The Ballad (The Bridge Series)

by Ashley Pullo

  As I wait for Adam to return, I curl up on the blue velvet sofa, comforted by the muted gold wallpaper and the falling sugary flakes outside the window. The snow is definitely starting to accumulate on the sidewalk and unless you’re under the age of ten or at a ski resort, snow sucks. It’s ironic, Adam and I both hail from snow globes, but something about a New York City winter is depressing. Sure, the first snow is always pretty and peaceful and a cheery surprise during Christmas, but I swear, by March, I’d rather hang myself than trudge through another day of wet slop. I catch sight of Adam walking briskly down the street, hands in his pockets and snowflakes powdering his dark hair. He runs up the stairs and shuts the front door, stopping in the entryway to shake off his snowy boots.

  “Adam darling, join me in the parlor!” I’ve always wanted to say that.

  Adam leans against the doorframe surveying the finished room and shaking his head, amused by my flamboyant decorating skills. I beam at him and pat the spot next to me for him to join me. He lounges beside me as we gaze out the window mesmerized by the quiet beauty of falling snow and the promise of a white Christmas.

  “Welcome home, babe.” I’ve always needed to say that.

  William

  March 2007

  “I guess now is as good a time as any . . . friends, I’m taking a little hiatus.” A few of my fans whine and moan but then quickly resume their coffee and intellectual conversation. I actually like playing this bookstore because of the outside courtyard and the overflow of people from nearby bars that congregate on the street to listen. I’ve had this regular gig every Friday night since New Year’s and with that twenty-five percent off books and all the muffins I want. Luckily I have Adam to support me or I would be a fat, very well-read, cat lady.

  “Yes, this may come as a shock, but I’m very pregnant! So thank you for ignoring my huge belly and raging hormones.” I smile at a few of the regulars that I’ve come to know over the past few months and the sweet manager that always requests a certain song. I wink at Adam, sitting solo at a small table with his briefcase and a stack of papers.

  “I would like to close tonight’s performance with one of my childhood favorites. There’s something special about the simplicity of the lyrics and the charming melody that makes it eerily complex and thought provoking. And of course, Kermit is a rock god! Rainbow Connection.”

  After I say my goodbyes and share a few sentimental hugs with the people of Zelda’s Books, Adam and I wander onto the streets of Brooklyn enjoying the remarkably fresh spring night. My due date is in one week and after spending the last month exhausting every stressful child birth scenario in my head, it’s nice to enjoy a relaxing evening as a couple. We get some pizza near our apartment and take a stroll on the Promenade, admiring the twinkling Manhattan skyline in its grandiose splendor. We discuss baby names; I like Penny for a girl and Spencer for a boy but Adam turns his nose up to both. He prefers the classics like Jane and Charlie. We agree that a baby with no first name is an interesting idea and eventually head back to our apartment to watch LOST, wash baby clothes and nest the arrival of baby { } Ford.

  To the outside world, I appear spontaneous and free-spirited, fueled by my passionate emotions, but hidden deep inside my core, I crave order. I need a certain amount of planning and control to balance the nature of uncertainty. In fact, it’s this planned predictability that allows me to be impulsive and creative. This dual response mechanism is the very reason why I have watched and cried at every episode of TLC’s A Baby Story. The very reason I have read all the pregnancy books and mentally suffered from gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, an episiotomy and an emergency cesarean. However, no amount of planning or first-hand horror stories can actually prepare a hormonal pregnant woman for the devastating news that child birth is an endorphin induced “wtf-just-happened cerebral experience that spans over several days” kind of party.

  As I rest my depleted body on the stiffest sheets not even fit for a prisoner, listening to the sweet, suckling sounds of a newborn baby on her mother’s tit, I quietly laugh to myself, remembering my last doctor’s appointment. I eagerly sat in Dr. Wong’s Brooklyn office a few days ago discussing my birthing plan like I was a finalist in a beauty pageant. Yes, I would love a drug-free birth! Yes, Adam and I completed the Lamaze class and are familiar with breathing techniques! Yes, I would love my family and friends to be in the room! Yes, of course I will breastfeed! And yes, I will refrain from any type of embarrassing behavior. Needless to say, this is what really happened . . .

