Nico giddily pushes two buggies at once around the baby section, loading them with onesies, blankets, and a really expensive breast pump.
And still, we have enough left over for a crib.
I shake my head as I choose between two bafflingly complex baby monitors. “If Mama knew we traded Waterford crystal water goblets for sippy cups, she’d lose her mind.”
“Let’s spare her the details,” Nico says, eyeing a baby-wearing harness, then tossing it into the buggy.
Mama hasn’t been interested in any of the details about our life for about eight months. I’ve been sending her updates. My first doctor appointment. The first time we heard the baby’s heartbeat. The progression of fruit-related measurements. “Baby is now the size of an avocado.” Or, “Baby Mango can’t wait to meet you.”
No responses from her.
Daddy has been supportive, though. He and I have met for coffee and treats at Four and Twenty Bakery three times since Mama stopped talking to me. He told me that they are “working on things.” I got the sense that he meant they were working on more than Mama’s attitude with me. My daddy, a man of few words, seemed to be signaling to me that they were going to couple’s therapy. Didn’t see that coming.
I guess Mama will reach out when she’s ready. Hopefully before this baby turns 18.
It happens as I squat down to get a better look at the price tag on one of the cribs.
“Damn, why’d they put the tag way down here on the leg? Making a pregnant woman squat…oh!”
The water breaking is just like it happens on a sitcom.
Except, there’s so much of it. And everything starts to shift.
“Um…Nico?”
“Baby, are you stuck again? Here, take my hand…oh shit!”
Nico has come over to help me stand up, thinking that I’ve gotten myself stuck somehow, only to be surprised by the puddle of water at our feet.
“Baby?”
I don’t know if he’s asking about our baby or addressing me. I go with, “Yes, Nico. The baby is coming.”
Baby Valentina is born on February 14. She arrives in three pushes after an epidural that’s so good I jokingly propose a poly family with the anesthesiologist.
As the little one lies on my bare chest in the recovery room, Nico counts her ten fingers, her ten toes, and then starts all over again.
“I can’t believe she’s here,” I say.
Our daughter has Nico’s brown eyes and dimpled chin. She has my grumpy face when people talk too loudly when I’m trying to sleep. Her feathery hair sticks straight up and looks like mine, but I’m told it’s too soon to tell what her actual hair color will be.
Nico is vigilant as I doze off, lulled to sleep with the sound of tiny baby breaths, her little fist wrapped around my finger.
“She’s the best baby I’ve ever seen,” he whispers.
“Ten out of ten,” I say sleepily.“Would recommend.”
It may be that our life will never be the same as it was before, but so far, it’s looking pretty damn great.
We spend 48 blissful hours, the three of us in our tiny hospital room, learning each other, knitting together our little family.
We learn that Valentina is the kind of baby who fights sleep, struggling to keep her big eyes open and alert, not wanting to miss anything. I learn that breastfeeding is a lot more difficult than what the books tell you, despite mothers having done this successfully for millennia without manuals. But when Valentina finally learns to latch on, we find out this is a sure-fire way to get her to sleep.
This may not bode well for when I have to go back to work, but we’ll figure it out. In that way, I’m lucky. The firm has a room set aside for mothers who need to pump at work.
Childcare is still a question mark. None of the all-day childcare places meet Nico’s personal standards. Either they’re not clean and organized enough for him, or they’re too expensive. After doing the math, any paid childcare is going to eat through over half my wages.
Fortunately, I have a month of paid family leave to figure it out.
