by Amira Rain
After giving Alex a full physical exam, Dr. Thompson agreed that he was perfect. “He’s completely healthy, and he’s strong, too. He’s got a very powerful little kick. In fact, I’d say he’s stronger than most babies I’ve delivered, despite only being in the womb for nine weeks. I’d say he’s quite a little miracle.”
Ryan and I definitely agreed.
The following morning, while I was still recuperating at the clinic, alone in a recovery room while Ryan got us some breakfast from the café, my mom happened to call. I hesitated before answering my phone, realizing that I hadn’t even told her I was pregnant. We hadn’t spoken once, or communicated in any other way, since I’d hung up on her during our heated call before I’d moved to Briarwood. Now, holding her grandson in my arms, her grandson that she didn’t even know existed, I felt kind of bad, though a little relived at the same time. Now I could tell her about my pregnancy and her newly-born grandson all at the same time. I’d just do it all in one fell swoop. It would be easier this way.
Except that it really wasn’t. Despite knowing the basics of human sexual reproduction, I assumed, my mom couldn’t seem to wrap her brain around how I’d gotten pregnant so quickly, saying, “Well, that can’t be possible,” when I told her I’d likely become pregnant right on my wedding night.
“No one gets pregnant the very first time they sleep with a particular man. That’s just a myth. Take any couple in the world…any parental couple from any country…and they’ll tell you that it took them at least a few weeks to conceive their first child. That whole myth of the ‘wedding night baby’…that’s always baloney.”
With my eyes closed, I rolled my eyes so hard that the action actually slightly hurt. “Can we please move on, Mom?”
We soon did, and I briefly told her about Alex and the strange, possibly shifter-related experience of my pregnancy, but again, she was dubious.
“I guess I’m either just not understanding you, Julia, or you’re not explaining things to me well enough, and I hate to say that I’m almost thinking the latter. Women just don’t give birth to healthy, seven-pound babies after just nine weeks of pregnancy, shifter father or no. It’s just scientifically impossible.”
“Like it’s scientifically impossible for a couple to conceive a child the first time they sleep together?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Look. Is this the new way for people to say they’ve adopted a baby? Is ‘nine-week pregnancy’ just a euphemism for adoption or something?”
Sure she couldn’t be serious, I didn’t answer right away. “What?”
“I’m not opposed to adoption in any way. Having another woman carry the child can save a woman’s figure. I’ll still refer to your son as my grandchild if you just admit that’s what you did.”
I heaved a sigh, not even bothering to cover the phone with my hand to mask the sound. “Mom, I have to go. Alex is fussing, and I think he needs his diaper changed.”
“Well, you’re going to hang up before I even get the chance to congratulate you on your new baby? What country is he from, by the way? Is he an American?”
I gritted my teeth, unable to speak for a long moment. “Alex is a Dentonian, Mom, because I gave birth to him here in the sovereign nation of Denton.”
Now it was my mom’s turn to sigh, and she heaved such a loud, long one that I was actually slightly impressed by her lung capacity.
“Well, Julia, in case you’re wondering how I’m doing, I sold two ‘McMansions’ this past week. Big ones. One I sold to one of those tech startup guys and his former actress wife. She was in that movie about the radioactive spiders getting loose on the plane. The other mansion I sold to that Latvian rapper who got famous on the internet. Have you heard of him? He does the songs about marijuana and all that. Loves healthy living, though. Loves to swim. The indoor pool was what sold him. That and the helicopter pad in the back, I think. He entertains a lot and has friends in from all over.”
Looking down at Alex, who’d stopped fussing and had fallen asleep, I felt my eyes suddenly fill with tears. I didn’t even really know what had done it. Maybe just the fact that my mom seemed to care more about a Latvian rapper than her grandson.
“Mom, I can’t talk to you anymore.”
“Well, if you have to go now, that’s fine. I-“
“No. Not just right now. Going forward. I can’t talk to you anymore.”
