“I didn’t even have a vaginal delivery, so I don’t know why sex hurts so much,” she said.
“It’s the hormones,” Leigh said, removing her hand from Gwen’s shoulder and placing it back on Belle. “As long as you’re breastfeeding, you’ll be dry as the Sahara down there. That’s what makes it hurt.”
This felt like something Gwen should have known, but it was news to her.
“Oh, is that it?”
Leigh nodded. “Yep. It’s like Mother Nature telling you not to have any pleasure when you should be completely focused on feeding your infant. What a cunt, right?”
Gwen laughed again.
“Lube helps. Try lube,” Leigh said.
Gwen nodded.
“I only know this because I have a friend in Santa Cruz who has four kids and she tells me everything,” Leigh said.
“Four? Wow. That’s . . . ambitious.”
“She loves chaos. Like, thrives on it.”
“I wish I loved chaos. Seems like that would come in handy at this stage of life.”
“I just read this article about these luxury postpartum hotels in Taiwan,” said Leigh. “Like, you go there for a full month after you give birth and relax while people pamper you and take care of your baby.”
“That sounds like a dream.”
“Right? Although the woman who wrote it said it was kind of a shock to then go home and have to do everything herself.”
“It’s always a shock to go home after having a baby, isn’t it? Better to delay it by a month, I’d say.”
“Agree,” Leigh said. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure Nathan and I will be a one-and-done family. I used to think I’d want two kids, but I don’t know. It’s so much.”
Gwen felt her grief overhead like a cloud, slowly descending upon her. She wished the couch would just swallow her whole.
“Yeah,” she said.
She knew what question was coming next.
“Do you guys want more kids?”
When Gwen swallowed, it felt like an enormous walnut was lodged in her throat. Her eyes prickled with tears again, these not of the happy variety.
“We can’t have more,” she said.
“Oh,” Leigh said, her eyes scanning Gwen’s face, trying to understand. She could almost read Leigh’s thoughts: Could they not have more for financial reasons? Was it an IVF situation, where they only had the one embryo? Were they getting divorced?
“I had a C-section. It was an emergency thing,” Gwen said.
She hadn’t told anyone about what had happened. She knew that the support group was the appropriate venue for sharing this, but she couldn’t imagine telling that room of strangers these intimate details. It still felt like admitting to a colossal failure.
“Oh, sweetie, that’s traumatic,” Leigh said, again taking the hand that had been cradling Belle and placing it on Gwen’s shoulder for a quick, comforting moment.
Leigh thought that was the entirety of it—Gwen had had a frightening ordeal with the C-section and did not want to go through that again.
“There was a lot of bleeding. Jeff says I almost died,” she said. She had to phrase it that way—Jeff says. As if it were his opinion and not a terrifying fact.
Leigh looked stricken. “Oh my god. That’s so scary.”
