Baby Crazy (Matt & Anna Book 2)

by Annabelle Costa

  2. Eat cold cuts, as they could be infected with the listeria virus. Soft cheeses can be similarly infected.

  3. Paint the future nursery, as paint may contain lead.

  4. Drink coffee or soft drinks with caffeine.

  5. Wear high heels, although this is not a problem since I do not own any. In the past, I never saw the point of wearing tight, uncomfortable shoes that increase the risk of lumbar disc herniation, and even less so now that my husband is always sitting.

  6. Soak in water with too high a temperature.

  7. Change kitty litter. Of course, we do not own a cat, but Matt’s sister does. I have, therefore, decided not to go to her house for the remainder of my pregnancy to avoid any inadvertent exposure.

  8. Drink alcohol. Not that I drank at all before, but Matt kept some beer in the fridge and I have asked him to get rid of it. I don’t want to drink it inadvertently or get some of it in my mouth while we’re kissing.

  9. Breathe secondhand smoke. Fortunately, Matt is not a smoker. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law Jake smokes sometimes. (He is perpetually in some state of quitting. Now he is allegedly down to five cigarettes per day.) I have informed Lisa that Jake must abstain from smoking for at least 24 hours prior to any visits we pay to their household.

  10. Come into contact with reptiles, as the salmonella virus could be in their fecal material. I have informed Lisa if she purchases the iguana that her son wants, we will no longer be visiting her. She’s still considering the purchase though, for some reason.

  11. Use a microwave. I have thrown away our microwave oven. Matt is not pleased.

  Chapter 28: Matt

  I can’t believe Anna threw away the goddamn microwave. Now that she’s been overcooking all our food, I needed that microwave. She started babbling about how a developing fetus is “particularly vulnerable” to microwave radiation, and I said, “Well, don’t stand there when I’m using it.” Her response was that she might accidentally wander into the room while I was microwaving something, and then what?

  I’m sitting with Anna in a dark room at the local hospital, waiting for the tech to come in to perform a nuchal translucency ultrasound. This is a test that will look at the thin layer of fluid behind our baby’s neck—my understanding is if there’s extra fluid, the baby is at higher risk for chromosomal abnormalities or heart problems or other issues I don’t want to think about. I’m really nervous about the procedure, but I’m also extremely hungry. Hungry enough that it’s almost hard to concentrate. I’m starving to death. Anna has only gained two pounds so far in her pregnancy, and I’ve lost five pounds.

  After we get through this procedure, Anna and I need to have a little talk.

  “What’s taking them so long?” I grumble. Hunger is making me cranky.

  “Maybe they decided they don’t need to do it after all.” Anna’s face brightens at the idea. “Maybe because I’m so healthy, they think it will be okay?”

  I don’t want to burst Anna’s bubble and tell her there’s zero chance of this. But we can be cautiously optimistic. All the blood tests Anna has had so far indicate there are no problems with the fetus.

  One thing they can’t look for on an ultrasound is whether the baby will be predestined to inherit Anna’s OCD. Or my multiple sclerosis. We won’t know that for a long time. But one thing we will find out is whether the baby has a spine defect such as spina bifida.

  If that were to happen, we’d have to make some hard decisions. Having an abortion and trying to get pregnant again—that’s not a possibility. This is it for us. This is the only baby we’ll ever make. So my feeling is we’re getting this test to know what we’re in for. If our child is disabled in some way, we’ll find a way to deal with it. Yeah, it would be harder for us, considering we’re both dealing with our own issues, but I’m ready for it. Whatever this kid’s got in store for us, we can face it. As long as there are no problems incompatible with life, we’re keeping this baby.

  That said, I really hope the baby is okay.

  The tech comes into the room and the smile drops off Anna’s face. I reach for Anna’s hand, and she gives me a squeeze that hurts a little bit. Last night, Anna had all but decided not to have this scan. We were lying in bed together and she said out of nowhere, “I’m going to cancel for tomorrow.”

