Sick Day
*Editor’s Note: This essay was a runner-up in our 2026 creative non-fiction writing contest. This year’s theme was ‘In Flux’
My husband cooked dinner of garlic pea shoots and shrimp soup leaving me hands-free, not an email checked, not a Slack ping marked read, all because a baby needs harvesting in my stomach. Occasionally, I’d forget that we had discussed in depth when to expand our family, every decision questioned and interrogated with ChatGPT — optimal biological age? Optimal point in career? Optimal financial state? Instead, I convinced myself that my willingness to get pregnant stemmed from a desire to take a sabbatical from work in the form of a generous, fully paid maternity leave. I conjured fantasies of when my stomach would grow too large for me to sit properly in an office chair, when I’d obtain medical leave to work from home for a chunk of the third trimester, when I could turn down social functions because of chaos-inducing hormones. The Way of a Career Woman. The final salvation from the Corporate Mill thanks to my responsibility as an incubator — a job that a man cannot perceivably achieve better.
In these fantasies, our mortgage fades behind the mountains that surround our fire hazard house. My husband no longer stresses about the short-term future of self-driving vehicles for which his stock floats like the morning fog, disappearing the moment the sun glares down on commuting cars, fluctuating between physical reality and the hand waving magic of private company valuation. Perhaps I get laid off immediately after taking maternity leave (and no sooner), which, although they say is never due to performance, is usually due to performance. How do you assess hormonal impact on job productivity? That’s not something you can isolate in a performance review unless you test tube your hormones away from the cog part of your brain. The body functions to type for hours on end or shout into a Webex conference or hold the power button down on a boot-looping MacBook Pro. The body functions to siphon nutrition to a growing organism, spontaneously cramp my calves, and invoke the acid reflux when green tea hits an empty stomach. Perhaps the Finance department possesses knowledge beyond budgetary balancing, a wisdom capable of classifying work as legally lay-offable and non maternal. A futuristic fantasy where not all humans are born from mothers, but layoffs happen all the same.
I guard this sense of liberation fiercely. Not to be shared with the many coworker fathers who lament their permanently lost brain cells and sleep deprivation after raising their newborns, not with my husband who will carry our finances after I declare The End to my Career Woman role as we know it. It’s the cycle of life, dear. All roles and chapters in life must conclude.
In this plan, I inevitably abandon my team and husband to the Corporate Mill, which leaves a not-irreversibly horrible taste of guilt in my mouth. The way you feel about forgetting to buy shampoo from the grocery store because it was the one nonfood item on the list.
For the cost of one sick day, I’ve more than earned back whatever investment my mother placed in my college tuition. Notably not what my father invested because he, in fact, paid nothing. Perhaps he lacked faith in my future, not realizing that university was where I’d meet the Chinese-value-instilled man who’d pave the way for my next career as a Stay-at-Home-Mom. Or my father believed his money was better spent on a distant relative in Shanghai for their first home’s downpayment. He missed the opportunity to invest in his future grandchild. The neglected, infinite returns investment glitch.
I also tell myself: even if things go horribly wrong and the baby dies or I die or we both die, I won’t have to go back to work (although bereavement leave is not infinite.) And if I die, I hope my in-laws feel guilty about exerting their passive-aggression to have children, emphasizing that our relationship is not transactional even when it is. If the act of in-laws selling their apartment in Beijing to pay off their son’s college tuition means an eternal future of filial servitude, I’d tell Confucius to eat dirt. Though they would’ve wanted grandchildren even if it demanded my death, I suspect. We’d net even: add one life, subtract one.
Two months before I tested positive, we adopted our first dog. Since we were already planning to have a child, we declared the days of leisure travel extinct and took the plunge with a pet. The dog, Muriel, had been discovered in her mid to late term pregnancy and spayed by the shelter. Although the shelter and vet didn’t spell it out, her babies more than likely got killed in the process. I suppose this is standard protocol: don’t introduce more strays than there are homes for. She is quiet for a dog, loud for a cat, which we don’t have, which my husband wanted, but if we were to get a pet (which he definitely wanted) then it would be a dog or nothing — my stipulation. Muriel has had diarrhea multiple times, howled at two am to let her stool loose and tortured my husband’s sleep schedule. He has the gene where it takes him forever to fall asleep, and if he misses just a few minutes of rest, his entire next day sees the wreckage. He wonders if we should return the dog. I divert the conversation by saying that a baby, unlike a dog, will grow up, evolve mentally and physically and become independent so future potty woes will be temporary. We parents will find meaning in this growth. For the child. Not the dog. The dog will always be with you, waiting to be fed or walked. Unless you send it back to the shelter. Either way, we’ll be dealing with poop problems. Muriel takes sick days whenever she likes and vomits balls of grass wherever she pleases. I, on the other hand, must aim the discolored tea-water that my hollow stomach rejects to the toilet.
We currently feed Muriel more in the morning and less at night to minimize the evening disturbances. Almost a One Meal A Day diet. If humans can do it, dogs can fast too. Although I need to remind myself not to fast, a no-no for pregnant women. According to my parents, walking Muriel up the small hill in our backyard is also a no-no. Any remotely strenuous exercise is a surefire way to miscarriage. Frozen fruit and spicy food are no-no’s — they’ll throw off my internal heat balance. I eat them anyway. Perhaps teetering on the edge of miscarriage might garner another sick day.
About the Author
Lucy Zhang writes, codes and watches anime. Her work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, The Massachusetts Review and elsewhere. Find her at https://lucyzhang.tech.