  Every pregnant woman prays for a beautiful, healthy baby to be delivered on clouds of euphoria, but I also know that every pregnant lady secretly prays for two other things, that her water doesn’t break in public and that she will not shit the bed during delivery. So here I am, minding my business in line at a very crowded Starbucks, wearing a moo-moo of a dress and thinking I will have just a little caffeine as a reward for withholding caffeine for nine months.

  SPLASH! No warning, no trickling, just a tiny puddle announcing my embarrassing predicament. Some of the lesser grossed out patrons sit me down and call an ambulance to take me two blocks to the hospital. Once there, I calmly call Adam and my mom and the bubbly intake nurse calls Dr. Wong.

  “What time will Dr. Wong be here?” I ask between deep breaths while rubbing my belly, because women in labor always rub their bellies between deep breaths.

  “Dr. Wong will be here in a couple of hours. Now, let’s change you into a gown and get the monitors set up.” The nurse sympathetically smiles and starts rolling around massive robotic carts. A couple of hours . . . doesn’t Dr. Wong know this is a matter of life and death and I may be forced to deliver my baby with a pot of boiling water and a pair of scissors?

  Shortly after my mental panic, Adam walks casually into my room with my hospital bag and all my required music. He kisses my forehead and smiles sweetly, totally prepared for whatever is about to happen. I wouldn’t say the pain was immediate or even high on the 1–10 threshold, but the contractions are very annoying. After an hour, I’ve progressed slightly and my contractions are really annoying the shit out of me. Two more hours pass and I’ve fucking had it . . . high tolerance for pain, low tolerance for annoyance!

  “Adam . . . I’m sorry, but I need an epidural or marijuana or a large bat to silence that goddamn machine that WON’T STOP BEEPING!” A little dramatic, but I got my point across. Adam quietly steps over to the nurse and she rushes out to get the anesthesiologist on call.

  Before I can get my wonder drug injected I need to be examined by the dreaded latex hand, again. I wouldn’t consider myself modest but does there really need to be seven people in here looking at my vagina? Shall we call in a few bored people from the waiting room to have a look-see while we’re at it? Awesome, the latex fingers measure me at six centimeters and it’s time to get that needle deep inside my spine. Let me just add, that no matter what the anesthesiologist looks like, at the moment of injection, he’s freaking George Clooney.

  It starts to work . . . that’s pretty cool . . . like a tingly leg cramp . . . okay all is good! Wait, no, it isn’t good because an epidural concentrates on your lower half, numbing the pain, but I need something to make the stupid machine stop beeping and the blood pressure cuff around my arm to quit squeezing and the seven strangers to leave my room. So I take a deep Lamaze breath and try to relax and pray Dr. Wong gets here soon.

  “Hey babe, Nat is here. Do you want her to come in?” Adam smoothes the sweaty hair away from my face and I nod in approval.

  “Holy shit, Chloe!! You’re preggers? Let’s see, if I subtract correctly and multiply by too many mojitos I’d conclude that Adam knocked you up on your wedding night.” Poor Natalie, cursed with the LeGrange sarcasm and poor math skills, yet surprisingly accurate. Unsurprisingly though, she’s dressed in her finest street-walker clothing, probably expecting to bag some unlucky doctor at the Saturday night hospital disco.

  “Listen, ya tart . . . make yourself usef
ul and put on another CD,” I say as the latex intruder comes stalking in the room.

  “Hi Chloe, one quick check and we’ll get Dr. Wong in here,” says the sixth nurse to check me.

  “Alright, nine centimeters . . . time for this baby!” She removes her gloves to rummage around the room and set up a tray table similar to that of a yearly exam. Dr. Wong enters in a shirt and tie shaking everyone’s hands like a politician. Inappropriate, no?

  “Chloe, Adam! Let’s have a baby!” Dr. Wong is so enthusiastic and assuring that I almost believe him. He’s helped into scrub pants and a blue smock and ties a bandana paper hat around his black hair and a paper mask over his mouth. Good God, how messy is this going to get? Natalie is standing in horror behind him as she mouths dramatically “your beaver is huge.” Time for my favorite cousin to get out!

