Maternity Leave (9781466871533)

by Julie Halpern

  “Speaking of meals, I wonder if Doo is eating.” Doogan was once a plump cat whom the vet was always trying to put on a diet, but is now a slim senior who we have to make sure eats.

  “Your mom checked on him yesterday and said he ate about half his food. Better than none.” Doogan’s aging is something I hate to think about. Sometimes in the middle of the night I imagine his death and can’t stop myself from crying. If I ever become an actress, this is the mental trick I’ll use to help me cry on cue. Not that I want to be an actress. You never hear about middle school English teachers breaking into Hollywood at thirty-six anyway.

  “I hope he likes Sam. I’ll feel really guilty if he doesn’t. We’ve had seventeen years alone together.”

  “What am I, chopped liver?” Zach asks.

  “What are you, a seventy-five-year-old man named Manny? And no, you are not chopped liver, but Doogan was like my first baby, and now he’s my old baby and I’m bringing in a new baby and I don’t want it to upset him. Remember that woman I used to work with who had that crazy cat with thumbs who somehow figured out how to open their deep freezer and ate all of their ice cream bars?”

  “No, but continue,” Zach laughs.

  “Well, they had to get rid of the cat after they brought the baby home because he kept trying to jump in her bassinet and lick her head.”

  “Maybe he thought she was an ice cream bar. Besides, we don’t even have a bassinet,” Zach points out.

  “True. But Doogan is half Siamese. What if he’s like those cats in Lady and the Tramp? ‘We are Siamese, if you please.’ What if I have to choose between Sam and Doogan?” I panic.

  “Obviously you’d choose Sam.”

  “Why obviously? I only just met Sam. I’ve known Doogan seventeen years, and—”

  “Doogan is a cat, Annie. I love him, too, but Sam is our baby, remember?” I well up, and Zach tries to backpedal. “I’m sure it will all be fine. Doogan is an awesome, mellow cat. I’m sure Sam will be an awesome, mellow baby.”

  “You’re sure?” I sniffle.

  “Positive.” Zach kisses me on the top of my head.

  “He better be,” I warn. Is it my imagination, or did a maniacal laugh just sound from the bundle in Zach’s arms?

  Later

  My mom stopped by the hospital to meet her first grandchild. Sometimes I feel like my mom is secretly filming a sitcom of her life when she says things like “I’m not going to cry … I’m not going to cry … I’m going to cry!” Zach documents the moment on camera, and I envision us airing the footage at Sam’s bar mitzvah. If either of us makes it that long. I’m still having heaps of trouble getting him to nurse. The stress has forced me to indulge in the splendor of the hospital’s food offerings. It’s like ordering room service, if budget motel chains offered room service menus with not a single choice of an entrée you actually wanted to eat. I sent Zach down to the cafeteria twice to pick up pudding parfaits. In general, I tend to avoid formless desserts, but pudding in a cup, layered with Nilla wafers and spray-can whipped cream feels like an absolute delicacy. Plus, I’ve got to bulk up if I’m ever going to get this breastfeeding thing right. That’s my new perspective on breastfeeding: I’m going to treat it like a sport. I’ve got to train. I’ve got to practice. I’ve got to fuel up. And someday I’ll be one of those women with a six-year-old boy hanging off her boob on the cover of a magazine whom people both respect and think is endlessly creepy.

  Now if I can only take a dump. Going to the bathroom is just about the most terrifying thing on earth. I know I should poo, but there are stitches down there that could erupt, creating an ass chasm the likes of which the world has never known. My only friend is this strange little squeeze bottle whose specified purpose is to be aimed at my butt while I’m using the toilet. Is that why this bottle was invented? Was there someone at a hospital-supply design company whose designated job was to create an ass-spraying squeeze bottle? If so, bravo to them, because he did a bang-up job. I don’t know why I assume it was a man. Men should do something right by women in the land of maternity, and by gods if this squeeze bottle wasn’t it. I wonder if it has a name. The ass-juicer? Butt-squelcher? Hole-sprayer?

