I thought surviving a difficult labor would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to endure. I had no idea the real nightmare would begin only after I opened my eyes.
At 38 weeks pregnant, I couldn’t walk past the nursery door without smiling. Everything about my pregnancy had gone right. Two heartbeats, two perfect scans, and two names picked out and stitched onto matching little blankets that my sister, Rachel, had sent.
I was a graphic designer on maternity leave, and our suburban home felt as if it were holding its breath.
Everything about my pregnancy had gone right.
My husband, Ryan, worked in finance and had been, by every visible measure, the doting father-to-be. He rubbed my feet at night. He’d assembled the second crib on a Saturday in April after I’d asked him about it for three weeks straight. And he’d done it with his jaw set the whole time, as if he were doing taxes.
My friends kept telling me I’d hit the jackpot.
“You picked a good one,” Rachel said on the phone one night.
“I know,” I told her. “I really did.”
He rubbed my feet at night.
***
Still, there were things I noticed and immediately talked myself out of noticing.
Ryan took long phone calls in the garage, sometimes 40 minutes long, sometimes an hour. When I asked who he’d been talking to, he waved a dismissive hand.
“Just work stuff, babe. You don’t want to hear about it.”
***
The baby names came up one Sunday while I was folding onesies on the couch.
“So, Noah and Caleb,” I said. “You still love both, right?”
Still, there were things I noticed.
“Caleb’s great,” my husband answered, his eyes on his phone.
“And Noah?”
He looked up, then back down. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever you want.”
I told myself he was tired, that finance guys got weird around big life changes, and a lot of other things back then.
***
One evening, I caught Ryan staring at my belly from across the kitchen with a look I couldn’t name. I decided it was awe.
“What?” I laughed. “Do I have spaghetti sauce on my shirt?”
I told myself he was tired.
“Nothing,” he said. “You’re just really pregnant.”
“That’s the plan.”
My husband smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and I filed that away under pregnancy paranoia and let it go.
***
Rachel called me the following morning, the way she always did.
“How are my nephews?”
“Kicking me as if they’re mad about something.”
