Three Minus One: Stories of Parents' Love and Loss by Jessica Watson

Author:Jessica Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2014-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Waiting

JS Nahani

We leave our pasta half eaten, move directly to the bedroom, and undress each other like new lovers. Seven years into our marriage. Nineteen years after our first date.

Are we crazy? I ask.

Maybe, he says, laughing.

Are you ready? I ask, laughing now.

Why not? he says.

We fall asleep in each other’s arms. He goes back to work the next day. I do the dishes, make dinner, look for a job, talk to the dog—tell her soon she might be a big sister. Days pass into two weeks, when we can take the test. He reads me the instructions while I pee on a white stick. Two pink lines show up before he gets to the second sentence.

Holy shit! he says.

I thought so! I say.

We curl up on the floor like a soft pretzel, look into each other’s eyes, acknowledge that there’s no one in the world we’d rather parent with more.

We drive up to visit old friends, share our news as if we’d known all along. As if the words “pregnant” and “parents” had been part of our own vocabulary all these years. Like the words “joyful” and “enthusiasm”—we’re only just learning how to form them, but there they were, waiting.

We spend winter evenings listening to the rain, under soft blankets, with the dog nestled nearby. She cocks her head in that big sister way as we read about eyelids appearing, lungs forming, arm buds developing.

I eat lots of cereal for a while, then—anything but cereal. Each night, I pop a prenatal vitamin and don’t even miss my antidepressant. We meet cousins from LA for lunch at the water. On the elevator, in my red jacket, hiding the new bulge, I turn to him and say:

I haven’t felt this happy since I don’t know when.

And I mean it.

We make love again, I bleed a bit afterwards, and call the advice nurse.

Spotting? she asks.

That’s common, she says.

Still, she sends us to Urgent Care, since it’s a Sunday. So we go wait for hours in a room with windows. I feel calm, even as tears flow. The nurse has the name of my grandmother.

Your cervix is still closed, the doctor on call assures us. We keep our growing love tucked away, tied to our heartstrings, voicing it only to our inner circle.

We wait for the first week of the New Year, when we can finally go meet our midwife, see the heart beating. When we can confirm the cause of strange new eating habits, swollen breasts, bone tiredness. Our eyes widen as we witness the fast beating for the first time.

Our baby. We toss the words around like magic.

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