  Zach has just heard me laughing out loud at myself in the bathroom and assumes I am crying.

  “Still no poo, honey?” he calls from his chair.

  That just may be the sexiest thing that someone’s said to me this week.

  To: Annie

  From: Fern

  Annie!

  OMG! You had the baby! He is so cute. You look awesome. Beyonce’s got nothing on you. Or Princess Kate. Who just had a baby? I can never keep track. Nor do I care. My four are keeping me busy with various ailments. It seems like Dov is always barfing, Hannah is always pooping, and Jacob has it coming out both ends. Oh the joys of kids! You’ll see what I mean.

  We’ll be back in town in a couple months. I wish we could be there now, but I’m stuck out here in sunny California where everyone thinks 50 degrees is going to give them frostbite. Pussies! I miss Chicago. And you!

  Let me know what you need. Send me an Amazon wishlist or Toys R Us or whatever, and I’ll send you some stuff.

  Enjoy Baby Sam (not short for Samhain, right?)

  Hugs!

  Fern

  Fern is my best friend from high school who, even though she married a wealthy screenwriter in L.A. and has four small kids, still likes to talk about Satan like we did in high school (just a short-lived phase, between our Wiccan period and the house-on-the-corner-psychic era). I adore her and wish she lived nearby. I don’t really have any close friends with kids since Zach and I moved to the suburbs a few years ago after he declared he needed more space and was tired of “smelling our neighbors.”

  My mom lives closest to us, at fifteen minutes away, but pretty much everyone else, including my sister, Nora, and her husband, Eddie, lives in the city. How does one go about making mom friends in the sprawling suburbs? Will I be forced to join a playgroup? Does that involve potlucks? I hate potlucks. So many casseroles with their quivering cream of mushroom soup. Just another way I’ll be ostracized from the parenting community. Because most parents actually know what to do with their kids.

  3 Days Old

  They claim we are ready to take the baby home. I have managed to get Sam to latch with a spectacular contraption called a nipple shield. While it’s not very shieldlike in appearance (it is a clear silicone cover that fits over my nipple and areola), I suppose it is shielding me from the debilitating pain of the suck. Why did they make these things clear? Couldn’t they be jazzier, with wacky patterns or sports teams or band names? Or maybe that would defeat the purpose of trying to get the baby to latch on to my actual boob once he figures out how to latch well with the shield. If it was patterned, then I’d have to start decorating my nips just to keep things consistent. As it is, I already feel like a hooker from the future with these things perched on my tits.

  Have I mentioned that my boobs are like boulders right now? Gigantic and rock hard. I look like I might float away at any minute, but their density makes me think I’d sink like a stone if dropped into an ocean. I’ve been told that cold cabbage in my bra might help, so I’m sending Zach to the grocery store for a head as soon as we get home. And then demanding that he make me some coleslaw.

  All of this teat trouble makes me question if my goal of nursing for Sam’s first year is complete madness. Isn’t all of this complete madness, though? I am still baffled that a human being came out of me, a “human being” who can’t do a single thing on his own. Scratch that—he seems to be highly capable of both filling his diaper and crying so people in neighboring counties can hear his nuanced shriek. Does it fill their bellies with panic, too? Do other moms feel this way, or am I completely evil?

  I look at Sam, and, yes, I am in awe that he is a real, live baby. My real baby. But he is also a complete stranger to me. I knew him better when he lived inside my body, waking me up at night with his hiccups and kicking m
e as I drove my car listening to speed metal. I was certain I was going to spawn an adorable little headbanger. I looked supercute in my maternity clothes, and everyone gushed at me when they asked what I was having and I answered, with a loving pat to my belly, “A boy.” We had a good thing going.

  Now they’re trying to kick me out of the hospital, as though I’m actually ready to raise a person from start to (my) finish! People do this all the time, yet I never thought about how terrifyingly fucked up it is that before I came here I just had myself to think about and less than three days later I am completely responsible for a human life. How the fuck do people do this? I don’t know how to comfort or feed or cuddle him as well as I did when he lived inside of me, perfectly contained and cozy, drinking his own pee. We are strangers, and yet I am wholly responsible for his well-being. Everything I do from now on will be fodder for his therapy as an adult.

