Babies, babies everywhere!

There seems to be a pregnancy pandemic amongst UW law students. I just don't seem to recall this many distended bellies, and considering the eating habits of most of my classmates that is genuinely saying something. Twenty-five percent of my mediation clinic is now with-child. Every time I turn a corner, there's another bulging belly of joy in billowy maternity wear. Not surprising, really. There are definitely days where I leave the law school feeling like I need to be treated with the morning after pill... but I had thought previously that was more of a metaphorical comment on the sometimes harrowing experience of the Socratic method (then again, the stories I hear about Socrates and his pupils... maybe I'm on the right track here) than a literal thing.

So far, it's mostly just the women, but give it time - I hear this condition is caused by a sexually transmitted parasite, so if the women are all finding buns in their ovens, it's really only a matter of time before men are finding french rolls in their microwaves or something of that sort. I think that the law school needs to address this before it goes any further! We have all those nice foam dispensers to limit the spread of the flu. Perhaps the school should provide similar dispensers with birth control on either end of the school... maybe throw some estradiol in the our complimentary coffee (oh wait, we don't get free coffee? That's Harvard law school? Well Harvard might be subject to the birth blight as well... they, at least, should consider it). Also, I think to play on the safe side, we ought to ban undergrads from the premises (can never be too safe when it comes to undergrads).

Needless to say, I'm amazed and impressed by anybody who could endure nine months of what I'm promised is a rickety old hormonal roller coaster ride in the midst of one of the crests of "academic" stress. Personally, I'm proud when I can manage to feed and "care" for myself, and had to terminate custody of my cat way back in the nostalgic days of undergrad. The discombobulated dust bunnies roaming about my apartment are about all I can care for, as evidenced by my persistent potted-plant's plaintive two year swan-song ballet in the corner of my apartment. The law-students-for-two I know personally are highly active and involved students of the sort who did their associateships at places like Perkins Cooie (is it just me or does this just make everyone think of a multinational law firm of adorable anthropomorphic pigeons?) and had their judicial clerkships secured two years in advance of graduation. They also seem to manage to brush their hair before class and adorn themselves in matched and sporting maternity wear. It's really, rather sick and I don't think they're actually human.

  I'm even more impressed with the fetuses that carry themselves to term despite their churning early homestead, which I envision being a roiling typhoon of wayward stomach acid and second hand caffeine (oh like that's not possible). I envision law school babies as being tiny little demigods suckling at the teat of lady justice and impervious to toxins. Also I bet they'd watch SCOTUS babies.

At any rate, I grant the argument that for the sorts of women who are making the choice to carry children now, perhaps it is a better time than the next five to ten years of their associate-centered lives.  Somehow, I'll still not be entering the law school without at least a few condoms and a shot of depo anytime soon.