Not Ready for Mom Jeans (9 page)

“She’s right. It is,” I said to Reese.

“
And
I’ll even help Clare out. I’ll let her recap my dates on her blog,” Julie said.

“Really? Are you sure?” I said, already thinking of the fabulously hilarious possibilities.

“Yep. I mean, no offense or anything, but your blog could use some material these days other than babies and diapers and bottles.” Julie patted me on the back sympathetically.

“Gee, thanks.” I brushed her hand off my back and smiled.

“Well, OK. If you say it’s safe. But just use protection or else you’ll be the one in this bed next year,” Reese said.

“I will. But seriously. What is it with you two? Don’t you guys know that condoms were invented for a reason? Having a child shoot out of my crotch is
not
on the agenda, thank you very much.” Julie shuddered, as though she could shake off any kid cooties like a dog shaking off water.

“Only you would say something like that to a woman in labor,” I retorted as Reese laughed.

“No problem. Listen, guys, my shift is about to start, but I’ll be back to check on you during my break.” She blew us a kiss and waved her hand Miss America style before walking out, her scrubs swishing.

“Do you think he got into an accident or something?” Reese wondered out loud.

“I’m sure he’s fine. There’s probably traffic or something. Don’t worry, he’ll be here. How are you, in any pain?”

“Nothing too bad yet, just tightening.” She picked up a
People
magazine and leafed through it without reading anything.

We sat around for another hour, alternately looking at magazines and flipping through the channels. “Hey look! Here’s the channel with the educational videos on how to care for your new baby. It has important tips like, ‘Don’t leave your baby in the tub by itself. Babies can drown,’ ” I said as I clapped my hands together.

“Gee, really? You’re kidding! You mean I can’t just drop my kid in a swimming pool and expect it to swim?” Reese said as she stopped on a story about Justin Timberlake.

“Nope! Apparently, some women believe that babies can breathe underwater since they spend nine months in utero in amniotic fluid. I’m not kidding. It actually covers this.”

“Some people are so—” She was interrupted by a loud alarm sounding from the fetal monitor. Each number was jumping all over the place. “What’s going on?” She looked at me.

“I don’t know. Let me get the nurse.” I stood up but didn’t take more than three steps when Dr. Clarke and a nurse came rushing in.

“Flip over on your side,” Dr. Clarke ordered Reese. The tone in her voice iced my blood.

Reese turned over and the nurse said, “It’s still not going up.”

“Flip over to your other side.” Reese obliged again and I could see the rising panic in her eyes.

“Reese, we’re going to put an internal monitor onto the baby’s head. The monitor is showing the baby’s heart rate is dropping and we don’t know if it is because the baby’s in distress or the monitor is just goofy.”

Reese silently nodded and turned over on her back. I gripped her hand and whispered in her ear that it would be OK. I closed my eyes and prayed for Matt to walk in the door, but when I opened them the only person who walked by the door was an orderly.

The room was silent as Dr. Clarke put the monitor in.

“There! It’s on.”

We all stared at the fetal monitor, willing the heart rate to go up. The heart rate dropped from 150 to 50, then it went back up again to 150, then it dropped to 70.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Dr. Clarke muttered.

Finally, the monitor registered.

The baby’s heart rate was 45.

“We’re going to a C-section!” Dr. Clarke yelled to the nurse. Immediately they began unplugging cords and monitors.

“Reese, it’s going to be OK. The baby’s going to be fine,” I said, my voice shaking. I tried to be positive, but Dr. Clarke and the nurse’s reactions made my stomach drop.

“Where the hell are the other nurses? We need help in here! What are they doing, sitting on their asses?” Dr. Clarke barked at the nurse. Two other nurses appeared. They started to wheel Reese out of the room and down the hallway.

“You can come in after we have her numbed up,” the nurse yelled to me over her shoulder.

Reese burst into tears as they wheeled her down the hallway. “Call Matt!” she shrieked.