  Aside from the midwife checking the state of my union (all good, she claims), no one has given me a second glance since Sam was born. Even though I am still wearing my adorable maternity clothes. So this is what it means to be a mom.

  Later

  Sam is sitting in his car seat. Correction: Sam, the tiny humanlike form, is slumped in his car seat.

  “Is he supposed to look like that?” Zach asks.

  We stand over the car seat, which is sitting on the floor of our hospital room, and assess the situation. I spent weeks researching safety ratings, weight, and color patterns of every car-seat brand known to womankind, and none of it will matter when Sam stops breathing the second the car starts moving because his head is too flopped forward.

  “I think we did it wrong. Oh well. I guess we can’t take him home.” As much as I want to escape from the land of gigantic ice-water refills and too many vitals checks, once we leave this joint we’re on our own. Who will help us every time we need to get Sam into his car seat?

  For the first time since we checked in, there is no one in our hospital room but the three of us. Why hasn’t anyone stopped by to send us off? To check his car seat placement? To offer us permanent residency and a wet nurse?

  “I’m going to call someone,” I say.

  “Isn’t that for emergencies?” Zach asks as I approach the all-in-one nurse/remote/bed-adjusting protrusion that dangles violently from the bed.

  “The red button is emergency. This orange one is for other things, like picking up room service trays or calling someone to look at what I did in the toilet. They love to look at what I did in the toilet.”

  I press the button, and a voice answers, “Nurses’ station.”

  “Hi. We’re ready to leave, and I was wondering if someone can help us check the baby’s car seat.”

  “Just a minute,” the nurse answers.

  Fifteen minutes later, a nurse shows up and looks down at Sam, who we hope is merely dozing.

  “Looks fine,” she assesses.

  “But his head…,” I point out.

  “We did a car seat test on him, and his breathing was normal.”

  I forgot about the car seat test. They took Sam and the car seat away for an hour, presumably to go on a joyride with a baby in the backseat. He came back unscathed, so maybe that means he will make it home unscathed, too.

  “Ready?” Zach asks.

  “No,” I answer.

  But he picks up Sam’s car seat, and we’re off to the never-ending tunnels of the hospital parking garage. It seems like months since we’ve been in our car, and I’m surprised that it hasn’t sprouted ivy when we manage to find it.

  “How the hell did Prince William make this look so easy?” Zach struggles with locking the car seat into the preinstalled base, and I snicker at his royal reference.

  “I read that he practiced. At least we don’t have that kind of pressure. It’s hard enough bringing a new baby home without twelve billion people monitoring it all,” I say from my spot in the passenger seat.

  “There,” Zach declares. “It’s in.”

  “You sure you heard a click?” I check.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he confirms. To double-check, he wiggles the car seat.

  “Careful! You’ll snap his neck!” I warn.

  “Jesus, Annie, don’t say things like that.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s scary, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Zach agrees as he slides into the driver’s seat. We look at each other anxiously. “Maybe you should sit next to him, just in case,” he suggests.

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  I spend the next half hour with my finger perched inside of the massive pacifier cloaking Sam’s face. Every time I feel the tug of his hearty suck, I’m comforted.

  First Night Home

  Everyone manages to arrive home alive, and while I wriggle out of the car Zach removes the car seat.

  “Don’t bring him in yet!” I order. “Let me say hi to Doogan first. I read that’s how you’re supposed to introduce younger siblings. First show the older ones how important they are without the new baby in your arms.”

  “Not a sibling, but do what you gotta do,” Zach encourages me.

  I open the door from the garage to the house, the door where Doogan always sits and waits when he hears the grinding of the garage door. There he is, my soft little pal, mewing loyally and tripping me with his back-and-forth leg nuzzles. I scoop him up for a kiss and snuggle. Purrs radiate from his entire body. “I missed you, Doo. Such a good boy.” We head butt each other a few times, a gesture I never understood but still partake in. Zach interrupts our moment with a jarring whack as the car seat slams into the door. He plunks the seat onto the floor.

