Maternity Leave (9781466871533)

by Julie Halpern

  “I’ve started fertility testing,” Nora says as she lies next to a calm and content Sam on the floor. Doogan is tucked against me on the couch. “It’s god-awful. Every time I step into the office, I want to throw up. And then the things they do to me make me want to throw up even more. I screamed, ‘Fuck!’ at the top of my lungs the other day while they were shooting iodine up my cooch. It took forever. So much blood taking and timing things and keeping track. It’s the most unnatural, unsexy, uncomfortable process. It makes me question whether or not I’m supposed to even have a kid.”

  “Of course you are!” I was overdoing the encouragement, but my guilty, evil soul was eating away at me. Just last night I was saying terrible things under my breath to Sam when he refused to go back to sleep for the third time. “There’s no supposed to or not supposed to. If you want a child, you will have a child.”

  “But don’t you believe in fate, things happening for a reason, God giving us what we can handle?”

  “And God will give you a beautiful baby that you will be able to handle. Maybe three or four at once if you don’t stop asking for it. God probably knew I couldn’t handle going through what you’re going through. That I’m not strong like you are or patient. Maybe he was like, Enough already! Here’s a baby. But I’ll make him extra whiny just for you.”

  Nora massages Sam’s tummy in an instinctual way that I would never have thought to do. He loves it and basks in her gentle touch. I stroke Doogan just to prove I’m good at something. He bites my hand. “Ow! When do they tell you the results of the tests?” I ask, extracting myself from the couch in order to down a sleeve of Thin Mints I hid from myself during Girl Scout cookies season.

  “In two weeks. What if they say I can’t have a baby?” She continues rubbing Sam’s belly like Buddha for good luck.

  “You can. I know you can. You managed to get pregnant. More than once, even! You just have to make one that’s worth keeping. I’m sure those other two—”

  “Three,” she reminds me.

  “Sorry—three were going to be serious underachievers anyway. Like, Blue Bird reading group all the way. Plus they were really ugly. Like tiny troll dolls.”

  Nora snorts out a laugh. “Can you imagine if I gave birth to troll dolls?”

  “And everyone would have to pretend that they’re cute because God forbid someone says a baby is ugly.”

  “I’d go to the park with the troll baby in a stroller, and old ladies would crouch over to ogle him and then hobble away screaming.” We’re both laughing now.

  “What do you name a baby that looks like a troll doll?” she asks, sniffing.

  “Olga?”

  “How about Grunderson?”

  “Ooh. That’s good. Snorbert?”

  We spend the next ten minutes coming up with appropriate troll names for her ugly troll doll babies. We laugh, and Sam laughs along with us. And there is nothing like the sound of a baby’s laugh to clear the pain from the air.

  I bet even troll doll babies have cute laughs.

  120 Days Old

  To: Annie

  From: Annika

  Hey girl! Where’ve you been? Gallivanting around the local mall? Eating bon bons on the couch while you watch those god-awful talk shows? Why don’t you call me? We should meet for brunch one day. My treat!

  Gotta run. Busy busy busy!

  XOXO Annika

  That is not the first email I’ve received in this vein from Annika. She seems to think I’m not doing jack shit while I’m on maternity leave, and while it may be true that I’ve accomplished very little, not a moment goes by where I’m not either doing or attempting to do something but am quickly thwarted.

  I write a hasty reply because it doesn’t seem worthwhile trying to explain motherhood to her. She has vehemently announced that she has no intention of ever becoming a parent because she thinks kids suck, which she usually tells me in that way of people who always think what they’re saying is fact, even if it is very much coming from a place of opinion. Plus, why would I agree with her when I just chose to give birth to a kid? Even if some of the time I do think he sucks. But I’d never let her know that.

  To: Annika

  From: Annie

  Hiya! Busy here, too! Sam’s a love who won’t let me put him down. Trying to enjoy my maternity leave. It’ll be over in less than two months! We’ll have to get together before then.

  Annie

  I refuse to let Annika get to me. Instead, I watch daytime QVC and buy $200 worth of Joan Rivers jewelry that I will probably never wear. But I do it to honor Joan, and that’s what’s important.

