was my best friend, but he seems like the only one who doesn't understand why I tempted fate like this.  I think being in jail, not really being able to communicate with the rest of us that much beyond my visits (which I guess didn't come as often as they should have) really changed him.

It was only an afternoon and into an evening, but I have to admit, I felt really empty when they piled back into the bus and went back home.  Aside from Krystle, they're going back to living their lives, and while they may find things have changed a bit, the counselors were talking about how, eventually, this will just be some weird thing that happened to them and how they'll probably get to a point where they don't think of it all, unless someone asks how you know something.

As to Krystle...  Well, here's the funny thing - in the past month, since she's been in my life, we've kind of gotten closer.  I think part of it was me emailing her about how to deal with Karla, who basically has brief moments of being helpful between longer stretches of making me feel terrible for all the times the real Krystle has said she'd never end up like her; it's like we've got a common enemy sometimes, although I can't bring myself to mention the things that Krystle says will get Karla off her high horse most of the time.  She's also asking a lot more questions about my folks than the last guy was, maybe because my life is a little more familiar to her?  Like, she knows about growing up in a black family so the differences between my life and hers sticks out, while the last guy just decided he didn't care.

She's not much help with the day-to-day, though.  Ashlyn and Moira are being awesome at work, at least.  As much as the business isn't quite so strong that Ashlyn can't offer me health insurance, aside from how the other girls would get upset enough if they knew I came in at a higher starting wage than they did, let alone if I was getting that, she makes sure I have no problem with the schedule around what doctor's appointments I can afford.  Moira has been amazing defending me when anybody gets catty or starts to put me down, without needing any details about how it happened, and she still wants to hang out with me.

I'm not really a fun date, though.  When Penny said that former guys made the craziest pregnant women, I figured it made sense, but not quite how.  You'd think we'd be used to changes in our bodies and hormones, right, but the pace is totally different:  Even the folks who stay up for the change at the Inn had it over in a matter of minutes, a half hour tops, so you either see it happening or get it all at once, while the stuff that made her feel like a girl rather than just a man in a woman's body happened over enough time to feel natural.  Now it's like things are happening both too quickly and not quickly enough, and I feel like I skipped "woman" and went straight to "pregnant woman" at times.

Plus, I have had so much morning sickness!  Penny says the same thing happened to her, and she thinks it's psychosomatic (which, I guess, means "all in your head").  Like on some level our brains and bodies don't entirely know how to be pregnant, but we know pregnant women puke, so we're puking a LOT.  It's terrible, and I'm almost afraid to read up on other sorts of pregnancy discomforts for fear just knowing about them will make them happen more than they should.

Now that it's been almost four months, I'm starting to show, too.  It's kind of weird - like, I feel heavier, and there's a bit of a gut there when I look in the mirror, but it doesn't feel like fat, at least not all the way through.

I don't know.  I haven't become a complete disaster yet, but I really wish I could go home.

-Jonah/Krystle

Jaci - Misery & Kat

I am beginning to not like being pregnant anymore. My feet swell, I get heartburn, and I can't sleep at night. Not to mention the hundreds of trips I make to the bathroom everyday. The babies are constantly moving around which is the most amazing feeling in the world but it makes it hard to breathe. I'm back to work which is nice but man does it make me tired. It amazes me how I can be more tired now working a simple 8 hour shift than I was working 2 jobs 16 hours a day. Apparently it takes a lot of energy to grow one baby, let alone 2.

Enough whining for now. I heard from Kat the other day. More accurately, she sent me a text message. I know she is off trying to find herself and all but I was totally shocked to hear that she had picked Las Vegas. Its the last place I ever would have imagined her being. I don't think she's gambling but what do I know. I hope she finds what she is looking for while she is there. And if, by chance, she should win a large sum of money that she shares with the rest of us.