My hands shaking, I snapped open my phone and dialed Matt one more time. Voice mail again. This time, I left a message: “Listen, asshole. Get your fucking piece of shit ass to the hospital right now. Your wife is having an emergency C-section, you prick!”

Do I regret it? Yes and no.

I had stood in the hallway for what felt like an eternity, waiting to be given scrubs, when a nurse appeared. “Are you with Reese?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Baby boy. Six pounds, two ounces. Born two minutes ago.”

“What?”

“He was just born. We didn’t have time for a spinal to kick in, so we had to put her totally out. She’s in Recovery and you can see her in a minute.”

“What? You mean she already had the baby?”

“Yep,” she said, and walked away.

I stood there by myself for a few moments until another nurse appeared and led me into Recovery and over to Reese.

“Oh my God! How are you?” I said, and threw my arms around her.

“In pain. My stomach hurts. What happened?” she slurred.

“You have a baby boy!” I said to her.

“What?” Her head flopped over to the right and she closed her eyes.

“A boy!” I said again, and shook her arm a little.

“Oh. Should I get a tattoo?” she mumbled.

“A tattoo?” I looked at the recovery room nurse, who shrugged.

“Over my C-section scar. I’m gonna get a tattoo of butterflies.” She smiled and nodded her head.

“Um, sure.” I patted her hand and shrugged at the nurse.

“What did I have again?” Reese mumbled. A tiny stream of drool fell down onto her white-and-blue-dotted hospital gown.

“A boy!” I shrieked.

“Oh. Good.” She fell asleep.

“Why don’t you let her get some rest, she’s pretty out of it from the morphine,” the recovery room nurse said as she checked the IV fluid.

“OK,” I said, and kissed the top of Reese’s head.

“Do you want to see the baby?” the nurse asked.

“Of course!” I said, and followed her out the door.

She led me into the nursery and over to one of those plastic bins, where Reese’s beautiful pink, squirmy, wriggly baby boy lay, looking very surprised and not quite sure what had happened. I picked him up and held him against my cheek, amazed at how different he felt from Sara. I couldn’t believe how much smaller he was. I felt a twinge in my stomach as I realized how big Sara was getting and, for a second, wished I could zap her back to when she was that little. A huge part of me wanted to book it straight out of that hospital and run home to scoop up my own little wriggly child.

The nurses finally pried him out of my hands, insisting he needed to go through some tests, and I went back to Reese.

Whoa. Reese has two kids. Jake and I are just two people with a kid. But Reese? She has a family.

When did we all get old enough to have children? Let alone multiple children?

“He’s beautiful!” I whispered to her.

“Grocery shopping,” she replied, her eyes closed.

Just then, Matt appeared, looking disheveled in his suit.

“Oh my God, is she OK?” he said as he raced over to her bed. His tie was askew and his shirt was rumpled.

“She’s fine. Sorry you couldn’t be here,” I said tightly. I crossed my arms over my chest and took a quick step backward.

“Yeah, sorry. I got hung up at work.” His eyes briefly met mine before shifting away quickly.

“Sure you did.” I curtly nodded and rubbed my forehead.

“Is the baby OK?” he asked as he looked around the room.

“He’s fine,” I said flatly.

“It’s a boy? Oh, wow. That’s amazing.” Matt’s voice carried so little inflection, it was as though I just told him that the Cubs won this afternoon.

“Listen, I’m going to go call her mom and then go home. I’ll be back later, OK?” I started toward the recovery room exit.

“Oh, right. Hey, do you think you could stay with her in the hospital tonight? I have a meeting I can’t miss,” Matt said nonchalantly.

I stared at him, hoping to convey my feelings of I-Wish-You-Would-Burn-in-Hell-and-Get-Your-Right-Arm-Painfully-Cut-Off-by-a-Rusty-Saw.

He just stared back.

“I’m not going to let her be alone,” I said. My eyes grew wide.

“Great. Thanks, you’re the best, Clare.”

So, here I am. At the hospital. Attempting to sleep in one of those chairs that semi-fold out into a very narrow twin bed while wondering how many ads I’d have to place on my blog to earn enough money to hire a hit man for Matt and buy Reese a new husband.