  122 Days Old

  If I have to read about another celebrity who says how great it is to be a mom, I am going to drown myself in my arsenal of stored breastmilk. Don’t tell me, obnoxious, holier-than-thou supermodel, that you’re such a great mom because you’re “multitasking” while you breastfeed in a hoity-toity makeup chair while someone else holds a cup with a goddamn straw for you and three other people fix your hair. Multitasking is hanging on to a baby while taking a shit and then realizing there is no toilet paper left on the roll. So, pants down, baby on tit, you rifle under the sink for more, but there is none there either, so with your pants still around your ankles and baby dangling you have to shuffle/hop your way down the basement stairs without falling in order to dig a package of toilet paper out of the closet, puncture it open with a leaking pen, carry the roll back upstairs, and wipe your ass, not to mention flush, pull your pants back up, and attempt to wash your one hand that isn’t trying to prevent your baby from falling onto the tiled floor as he rips your nipple off on the way down.

  #MULTITASKMYASS

  123 Days Old

  It’s the middle of the night, and I can’t sleep. Sam is going on four hours, but I’m so used to waking up that I can’t manage to doze off.

  There’s a woman on QVC selling personal stair machines. It’s 2:53 A.M., and there are three hard-bodied women, half-dressed, demonstrating how using the Sky Stepper will magically transform my gelatinous stomach into a rock-hard washboard.

  None of the women are even remotely close to dripping with sweat. In fact, they’re barely glistening.

  “How do you do it?” I ask the TV. “How do you look so toned and glamorous at three in the morning? I can’t look like that after a makeover at the MAC counter at Macy’s and three pairs of Spanx. You’re on live TV, for fuck’s sake.”

  “I haven’t had anything to eat but energy drinks for the last twenty-four hours,” one woman admits, and I detect a twitch in her eye.

  “I run Ironman every year,” the second woman tells me. “Walking on a step machine in the middle of the night is like laying on the couch for you.”

  “Oh. That makes me feel better,” I groan. “And what about you?” I ask the third exerciser.

  “I don’t have much of a choice. My husband lost his job, and I have three kids at home who need braces.”

  “Man, that sucks. Well, if it’s any consolation, you look great for having three kids,” I tell her.

  “I’d rather look like you and be in bed than be here, wiping sweat off my forehead every time they turn the camera away from me.”

  “I knew it!” I shout. At that moment, Zach rolls over in his sleep and asks, “Is Sam up? Are you on the phone?”

  “Go back to sleep,” I tell him, something I never have to say twice.

  On the TV, the three women work out as though we hadn’t just bonded. In their honor, I sneak down to the kitchen for a stick of string cheese, celebrating the fact that I can.

  124 Days Old

  To: Annie

  From: Louise

  Dear Annie,

  Right now I am locked in the bathroom with my phone, and my two kids are outside the door screaming their fucking heads off. Literally, if I open the door, which I may never do and you can come over in three weeks to identify my decaying body sitting on the toilet, I expect to see both of my kids with their heads on the floor. Whic
h would totally be an improvement because they won’t SHUT UP. I just yelled that as I typed it. My kids are going to need so much fucking therapy. SO AM I (yelled again). The baby is in a bouncy seat, and Jupiter is seriously scratching at the door and rolling on the floor. I don’t understand. How hard is it to sit and watch a cartoon while your mom has to take a shit? Sometimes I wish I had more in the bathroom besides nick-proof razors and infant Tylenol.

  Help.

