He nods. “Yeah, lots of times.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Just a pinch. Not so bad.”
“But what if they miss and hit the baby with the needle?”
“Well, that’s impossible.”
He’s probably right.
“Okay,” I say. “Call my nurse.”
Chapter 52: Matt
Male Harper. Twenty inches long. Six pounds two ounces.
Jesus, I can’t believe I’m a dad.
Anna, in totally uncharacteristic Anna behavior, is taking the whole thing in stride. She’s holding our yet unnamed infant son, peering into his impossibly tiny face, looking so calm that it’s scary. How is she so calm when I’m freaking out? We are responsible for this kid’s whole life.
What if we drop him?
What if he gets sick?
What if he hates us?
Okay, that last fear is probably premature. I don’t think the little bundle in Anna’s arms is capable of any emotions aside from: Hungry. Tired. Wet. I love this kid, but his mind is a blank slate. You know how it’s an insult to say to someone they were born yesterday? Well, he wasn’t even born yesterday. He was born today.
Anna pushed him out like a champ. They did end up inducing her, but in twelve hours, she was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. I heard Calvin’s horror story about how Ginger pushed for hours on end, but Anna went about twenty minutes, and there he was. Bright red and hollering his lungs out.
My son. Holy crap.
And now we’re alone with him. They left us alone with this helpless, tiny baby. Don’t they realize we have no idea what we’re doing?
“Do you want to hold him?” Anna asks me.
I peer down at the tiny bundle in her arms. I held him once right after they wrapped him up, but that’s it. “Um…”
A smile plays on her lips. “Are you afraid to hold him?”
“No…” I’m terrified. “He just seems really comfortable with you, so…”
That smile stays on her lips but she doesn’t bug me again. I’ll hold him eventually.
“We need to come up with a name,” she reminds me.
“Right.”
I remember the other day when she referred to the baby as Otto. I was so pissed off at the time, but now…
“You said you liked the name David,” she says. “Are there other names you like?”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “I thought the name had to be a palindrome? David’s not a palindrome.”
“True.” The baby lets out a little yawn. “But maybe his middle name could be a palindrome. That would be all right.”
I reach out to touch my son’s cheek. “Actually, Otto is growing on me.”
She laughs. “You don’t have to give in on this just because I pushed a six-pound baby out of me.”
“I know.” I grin at her. “But really, I like Otto. He looks like an Otto, you know?”
“I thought you said Otto reminded you of a large sea mammal.”
“Right, and he sort of looks like that.”
Anna swats at my shoulder. It’s the first time she’s voluntarily touched me in months. It makes me think maybe we might get back to normal. I mean, not normal, but the way we used to be, which is better than normal. It’s our normal.
Otto stirs in Anna’s arms and starts to whimper. Oh no, he’s crying. What do we do?
“Do you want to feed him some of the formula?” she asks, pointing at the bottle on the nightstand.
I scratch at my head. “I thought… I mean, you said you wanted to breastfeed.”
She’s quiet for a moment and Otto lets out a few more whimpers. “I thought we decided I needed to get back on my medications.”
“Yes, but…” I look down at the baby. My son. Otto. “We made it this long. I mean, if it’s something that’s really important to you…”
“What’s really important,” she says, “is for me to be able to get in an elevator without having a panic attack. It’s important to be able to use the stove or a knife. It’s important that… I don’t want to pull away every time my husband tries to touch me.” Her cheeks go red. “I need to go back on the medications. I can’t do this anymore.”
I let out a sigh of relief. I want the same thing. I just didn’t want it to be yet another sacrifice she’s making on my behalf.
Although when I see her gazing at our son, it doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice on her part.
Chapter 53: Anna
Matt and I have a problem.
Otto is tucked into his car seat in the back seat of Matt’s car. (We got a special car seat that swivels so Matt can easily get him out.) He fell asleep during the drive home from the hospital. This child is an amazing sleeper. He sleeps ninety percent of the time, occasionally wakes to drink a little formula, then drops off back to sleep. I told the pediatrician at the hospital I was worried about how much he was sleeping, and the pediatrician said to me, “Enjoy it, Mrs. Harper!”
He’s sound asleep now, his little head sagging to one side, his double chin jutting out. He still looks like a fetus. He looks like you could stuff him back inside me and he wouldn’t complain. But if anyone tried to do that, they’d find out I’m not as nice as I look.
“I don’t know,” Matt says, glancing up at me. “I think you should do it.”
“I’d rather you do it.”
“But… it’s safer if you do it.”
Here’s the problem: we are both too terrified to bring our precious little son into the house. I am still weak from the delivery, and the stitches in my private parts still sting and itch when I move wrong, so I’m worried about dropping Otto. Matt, on the other hand, says there’s no way he can push his chair and hold onto the baby.