Friday, March 28

Ugh.

I’m dead from last night. I think I slept maybe an hour. I took the day off work, but I have Sara home with me.

Today reminds me of the days right after Sara was born and Jake and I operated in this half-awake, half-asleep state that allowed us to perform basic biological functions such as eat and pee but rendered us useless for much else. Not surprisingly, that is also the time when I found myself watching a lot of
Full House
reruns on television while feeding Sara. Anything else would’ve been futile, as my brain could not comprehend anything above Danny Tanner’s cleaning obsessions and Uncle Jesse’s mullet. I would definitely watch one today, yet I’m pretty sure I hit every episode by the second week of maternity leave.

Witnessing Reese’s train wreck of a marriage only fueled my desire to see Jake and Sara. I immediately threw my arms around Jake when he walked in the door from work this afternoon. Well, my one arm, since I had Sara resting on my hip.

“Hey,” he said. “Still tired from last night?” He leaned forward and kissed Sara on the cheek.

“Oh lord, don’t ask,” I said, and tried to disengage Sara’s fingers from my earring. “What do you feel like doing tonight?”

“Don’t you have to work on your column this weekend?”

Crap. I forgot.

My first column for
The Daily Tribune
is due on Monday. They ran a story about my blog last year and apparently it got a great response, so they offered me a guest columnist spot. For which I was thrilled, but now I actually have to produce something worth publishing in a newspaper. One that people read, not just one of those crappy free newspapers in the stand next to the auto magazines at Blockbuster. I’m supposed to write about being a new mom, which I think is hilarious, since a couple of months of having a child have left me with zero infinite wisdom or kernels of truth to pass along except for (1) Suck it up. It will get better. If you are lucky. (2) Start happy hour around noon. A few bottles of wine can make anything better. (3) Looking at your butt in the mirror will have dire consequences. Such as your retinas burning off.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks for reminding me. What should I write about?” I asked, and followed him into the bedroom.

“How about why people should order off the Home Shopping Network when they’re drunk?” he said, and pointed to the open box on the floor.

“Whatever. Those scarves are cute.”

“We don’t need matching His and Hers scarves.”

“Er, yeah,” I said, and discreetly shoved the box of matching gloves under the bed with my foot. “Sara, what do you think I should write about?” I turned to her and asked. She smiled, cooed, and farted loudly. “I’ll take that into consideration.” I turned to Jake. “Let’s go out and grab dinner while she’s in a good mood. I can work on my column after she goes to bed.”

We got ready and lightly packed Sara’s diaper bag (meaning no less than four bottles, twelve diapers, two packs of wipes, two pacifiers, a jingly thing that she likes to look at, three burp cloths, gas drops, and a changing pad) and drove to Adobo Grill for dinner.

Jake and I glanced at each other before we walked in the restaurant, silently communicating our prayers for a quick, calm, peaceful dinner without any infant meltdowns.

Futile prayers, indeed. Sara took our request into consideration, weighed her options carefully, and chose option B: scream head off the second Jake and I order drinks, turn bright red so other diners believe we are choking her and/or injuring her in some way, stiffen up like a board so the only way to hold her is on our laps, with her standing, doing aforementioned screaming, resulting in profuse sweating, embarrassment, and general pissed-off mood inside the restaurant.

Before Jake and I had Sara, we vowed we would take Sara out in public as much as possible. We figured it would be so easy—just put her in the car seat, give her a paci, and Mommy and Daddy can drink margaritas, right?

Wrong again. We have become more like a highly trained SWAT team or on-call firefighters, ready at a moment’s notice to jump into action if she starts crying. Not exactly a relaxing evening out with our child.

As I carried her outside after our Meal O’ Shriek, I sadly noted all of the couples taking their time over glasses of wine, sharing appetizers, and generally enjoying themselves. I really wanted to hold Sara up in front of the couple who appeared to be on a date and remind them to use protection, but Jake wouldn’t let me.