  Lou

  125 Days Old

  I can’t tell, but I think Doogan isn’t eating as well as he used to. Maybe it’s been years since he has. When he was a young cat, he was so rotund that we had to put him on diet cat food. Eventually we bought a food machine on a timer that spits out the right amount of food two times a day. The motor inside whirs before the food comes out, and Doogan used to perk up at the sound of it, then zip straight to the bowl for his meals. He hasn’t done that in a while. Months? Years? He’s been with me so long, it’s hard to differentiate. His eating slowed down once before, right around the time Zach and I were married. We were so busy with the wedding preparation, we didn’t notice until we went on our honeymoon. Doogan stayed with Fern, at her lavish apartment with more bathrooms than bedrooms at the top of a skyscraper in Chicago, with pristine white carpeting that Doogan promptly puked on the second Zach and I boarded our plane for San Diego (part of our honeymoon was spent at Comic-Con, the rest on a road trip up the California coast). It turned out Doogan had hepatic lipidosis, where his fat started invading his liver or something like that. Whatever it was, Fern had to take him to the vet, and I spent half our honeymoon on the phone with the vet (and several thousand dollars) making sure he was okay. Doo is such a sweet cat, the vet actually went into the clinic on her off-hours just to hang out with him. I guess he was at death’s door, and the vet saved him, gave him seven years more and counting. We send her holiday cards every year.

  At seventeen, Doogan’s been a senior for a while, and his vet said, maybe it was a few years ago, that it’s normal for his eating to slow down. But maybe I should take him in. I’ll see how he’s doing later this week and make an appointment for next week. I’m sure he’s fine. Just older. He’s purring on my lap right now. I’m sure nothing’s wrong. Right, buddy?

  126 Days Old

  It’s time to try again. Sex, that is. I can feel the need emanating from Zach’s body every time we watch an episode of Game of Thrones. Hell, I can feel it coming from him when we watch Ghost Adventures. Or maybe part of that is me? Maybe I’m feeling that need, too? I can’t figure out if I’m horny or if I just really have to pee.

  Tonight we watch a reality show where a hillbilly husband talks to the camera about how frisky he’s feeling. He lights scented candles for his wife, but apparently they’re the wrong scent. So he changes it up to candles that smell like food, and she gives it up.

  “What kind of candles would you want?” Zach quizzes me. He knows I don’t care for candles, and it’s obvious he’s of the mind that if these yokels are doing it, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be, too.

  “Barbecue chips and Slim Jims,” I jest. “Got any of those candles in your sexy arsenal?”

  “Remember when you used to go to those sex toy parties your friends threw? You’d come home with all sorts of smelly stuff.”

  “Those parties were such a pain in my ass. I always felt obligated to buy crap because my friends forced me to so they could get their pyramid-scheme kickback. How many feather ticklers and warming balms does one woman need?”

  “Do we still have any warming balm?” Zach inquires.

  “Yeah. I think that stuff expired four years ago. You don’t want to mess with rancid warming balm.”

  “No,” Zach concurs.

  “And Doogan appropriated the feather ticklers as cat toys.”

  “So I guess we’ll just have to do with what God gave us.” Zach nudges me, and I try my hardest to look relaxed. He rubs my arm gently, then moves onto my back. “You get a very short massage tonight. I don’t want anyone falling asleep prematurely.”

  “And—” I start.

  “Steer clear of your breasts. Got it.” He slides his hands down to the hem of my sleep shirt. “Can I still look at them?” he asks. I nod, although my inclination is to warn him to look away. They aren’t the breasts of yesteryear. He slips my shirt over my head and doesn’t comment, so he’s either pleased with what he sees or smart enough not to say anything if he isn’t.

  He kisses me, and I try to pretend this is normal and I’ve done it a million times. Which it is, and I have, before my body became engorged with a human and then expelled it and is hovering somewhere between the two. I am so aware of all the new and subtle nuances: the darker areolae, the line down my belly, the pimple that won’t retreat, the not quite as confident pee-holding ability. All of those things add up to a more lived-in version of my body with whom I still haven’t quite made friends.

  “How about we turn the lights off?” I suggest. As common as this appears to be on television and in movies, Zach and I never partook in the lights-out, good-feelings-by-only-feeling kind of sex.

  “Do I look that bad?” he asks, and when I begin to argue the opposite, he says, “I’m just kidding. If that would make you feel more comfortable, I’m all for it. Anything that will result in me getting laid by my wife.” He grins.

  “You really need to study your seduction techniques. ‘Getting laid’ when you’re pushing forty is not on that list.”

  I reach over and click off the lamp on my nightstand. Zach does the same with his and scoots across the bed to spoon with me.