She didn’t answer right away. “Well-“
“You’re a complete troll, and I don’t know why. I’ve never known why. But I don’t even care anymore. I think I’ve changed in some way since coming here to Briarwood. I think maybe it even happened when I dropped my ‘population growth partner’ application in the mailbox back in Pauli. Some little part of me that’s always been scared shrank a little bit, I think. Then, when I caught my own baby last night the first moment he came into the world, I think that scared little part of me shrank a bit further still.”
“Listen, Julia. I-“
“I’m really happy here in Briarwood with my husband and my new baby, Mom. If you ever want to be a part of that happiness, if you ever want to speak to me again, please call me sometime and apologize. Then, act differently. Treat me and my choices with respect. Try to show caring to me and my family. Don’t do your damnedest to provoke me.”
“Julia, look. I know I haven’t always-“
“I’ll always love you, Mom, but I can’t allow you to be even a marginal part of my life anymore. Not until you change, if you ever do.”
“Well-“
“Take care, Mom. Goodbye.”
My eyes had been welling the entire time I’d been speaking, but once I ended the call, I didn’t feel like I wanted to cry anymore.
When Jill and Hillary came to visit a few minutes later, bearing flowers for me and a large stuffed teddy bear for Alex, they asked how I was doing, and I said great. And I truly meant it.
My first week home with Alex was total bliss. Even with him frequently waking up at all hours of the night, and even though I was in a bit of physical pain, it was still pure bliss. Ryan had a lot to do with that, relegating his logging crew duties to Steb for the week so that he could be home with Alex and me as much as possible. Ryan cooked, he cleaned, he rocked and changed Alex, and the first day I was home, he even insisted on carrying me to the bathroom whenever I had to go, which I thought was more than a bit over-the-top, but I kind of liked it anyway. It did also spare me a bit of pain. I’d given birth without tearing, very thankfully, but that first day home, even trying to walk had made me bite back a groan.
My only disappointment during this time was that I wasn’t able to breastfeed Alex, which I’d wanted to do. After failing to produce more than a few drops of milk per day, and after numerous failed attempts to get Alex to latch, even with Christine and Dr. Thompson trying to help me every step of the way, Dr. Thompson did a pretty thorough examination of my breasts, concluding that I had some sort of a milk duct problem. So, I let what little milk there was in my breasts dry up, and Alex officially started on formula, which he’d already been drinking from a bottle while I’d been trying to figure out breastfeeding.
When Ryan resumed his logging duties the second week after Alex’s birth, and was therefore gone every day until dinner usually, I missed him terribly. The experience of creating new life and meeting that new life had brought us closer together, to the point that I now considered Ryan not just my husband, but my best friend as well. I also considered him the best new daddy in the world. Every time he gently kissed Alex’s rosy little cheeks, which he did frequently, my heart seemed to leap and melt at the same time.
When Alex was about three weeks old, his newborn-blue eyes shifted to a decided gray, just like his daddy’s, and just in time for everyone to comment on this at our baby shower, which Hillary threw for us at her and Steb’s house. I hadn’t wanted to have a shower while I was pregnant, on account of being so huge and uncomfortable and anxious. Now, with my ado
rable son in the crook of one arm while I opened gifts with my free hand, assisted by Jill, I was glad that I’d waited. Since I wasn’t breastfeeding, I even got to indulge in a few glasses of sangria that Hillary served at the shower.
When Alex was about a month old, I began taking him out for daily long walks in his deluxe, all-terrain stroller, which had a seat that tipped backward to support babies who couldn’t yet sit up on their own. Even with this feature, I still had to prop Alex up with rolled blankets on either side of his body so that he wouldn’t flop over. He was gaining strength every day, but his “newborn jelly-bone syndrome,” as Jill called it, definitely wasn’t a thing of the past yet. I honestly thought it was pretty adorable.
What I didn’t find adorable was the twenty-some-odd pregnancy pounds that I hadn’t yet lost, but I was determined to shed them slowly and healthily, wanting them to stay off, and I knew that the long walks pushing Alex’s stroller would help.