  “Nat, I love you, but ya gotta go!” As she walks past my harnessed legs she extends her arms widely and mouths in disgust “huge.”

  Adam has wisely positioned himself by my head and is sweetly kissing my sweaty temple, but that needs to stop. Dr. Wong sits on a stool right inside my crotch and naturally I start to close my legs, but he just pries them farther apart. I can’t understand a word he’s saying with the facemask so I start pushing on what I think is my cue. And straining. And squeezing. And yelling, not out of pain, but because I hear another woman next door screaming and this has obviously become a contest. I’m not really sure how long the pushing and prying proceed because I like to judge time by the length of songs but someone {Cathy, the bubbly nurse} shut my music off. But before I can decide on a song to hum in my head, Dr. Wong is lifting a chalky, screaming alien toward my chest. Oh shit, he has a tail, no wait, just the umbilical cord.

  “Congratulations! You have a beautiful baby boy. Adam, would you like to cut the cord?” Dr. Wong asks Adam as he extends the gooey miracle over my spread legs.

  “No.” Adam responds in his normal, unwavering voice but his face is flushed with amazement. Any minute I should start crying and whip out my breast to start the feeding but this imposing and well-organized order is something I did not prepare for. The nurse whisks away the baby and wipes off all the goo and blood and Dr. Wong is still down there taking inventory or whatever, so I just stare at Adam, embarrassed by my non-Baby Story reaction and my lack of preplanned emotion.

  So here I am on these god awful sheets waiting to be discharged as my annoying roommate has not one, but two babies sucking on her breasts. She clearly won the contest on multiple levels and now she’s just flaunting it. I cradle my sleeping William in my arms and brush my finger across his tiny button nose. I’ve had the worst time breastfeeding and Adam asked the hospital’s lactation specialist to visit me one more time before we leave.

  The irritating sound of the boisterous high-heel clicking and the nauseating smell of cheap perfume charge through my room, demanding my attention. Maybe it’s one of those cute senior citizen hospital volunteers . . . nope she’s here to play with my udders.

  “Ok, show me how you initiate the latch.” Her bedside manner is atrocious and her make-up rivals a drag queen. She reaches over my baby to unhook my nursing bra and broadcasts my big swollen watermelon for Adam, my roommate, her two leeches and her goofy husband to all watch in horrifying entertainment.

  “No, no, no, you need to turn your nipple upward and tilt your breast. I see the problem; your nipples are somewhat small and straight.” And? “You may have to stimulate the baby’s mouth with your finger or it will be surprised by the contour of your nipple.” She keeps talking but I’m distracted by the tiny hairs above her orange lips and the nauseating smell of her White Diamonds.

  “Chloe, you can do it! Just think how special the bonding will be between you and your little one,” says the milk maiden next to me. The room, the people, the entire experience makes me feel like an outsider in my own life. 3-2-1 . . . I smile at Adam and he must know what I’m about to do because he nods encouragingly.

  “Okay, so I would like to try a formula bottle . . . for comparison.” It’s the nicest way I can get out my true feelings.

  “What? No, no, no. We can work out the problems or even try the pump. A lot of women have a difficult time in the beginning and there’s no shame in a little assistance,” she pleas. Ha! There is no fucking way I’m putting that dirty suction cup near my body and becoming an unattached Wisconsin dairy cow. I raise my bra flap to cover my breast and smile politely.

  “Thank you for all your help and the kind encouragement, but we will be bottle feeding when we get home so I would like the nursery to help me with a bottle before we leave.” The lactation specialist guffaws and throws her hands in the air and my super sweet roommate decides that now is the best time to close the curtain in disgust. I don’t mind a little shame and I’m okay with my tiny sense of failure because I strategically planned to impulsively decide how to connect with my baby and I’m proud of my honest accomplishment.