  “Thirty-six is not pushing forty,” he argues as he kisses the tip of my ear, my earlobe, my neck …

  “Whatever, old man Schwartz-Jensen.”

  “I love it when you call me by my hyphenated last name.” He gently rolls me onto my back and kisses my mouth.

  At first, I try to be me in the moment, remembering all of the moments just like this that came before. But my head quickly travels to me and Zach timing our sex to correlate with ovulation, peeing on sticks, trying again, lying with my legs propped up against the wall to give his semen an easier swimming job. Not sexy thoughts. I joggle my head to see if I can jar them loose, and Zach notices.

  “Everything okay?” he asks. He has already rolled my undies down and off, and automatically I reciprocated. I can feel how hard he is, and a tiny spark of hope tickles my tummy as I recognize the desire to have him inside me.

  “Yep. Do you have the condom?” It has been one hundred years since I’ve asked anyone that question, and the youthful request is another boon to the occasion. Crinkle crinkle.

  “You put it on me,” Zach directs, and I do, harking back to many a tryst in my twenties.

  Things are going smoothly—not to the point where I think I’ll have an orgasm, but certainly better than full-on panic that he is near my vagina (Don’t think about your vagina … Don’t think about your vagina)—when Sam erupts in cries over the baby monitor.

  “Ignore it!” Zach grunts, and I’m taken aback since I’m always the one who demands we turn off the monitor when I want to pretend for one squink of a second that I’m not at a tiny human’s beck and call.

  Sam must know we’re putting him off, and his screams escalate. Zach is carrying on with his rhythmic business, and I’m trying dutifully to keep time, but it’s not easy with the distraction.

  “Why don’t we turn the monitor off?” I suggest. Together, Zach still inside of me, we rock our way toward the nightstand. I stretch my arm over to reach the monitor button, and the struggle knots a kink in my neck. Play through the pain, I coach myself. Just get in one good orgasm! You can do it! I’m quite the cheerleader, but it’s no good. The interruption and job injury leave the twenties me at some bar with a tall, dark hipster I just met, and the mid-thirties, postbaby me prays my husband doesn’t notice and finishes his business quickly.

  He must realize I’m not on my way to happy town because
he asks, “Are you gonna—”

  “Nah. But you go ahead.”

  Zach makes no attempt at the obligatory double check and comes almost immediately. The benefit of almost five months (plus pregnancy time) of celibacy.

  I don’t bother to stick around for postcoital cuddling bliss, seeing as there wasn’t really any from my side of the bed anyway. I attend to Sam, buck naked, and the one man in my house who’s allowed to touch my boobs does so voraciously.

  My body has officially ceased being my own.

  127 Days Old

  I’m on the phone with Fern, a rarity and not always an enjoyable experience. I adore her and miss hearing her voice, but between four kids screaming in the background, that horrid high-pitched-child-voice cell phone reverb, and Fern interrupting us every one to three seconds to either a) remind one of her kids that Mommy’s on the phone or b) admonish one of her kids for hitting one of the other kids, I get in only ten to twelve words total. Somehow I manage to broach the subject of the complications of postbaby sex. “You must know something about it, since you managed to have four kids.”

  “Ah, but two of them are twins,” she reminds me. “And I am freakishly fertile.” Fern doesn’t elaborate, but I assume she’s perhaps alluding to having sex only the bare minimum per pregnancy, which doesn’t bode well for my sex-life improvement.

  “Have you tried fantasizing? Role-play? Jacob! Do not touch your sisters right after you touch your penis!” Fern yells directly into the phone, then picks right back up with, “Adam and I used to do that all the time. Costumes and everything. Highly recommended. Put the knife block down, goddammit! I have to go.” Click.

  I consider Fern’s role-playing idea. I did do a little improv in high school, and Zach played Dungeons & Dragons all through college. Maybe it could help?

  My thoughts of chain mail and sex games quickly shift to Doogan. His automatic food dish dumps out a new load of pebbles, but Doogan is too lethargic to get up and snarf them down. I really should make that vet appointment. Part of me is too scared to find out anything.