It was during maybe our third or fourth walk, on a warm but thankfully not-very-humid August day, that we came across Christine, who was jogging down the paved side street that I was walking up. After pulling earbuds from her ears, smiling, she asked us how we were doing, then knelt to get a better look at Alex in his stroller.
“Wow…he’s getting huge. He looks like he’s packed on a few pounds since I last saw him.”
She’d seen him for a checkup just three days earlier. Soon, within a few months, we’d be getting two pediatricians in Briarwood, a husband and wife physician team who were going to be moving up from the United States. They had to sell their house first, though, and tie up a few other loose ends, so in the meantime, Christine was serving as the community’s general practitioner, obstetrician, and pediatrician.
What she’d just said vaguely alarmed me for some reason, though I wasn’t sure why it should. After all, babies gaining weight was supposed to be a good thing, and Alex had been steadily gaining at a healthy rate since he’d been born. I supposed it was just that him looking like he’d gained a few pounds in three days just seemed like an excessive gain to me. Wondering if he really looked like he’d gained that much, I asked Christine if she was just joking, and she peered at Alex for a few moments, slowly beginning to frown.
“No, he really looks like he’s put on a few pounds just since I saw him last. I bet you and Ryan just can’t see it because you’re with him every day.”
Shuddering inwardly, I recalled my bizarre pregnancy and all the fear and anxiety it had caused. I wasn’t sure if I could handle it if Alex started growing as quickly as he’d grown in utero. I couldn’t even imagine what that might mean. Although Ryan and I had been a little worried that he might continue growing quickly once he was born, after his first week, we’d kind of breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that all of the fast-growing days were surely behind us. Now, with my stomach churning, I wasn’t quite so sure.
After taking one last look at Alex and giving him a smile, Christine stood and began tightening her long, dark brown ponytail. “Why don’t you bring him by my office in about an hour? We’ll set him on the scale and compare his weight to three days ago.”
I agreed, not entirely sure I wanted to know how much he’d gained. The anxiety about his health that I’d experienced during my pregnancy had suddenly come roaring back.
CHAPTER 12
Alex had gained three pounds in three days, a massive gain for an infant. I drove home from Christine’s office crying. I was still crying when Ryan came home for lunch.
“There’s something wrong with Alex, Ryan, I just know it. Christine said he might have just had a very rapid but very normal little growth spurt, but after my pregnancy, I know better now. It’s all somehow connected. There’s something wrong with Alex that made him grow fast while I was carrying him, and it’s the same thing that’s making him grow fast now. I just can’t imagine what it might be, and Christine has no clue, either. She says if he gains any more this week, we can call down a pediatric specialist from the FDS. She’ll ask Dr. Thompson to come back, too.”
Holding me in his arms, Ryan had been looking at my face, but he now pressed the side of it against his hard chest, tightening his arms around me. “It’s going to be okay…I promise you that, Julia.”
“But what then? What if it’s not? What if Alex just keeps on growing and growing, and they can’t ever find a cause?”
Ryan began smoothing my hair, rocking me side-to-side almost imperceptibly. “Let’s just tackle one thing at a time. At the end of the week, we’ll have Alex weighed again, and if he’s gained an abnormal amount, we’ll call in the specialist and Dr. Thompson. Then, we’ll just sit back and let them do their jobs, knowing that we’re doing all we can to help our son. And in the meantime, we’ll just watch and wait and take care of our sweet boy just like we’ve been doing.”
Sniffling, I nodded with the side of my face against Ryan’s chest. “Okay.”
Beside us, in a baby bouncer seat, Alex suddenly began crying with a cry that by now I knew meant he was hungry, despite the fact that I’d just fed him a full bottle maybe a half-hour earlier. At Christine’s clinic, I’d thought about the previous few days, realizing that in hindsight, Alex had seemed unusually hungry and had possibly been having an extra bottle or two a day.