  “You mean reschedule?”

  “I don’t mean reschedule.” Anna was looking at the ceiling as she spoke, because she already knew what my reaction would be. “What’s the point? We’re keeping the baby no matter what.”

  “Dr. Reid explained that,” I said patiently. “If there are problems with the baby, it’s better to know now. It might change how they monitor you during pregnancy.”

  “But I think I’d rather not know,” she said.

  “But it’s better to know.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  We went back and forth on it for… well, I’m embarrassed to admit how long. Two hours. It took me two hours to convince Anna to get the goddamn ultrasound, after we’d already debated it for weeks and it was already scheduled. And I drove her here, just to make sure she didn’t chicken out.

  The tech’s ID badge declares her name to be Elena. She’s young, but has a comforting smile. “How are we doing?”

  Anna is too scared to even answer. She just keeps squeezing my hand. If she were stronger, this would be painful. Actually, it’s a little painful. “We’re good,” I answer for her.

  Elena smiles at us. She probably does this all the time and it’s funny to see us so worked up over it. But this is our baby. How could we not get worried?

  Elena spreads the gel on Anna’s belly, which looks more like a food belly than a baby belly. I’m worried about how little weight Anna has gained. Dr. Reid says it’s no big deal—a lot of women don’t gain much weight in the first half of pregnancy, but to me, it feels like a red flag. I want her to have a big, fat, healthy baby.

  Last time we had an ultrasound, the baby looked mostly like a white blob, but today when I see the image on the screen, it looks like more than just a blob. I can see the outline of a head and also of a body. I stare at it, my heart pounding.

  “Where are the arms and legs?” I ask in alarm.

  Elena raises her eyebrows at me. “Don’t worry. I can see them.”

  Anna is struggling to lift her head and get a look. “Are you sure?”

  Elena laughs. “Yes, I promise you. Your baby has arms and legs.”

  I smile sheepishly. “Sorry, I just…”

  I look down at my own legs, which have failed me completely in the last few years. I get around fine in my wheelchair, but the truth is, it’s not what I want for my kid. I want my kid to be completely healthy. I want my kid to be able to walk.

  We see more of our baby on the ultrasound screen. A head. A body. Two arms. Two legs. It’s incredible. This is an actual baby.

  “How does everything look?” Anna asks, her voice a whisper.

  “Well, I’m supposed to let the doctor talk to you about it,” Elena says. “But I’m not seeing anything concerning at all.”

  Thank God. The two of us are due for a little bit of luck.

  “By the way,” Elena says, “I can tell you the gender right now if you want to know.”

  “Yes,” Anna says, “of course we want to know. Why wouldn’t we?”

  Elena smiles. “Some families like it to be a surprise.”

  “I think the birth will be surprising enough, thank you very much!” Anna says.

  I laugh because I agree with her wholeheartedly on this one. Why would we wait? We’re dying to know what we’re having.

  “It’s a boy!” Elena announces.

  Up until this moment, I’d been one-hundred percent excited about the baby. I was excited about being a father. I was excited about every single part of it.

  Except now it occurs to me that I’m not just going to have a baby. For a while, the baby will be a baby. But in a few years, I’m going to have a son.

  I
’m going to have a son. Who is going to want to play sports and go camping and wrestle and do a lot of other things I’m not sure I can do anymore. I kept thinking about how I’d feel about my kid, but I never really thought about how he’d feel about me. What’s it going to be like for a boy having a dad who’s in a wheelchair?

  I remember when I was a kid, there was another boy named Sammy Wright who used to pick on me sometimes, and I remember one day I told him my dad could beat up his dad. Then we argued over it. Could Sammy’s dad beat up mine, or could mine beat up Sammy’s? I insisted my dad would come out on top.

  This kid—my son—he’s not going to go around telling his friends I could beat up their dads. Nobody would believe that one. Not that my dad was capable of beating up Sammy’s (in retrospect, he definitely wasn’t), but at least it seemed like a possibility.