  “This thing’s heavier than it looks!” he declares, oblivious to the romantic interlude he disturbed. “Hey, Doo,” Zach says, and scratches Doogan behind the ears. “We’ve got someone for you to meet.” On cue, Sam begins crying, that grinding, newborn cry that verifies we are indeed ancestors of wild animals. “You want to meet Doogan, little buddy?” Zach asks Sam, and I feel Doogan’s reflexive jerk in my arms. I really hope he doesn’t scratch me as he flees for his life.

  Zach gingerly unhooks the seat belt and takes another two minutes to weave the belt over Sam’s arms so as not to dislocate anything. By the time Zach picks him up, Doogan has most certainly lodged himself firmly in the inaccessible corner of the crawl space.

  “You can meet Doogan later,” Zach assures Sam. “Let me show you around.” Zach cradles Sam and familiarizes him with different areas of the family room. “This is where you’ll play with LEGOs someday, and here is the TV, where I’ll show you all thirty-two seasons of Doctor Who.”

  The niceties last about ninety seconds until we figure out that we need to change Sam’s diaper. And feed him. And put him in his bed. We manage to do all three of these things, admittedly at our own pace, and are feeling almost smug as we eat our frozen pizza dinner at six P.M.

  “We got this.” Zach pats us on the back, and we celebrate our victory with a glass of wine and an episode of Outlander that we missed while in the hospital.

  Then Sam wakes up. Screaming. We check his diaper. A little pee, so we change him in case he’s uncomfortable. I try to feed him, but he wants nothing to do with the nipple shield and only toys with my actual nipple. Zach bounces Sam for a solid half hour until, finally, he is lulled back to sleep, then delicately places Sam in his co-sleeper, and all is quiet again. For about an hour. After that, it’s a twelve-hour blur of pee, poo, boobs, shields, tears, and what feel like the least restful spurts of sleep I’ve had since I tried to stay up all night to finish an essay on barnacles for a mandatory biology class I took in college. I got a C on that paper.

  My mind is so shot right now that if I tried writing that paper today, it would read:

  Barnacles. That’s a funny word. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Now it doesn’t even sound like a
real word.

  At one point Sam slept for two hours at one chunk, but I was so afraid that he wasn’t breathing I ended up putting my face up to his in order to check for signs of life, and I woke him up.

  How do people with babies manage to keep them alive when I can’t even make it to the toilet before I start to pee? I almost made it. Does that count?

  4 Days Old

  I slept for a solid three hours, and that has magically refreshed me enough to go online.

  “Are you frakkin’ kidding me?” I yell at my computer while Sam flails on my boob.

  “He’s not latching?” Zach asks, concerned, although I think he’s more worried about my mental health at this point than Sam’s culinary needs.

  “He’s fine. He adores his plastic nipple hut. Kelly Shulman still hasn’t liked that picture of Sam I posted yesterday on Facebook. The one with his little don’t-scratch-your-face mitts on his hands. That picture is fucking adorable.”

  “Might want to tone down the language around the baby, don’t you think?”

  “He doesn’t know what I’m talking about. And he can learn from this. People are assholes, Sammy. You like all their stupid, pretentious black-and-white pictures of their kids, and what do you get from them? Jack shit.”

  “Do you want me to hold Sam?” Zach asks nervously.

  “He’s eating. He’s fine.”

  “And you?”

  “I am neither eating nor fine.”

  “Why don’t you just de-friend her?”

  “It’s unfriend. And if I did that, I wouldn’t know if she were not liking my stuff, then, would I?”

  “Don’t go joining the debate team anytime soon.”

  “Watch it, or I’ll de-friend you.”

  “Backing away slowly.”

  Later

  “I talked to my mom. She says she can’t wait to meet the baby, so they booked a trip out here next month.”

  “Next month? Your mom is so weird.”

  “She wanted to give us some space. Plus she admitted to not really liking newborn babies. I think I traumatized her.”

  “Would’ve been nice to know that before having our own baby,” I mumble.