The baby epidemic

Erin Morgan Shine, 35 years old, lies 8 months pregnant in the hammock in the side yard of her home on 318 North Prospect place in Spring Hill, Indiana. She and her second husband, Eric, have lived there for nearly two years. Eric is mowing the back lawn as Erin relaxes on a cool autumn day after a morning of picking through the baby names book together. Names had been tossed around both from the book and as jokes to make each other laugh, but nothing was agreed upon yet.


Eric didn't have any male role models in his family that he would consider naming the child after. His father had been one of the string of congressmen linked to the DC Madame prostitution ring as "Customer 10" on the list before congress a year back. He had no uncles and his grandfather had fled to Canada to avoid the draft into WWII which Eric did not fault him for, but he abandoned Eric's grandmother and father at the same time and never returned to the US once he found a new love in Saskatchewan.


Erin liked the names of Eric's father and grandfather, but Eric would not hear of being reminded of his family's past or force his child to live a life in their shadow and name. The name choices were also limited by Erin's refusal to name her son the same as any other children in the neighborhood. She feared the day when she asked if her son was somewhere by first name only and allowed her son to go missing for not asking for him beyond first name. The sheer number of pregnant women on Prospect place also made it difficult. Each was at a similar stage of pregnancy and each was also having a son due within a two month period of each other.


Evelyn Taylor, 34, lives next door to Erin and Eric at 316 and moved in a month prior. She had laid claim to the name Gabriel weeks ago and is expected to go into labor at any minute with her due date so close. Despite this fact, Evelyn is standing next to her mower attempting to pull start the push mower in between waving to neighbors walking past. Her husband, Ron, is a traveling salesman fresh off a long route of sales and with a month of vacation beginning today. He's currently sleeping on the couch in the living room while his wife gladly does work outside ecstatic to have her husband back before she delivers.


Marissa James, 19, power walks out her front door across the street at 315 Prospect place. Marissa came into money from her parents when they passed in the tsunami that hit the great lakes region 3 years earlier in the height of the spate of worldwide weather headlines. She moved to the neighborhood after nearly 2 1/2 years of blindly drinking her way across the country with her then boyfriend, Tommy Tension (Tinsman), of the band Lickfinger. The band's trademark image ripped off from the Rolling Stones lips and tongue image could be seen peaking out from behind the spaghetti straps of her tank top. She had dumped him after the last tour after finding him with two groupies and a bong in the back of their van. After a night of arguing and a "fitting goodbye" as Marissa called it, she bought 315 and found out two weeks later that she was pregnant. Though she didn't speak to many in the neighborhood, word had spread that she too was having a boy and had taken to the name Nigel because "it would really piss Tommy off to have a son with a name like that."


There were 5 other women on Prospect place that were also pregnant not counting Jackie Bailey who lost her baby when she moved to South Bend when her husband, Ed, got transferred for his job. It happened almost as soon as they moved according to Jackie. The doctors tell her it was likely the stress of relocating so late in her pregnancy, but Jackie swears she stopped feeling her unborn son kick when they drove out of the neighborhood with the moving truck.
Eight women on the same block shared due dates with 58 days of each other and eight women had to fight over individual baby shower dates. Linda Butler's was coming up in a couple of days and Erin was thinking of a unique gift for her while lying peacefully on the hammock that day as Eric walked up and shut down the mower. He leaned in and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek.
"How is your new hammock working out for you, my dear?" The previous hammock had weight limits that Eric learned about when he tripped and landed heavily across the ropes. He wanted to be able to lie safely with his pregnant wife, so he had picked up a higher strength nylon brand. Erin joked that he was hinting at her increased girth.
"Good. I haven't broken it yet. I'll give you a shout if I hear it creaking on me." Eric loved to see her smile even if she was a bit self conscious about it. She had knocked a tooth loose while moving and it had settled somewhat crooked. Eric said it gave her the most genuine smile he had ever seen and he should know as a lawyer what a genuine smile looks like.
"Ha ha. That things is weight tested by rocket scientists at NASA for catch the space shuttle during re-entry. If you hear a creaking, I would suspect it's the trees coming down."
"That's cute. Stop teasing your pregnant wife and grab the paper in the driveway. I want to see if there are any sales on baby furniture for Linda. I drew the furniture gift paper for her shower and can't rely on a fresh pack of onesies this time." To even up the baby showers in the neighborhoods, each coming shower had a paper draw from a hat with a number of baby gift options so everyone spent a similar amount overall and no one felt cheated. Some of the women there could be very petty.

"As you command, my lady." With a grand bow, Eric wandered off to the front of the house for the paper. He was lucky he was cute because his sense of humor most of the time wasn't going to win him any awards.
With a thud, the paper landed next to her on the ground just out of reach.
"Very funny." She didn't see him from the front, but she knew the image of her struggling to get out of the hammock would send him running. She reached the paper before she saw him on the road talking to Jonathan Kine, the rich developer that owned the land and the big house on Keiser drive. She never quite trusted him after the shopping development fiasco forced her out of her first house in Spring Hill even if it couldn't have been his fault that the zoning committee failed him.
She was beginning to wonder again how someone with the money to buy such a large number of land plot could not afford to bribe an official or three to get proper zoning when the newspaper at her feet nearly made her collapse in a heap. With a sprint that would be considered quite adept for a college track star, Erin picked up the paper and bolted to the house screaming "Oh God" loud enough to bring Eric running along side her.
Erin nearly knocked Eric over with the screen door running to the kitchen counter knocking the napkin holder and salt and pepper shakers to the ground. Erin snatched the phone and immediately started dialing the only phone number with an area code in Arizona she knew. She tossed the paper to the table and stared unblinking at the headline as the line rang in her ear before informing her the number she is attempting to reach has been disconnected. Eric studied his wife's face before he too noticed the headline, "Freak Flood wipes out Southwest" and realized what she was doing. "Bert!"