  Christ, what if my son is ashamed of me?

  Chapter 29: Matt

  “So now that we know we’re having a boy,” Anna says as I drive home, “we can settle on the name.”

  The baby’s name has been the least of my concerns lately. But she’s right. Picking a name will be fun. “Okay, sure.”

  “So his name will be Otto,” she says. And she folds her arms and looks out the window like the conversation is over.

  Otto Harper? I don’t know about that…

  “Um,” I say. “I thought we were going to have a discussion about it. This feels like you just telling me what the name is going to be.”

  “Well, we agreed the name would be a palindrome.” We did? “If it were a girl, there would be more options, but for a boy, we’re limited. I think Otto is perfect.”

  I frown at the steering wheel. “I don’t like the name Otto. It makes me think of… I don’t know, a large sea mammal.”

  “That’s an otter!”

  “Well, you have to admit, they sound the same.”

  She sighs and smooths out her pants legs with her hands. “Well, there are a few other names. Asa. Natan.”

  “Uh…”

  “Reinier…”

  “Reinier?”

  “I think it’s German,” she says thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s a bad name. I would be happy with Reinier.”

  I wouldn’t. “How about… David?”

  “David!” Anna bursts out. “Matt, please!”

  “What’s wrong with David?”

  “It’s not a palindrome!”

  She’s making my head hurt. Sometimes I forget how stubborn Anna can be. “My name isn’t a palindrome. Yet you still married me.”

  “Yes…” Oh no, is she going to make me change my name now? “But there’s nothing we can do about that. We get to choose the baby’s name.”

  I glance over at Anna—she’s really upset. She’s visibly shaking.

  How important is this name thing to me? I’m not sure. I don’t want my son to be named Otto. But at the same time, Anna wants this more than I don’t want it. She’s made a lot of sacrifices for me. Maybe this is one I should give in on.

  “Okay,” I say. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter 30: Anna

  I’m not sure why, but the office seems so dirty lately. When I got to my cubicle this morning, there was a white streak on my desk. I don’t know if one of the janitorial staff tried to clean it, which I hope they didn’t because I clean it myself before I leave, but whatever happened here, I had to spend the better part of an hour sterilizing my cubicle with Lysol.

  Now I’m in the bathroom for the fifth time this morning to wash my hands. I had cut back on the number of times I’ve used the bathroom on any given day, but now that I’m pregnant, it’s even more important to maintain that cleanliness for the sake of the baby. I have to do my best to protect him from germs.

  Him. We’re having a boy. Aren’t boys always dirty? Don’t they do things like roll around in mud?

  Oh God. Muddy children. No, no, no. Can’t think about that.

  As I wash my hands in the sink in the ladies’ room at work, I feel the familiar sting of all the tiny cuts opening up. But I ignore it, like I did for many years. I have to keep my hands clean. For the baby’s sake. My precious little boy, who is growing inside me. He only has me to protect him.

  And when the baby comes, it will be even more important to be clean. Newborns have immature immune systems, after all.

  I wash my hands for the requisite eleven seconds, then I realize I actually need to use the bathroom this time. So I go to a stall and shut myself inside. If I’m using the bathroom, I’ll need to clean my hands for extra-long afterwards.

  After I relieve myself, I feel a mild squeezing sensation at the pinnacle of the swell of my abdomen. I’ve never felt anything like it before. Like my uterus is making a fist. It disappears after a few seconds, but it’s left me rattled. What was that? Was that a contraction? Am I going into labor?

  Fortunately, I brought my purse to the bathroom with me. Without leaving the stall, I pull out my phone and select Matt’s name from the list of favorites. He takes several rings to answer—I finally hear his voice when I’m nearly about to faint from fear.

  “Matt,” I sob.

  “What’s wrong?” He’s immediately at attention. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m having contractions,” I say in a hushed voice in case there’s anyone else listening. I don’t think anyone else is in here, but I’m not entirely sure.