Before I could even kneel to lift him out of his bouncer seat, Jake was already comforting him, nuzzling his arm with his snout. Ryan and I had thought that Jake might become jealous with a new baby in the house, but that hadn’t been the case at all. In fact, Jake had almost immediately taken to the role of “big brother,” comforting Alex with nuzzles and licks, and frequently sitting next to Alex’s bouncer seat for long stretches, keeping watch over him. A couple of times, I’d watched, heart melting, while Jake trotted over with one of his squeaker toys in his mouth before setting it on Alex’s lap or next to him in his seat.
Conversely, the cats were absolutely indifferent toward Alex. They hardly ever went near him, and when they did, a passing glance was all they gave him. Just one single time, I’d observed Plum kind of sniffing around his bouncer seat while he was in it, but she’d quickly ended her investigation to slink away to the sunroom.
By the end of the week, Alex had gained four more pounds. He wasn’t necessarily getting chubbier, though, because he was not only putting on weight rapidly, he was getting longer rapidly, too.
Looking him over while he cooed and gurgled and seemed to be trying to clap his hands, Christine remarked that he seemed perfectly fine to her. “He doesn’t seem like a five-week-old baby, though. Some of the noises he’s making…and even some of his hand and arm movements…he kind of seems to me like a three or four-month-old baby. Both developmentally and size-wise.”
Finally getting the palms of his hands to connect in a clap, Alex grinned, then made a sound something like a giggle.
Christine frowned. “How long has he been clapping and giggling like that?”
I glanced at Ryan, stomach churning, before returning my gaze to Christine. “Since just right now.”
Grinning and kicking his legs, Alex clapped again, then once more, and Christine frowned even harder. “That’s really unusual coordination for a baby his age. Everything about him says four-month-old right now.”
Frowning just as hard as Christine, Ryan pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Dr. Thompson and the pediatric specialist.”
By the time both doctors arrived three days later, Alex was about the size of a six-month-old baby. He also had the strength and the cognitive and motor skills of a six-month-old baby. He ate multiple bowls of baby cereal and baby food in a sitting, then cried for more, clearly still hungry. I was beside myself. Ryan was trying to hold it together for both of us.
Dr. Parker, who was the pediatric specialist, couldn’t find anything “wrong” with Alex. Dr. Thompson couldn’t, either. Dr. Parker and his team, a group of four pediatric surgeons-in-training, had brought an MRI machine, and they ran Alex through it a second time, thinking something h
adn’t been done properly the first time. I didn’t even fully understand what. But again, the scan didn’t reveal anything “wrong.” From head-to-toe, Alex seemed like a perfectly normal, healthy six-month-old baby. Just one who happened to be conceived only four months earlier.
August turned into September, bright and crisp. Alex continued to grow and gain, developing a strong personality that was at times goofy and at other times fiery. He began walking, toddling around with Jake at his side, at just two months old.
Ryan and I began to have serious trouble sleeping. I lost seven pounds of my baby weight in just a single week. Ryan and I had an argument about me not eating. I shouted that I couldn’t even think about food as long as there was still something wrong with our son. My loud voice scared Alex, who began wailing, burying his face in Jake’s fur. Ashamed, I picked him up and held him to my chest, telling him that mommy was so sorry. Ryan made me a club sandwich and a bowl of soup. With Alex on my lap, I ate a full meal for the first time in days, knowing that what Ryan had said was the truth. I had to stay strong for Jake. I couldn’t quit. Along with Ryan, I had to keep fighting for him, had to keep trying to figure out what was “wrong” with him. And if we couldn’t figure out what was “wrong,” we at least had to find some way to stop his rapid growth.
We had an acupuncturist down from the FDS. Once a day, for three days, I watched in horror while she stuck needles into my baby son’s skin. Alex didn’t seem to mind, patting Jake every so often while watching a cartoon. However, the experimental treatment had no effect on slowing or stopping Alex’s growth. By the time the acupuncturist left, he’d gained two pounds. The following week, when Ryan and I had scheduled an herbalist visit, he gained two more.