  When we arrived home earlier in the afternoon our apartment became a little confusing, extremely overwhelming and very cramped. The hospital nursery sent us home with a diaper bag full of formula and enough paraphernalia to last us until the christening. Dr. Wong sent me home with prescription strength Advil for my imminent non-nursing breast pain and the nurses, bless them, sent me home with Epsom salt and an economy size bag of sanitary napkins. Mom and Nancy are arriving on the weekend so we have a few days to get our act together, clean up all this shit and try to be parents.

  “Do you want me to put the bassinet in the bedroom and the changing table here by the couch?” Adam is frantically trying to organize all the baby stuff piled in the living room. I’ve actually never seen him frazzled.

  “We may need to use both of them during the night, but maybe I can practice changing diapers on the bed?” We never really discussed a schedule but we firmly agreed that the baby would sleep in the bassinet and not in the bed with us.

  “Babe, could ya get me an iced coffee? Just don’t go to Starbucks, they’re probably still mad at me!” I charmingly beg.

  “Okay, sure. Do you need anything else? Do we need diapers?” He’s so adorable. I point to the three large boxes behind him. He nods in a daze and heads out the door.

  William and I lie on the bed, him wrapped like a blue tortilla and me in boxer shorts and a black sports bra. I wonder if babies can sense when you’re staring at them because every so often, Will’s tiny eyes flinch at my presence. He’s perfection and I’m in love! I gaze at his sleeping face, envisioning his future and counting his eyelashes. I kiss his feet; I smell his neck and wrap his hand around my pinky. I want to hold him again but he looks peaceful so I hum Edelweiss and trace his transparent eyebrow. His eyes flutter and he grins, a real smile, not gas. And then he cries. Loudly like a goat.

  I hold Will like a football thinking it would be super cool if babies came with a guitar strap, fetch one of the premade bottles from the hospital-sanctioned vinyl diaper bag, and settle in the living room chair. Maybe because of my summer waitressing in Manhattan, or my summers double-fisting beer at Hogtown keggers, but holding a baby with one arm and preparing a bottle in the other is relatively easy. I even manage to turn on the stereo and place a burp cloth over my shoulder.

  Adam returns with a large iced coffee and my favorite Greek salad and joins us on the armrest of the chair. Will is actively sucking his tiny bottle to the quirky sounds of Barenaked Ladies as Adam rubs my neck, admiring the perfection in my arms.

  “Wow!” he says with an animated grin.

  “I know, he’s absolutely amazing. We did this ya know?” I’m not sure I can ever be as proud of myself as I am right now.

  “I was actually referring to your amazing tits, they’re huge.” Adam leans down to kiss my head and tugs at the front of my sports bra to get a better view. He nods his head in approval and I suppose if he’s that turned on, I will let him enjoy my Dolly-sized visitors a little later.

  I might be a failure in the battle of the breast a
nd the shame of future playgroups but I’m okay with that. I will never regret my decision to enjoy this private moment of bottle feeding our baby and enjoying the physical connection of love, hope and the promise of the other side of the rainbow.

  The Horizon

  May 2006

  “Have you folks been to Key West?” Our driver, Ollie, is wearing an expensive linen shirt, khaki shorts and a straw fedora circa 1950s Havana. After our flight to Miami, we boarded a tiny prop plane with nine other passengers to be transported to the tropical islands of America: the Florida Keys. Ollie greeted us at the airport like we were old friends and then helped us into his luxurious, white Lincoln Town Car. As soon as we hit the highway, Ollie rolls down the windows and the aromatic smell of hibiscus and salt water awakens my soul.

  “No, we’ve never been to the Keys. Everything looks amazing,” Adam says satisfied.

  “No? Then you are in for a real treat. Some of Florida’s best cuisine is right here at our resort, with fresh local seafood and of course, our famous Key lime pie! Little Palm is five star class all the way folks, but no one will bother you if you prefer to spend your time as beach bums with a couple of cold beers.” Ollie is so enthusiastic about Little Palm Resort and Key West in general that I fall in love with it immediately. He points out local hot spots and tells us charming stories about the famous and infamous that have walked the breezy streets of the Conch Republic. Fun fact, Margaritaville was written in Fort Myers, Florida and remains a very touchy subject with the Parrotheads . . . good to know.