  “Contractions?” I hear the panic in his voice. “Are they regular? How many of them?”

  “Well, just one.”

  “Just one?”

  “A small one.”

  There’s a pause on the other line. “Dr. Reid told you that you’d probably start having those Braxton-Hicks contractions soon, right?”

  Did she? My head is spinning.

  “Um…” I bite my lip, trying to remember. “I’m not sure…”

  “Well, I am,” he says. “She said it specifically. She said, ‘Don’t worry if you have a contraction as long as they’re mild and not regular.’ I remember it.”

  “Yes…”

  “You said it was mild, right?”

  “Right…”

  “And it was only one? Not regular?”

  “Yes…”

  “So it was probably one of those Braxton-Hicks deals,” he concludes. “Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes…” My heart rate slows a bit, but I still don’t feel good. It still feels like something is wrong. There’s a nagging feeling in the back of my head, like something I’ve forgotten. I used to get this feeling all the time, but I haven’t had it in a while. “I’m just worried that…”

  “That what?”

  “I…”

  “Anna?”

  Then it comes to me suddenly: “I think I forgot to clean out the lint screen in the dryer.”

  “What?”

  “The lint screen,” I say again. “The thing in the dryer that catches lint? I did a wash yesterday and I never cleaned it out after. I can’t believe I forgot!”

  “Okay…” I can almost hear Matt frowning. “So… what do you want me to do?”

  “Could you clean it out for me?”

  “Actually, I can’t,” he says tightly. “Because the dryer is in the basement. If you want me to be able to help you with laundry, we need a house that’s one level.”

  “I don’t need you to help me with laundry. I just need the lint screen cleaned out.”

  “You’re missing the point,” he sighs. “Look, you’ll clean it when you get home. What’s the difference?”

  “Because…” I squeeze the phone. I want him to care about this, because it’s really bothering me a lot. “What if someone broke into the house and tried to do laundry?”

  “What?”

  “Well, they could start a fire!”

  Matt seems at a loss for words. I do realize this fear is farfetched. It’s unlikely someone would break into our house while Matt is there. And if they did break in, why would they do laundry? But then again, what if they b
roke in specifically because they needed to do laundry and wanted to use our machine? It’s not very likely, but it could happen.

  “Anna,” he finally says, “nobody is breaking in here. I’ll check the locks if that would make you feel better, but I’m not going down to the basement. I can’t.”

  I stand there in the bathroom stall, recognizing the truth in his words. Matt can’t get down to the basement so easily. He could bump down the stairs, but then he’d be stuck there or else have to drag himself and his chair up the stairs one by one. It’s possible, but it’s not realistic to expect him to do that.

  “I guess I can clean it when I get home,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  I wait another minute, hoping he might change his mind and offer to do it. He doesn’t.

  “All right,” I say. “I better get back to work.”

  I consider warning him not to let anyone come into the house and do laundry, but decide against it.

  “Okay,” he says. “If the contractions get worse though, call me.”

  “I will.”

  He pauses again. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  We hang up and I feel slightly better about the whole thing. Truthfully, it does seem ridiculous now. Why would I think someone would break into our house and do laundry? What’s wrong with me?

  I’m about to unlock the stall when I hear the door to the ladies’ room open. I freeze, not wanting anyone to find me in here. I recognize I’ve been in the bathroom a lot this morning, and I don’t want people talking about it. They already talk about me enough.

  I recognize the voices of two of the receptionists, Laura and Nicole. They’re both in their mid-twenties and effortlessly pretty in a way that so many women that age are. I only know their names at all because of Matt. When we used to come in together in the morning, Matt would say, “Hi, Nicole. How was your weekend?” Or something along those lines. Then they’d talk for a few minutes about their respective weekends.

  He’s able to do that—make small talk with people. He’s able to remember their names and little details about their lives so he can ask about it later. There’s no problem with my memory, but I feel awkward walking up to Nicole to ask her about her cousin’s wedding. She’d know right away I don’t care. I could never pull that off.