Therefore, Otto will be raised in Matt’s car.
I’m joking, obviously, but it’s certainly a dilemma.
In the future, Matt will get a chest harness, so he can attach Otto to his chest and have his arms free to wheel the chair. But that doesn’t help us now.
“You have to do it,” he says. “It’s the only way, Anna.”
He’s so tiny and delicate. I was scared I would kill him when I was strapping him into his car seat. Matt had hung a two-inch stuffed happy face on the handle of the car seat for him to look at, but we took it down because we agreed it might fall on him and kill him. It probably weighed as much as a cotton ball.
“Anna…”
“Okay, okay…”
I gently undo the straps holding my son in place. I lift him out, surprised for the hundredth time how light he is. And then I walk very, very slowly up the ramp to the front door, allowing Matt to go first and open the door for me. I don’t know how we’re ever going to make it up the stairs with him. We’ll definitely have to move.
It’s so odd how the last time I was in this house, everything was different. I didn’t have a son. I thought Matt was having an affair. I thought he was leaving me for another woman. But now he’s wheeling into the house behind me, fussing over me and the baby like he’s as worried as I am. Which, for a change, he might be.
“Go sit on the couch,” he says. “I’ll get you whatever you need. What do you need? Tell me.”
“Relax.” I almost laugh as I say the word because usually it’s Matt saying it to me. “Do you want to hold Otto?”
“Uh…” He looks doubtfully at the baby. He’s frightened of holding him. “I guess so.”
I place Otto, dressed in the jammies from the hospital and wearing the adorable little hat they gave him, in Matt’s arms. He’s shaking a little, but I’m not worried. He won’t drop him. He would never do that.
Matt’s tense shoulders slowly relax as he stares down at our son. It’s a painful how much I love the two of them. Usually when I love somebody so much, especially prior to being medicated, I would worry incessantly about hurting the person. That’s why I made Matt throw out all the knives in the house and why I was scared to go down the stairs the other day. I know it’s part o
f my illness.
But for whatever reason, I don’t have that fear right now. I will never hurt Otto. I will be a good mother to him. I will be a good wife to Matt.
I can do this.
Epilogue: Matt
One Year Later
Today is Otto’s first birthday.
Our goals for the day include some sort of cake and possibly getting him to recognize it’s his birthday. He can’t say the word “one,” but we’ve managed to get him to hold up a single finger. I’m hoping it will all come together when we bring out the cake with the candle in it.
It’s just us for Otto’s birthday. My mother was trying to convince us to organize a huge party, but Anna and I were staunchly against it. It’s hard enough on her trying to keep the house clean and organized when we’ve got an extremely active one-year-old. I don’t want her to have to clean up after a big party that Otto won’t even appreciate.
“We’ll do something when he’s old enough to appreciate it,” Anna said.
Right now, I’m at the supermarket with Otto, picking out his cake. Instead of a shopping basket on my lap, I’ve got my son sitting with me. He’s strapped to my chest with a harness so I can wheel my chair without worrying about him falling out of my lap. I’ve heard about kids getting fussy when they have to be strapped to their wheelchair-bound parents, but Otto’s okay with it now. He seems to like it.
He’s a really easygoing kid. Surprisingly.
Someday maybe we’ll shop together with him walking beside me. We’re not even close to that point yet. Otto can’t walk yet. Not even a step. It freaks me out because… well, I don’t want him to inherit any of my issues. Not that MS would affect a baby, but… I still worry about what he might have inherited from me. Our pediatrician assured us it’s fine. He’s met all his milestones and plenty of kids can’t walk at one year old. Most of them. It’s not like I had issues back at his age.
Still. I want my kid to walk. I want him to be able to do what I can’t do anymore.
I wheel over to the bakery section of the supermarket. There are pre-made cakes stacked up, every flavor and variety. Otto’s blue eyes grow huge when he sees the display. His eyes remind me of Anna’s. And he’s got Anna’s blond hair too, but people are always saying he looks like me. I don’t see it though.
“So we can get any cake you want, Otto,” I tell him. “Any flavor.”
“Coc-wit?” he asks hopefully, blinking those big blue eyes.
My son can only say eight words and one of them is “chocolate.” Is that bad?
“Sure, we can get chocolate.”
Otto claps his hands happily. We settle on a small chocolate cake with Elmo on it. I hadn’t realized Elmo was still a thing, but the kid loves Elmo. Anna only allows him to watch Sesame Street as his one television show, and apparently, Elmo’s got a whole segment called “Elmo’s World.” There’s this part where Elmo tries to talk to a baby that always cracks me up.
“Elmo” is another one of his eight words. The others are “mama,” “dada,” “bye bye,” “no,” “hi,” and weirdly, “Lysol.” That was his first word. Anna was cleaning the living room and Otto burst out with, “Wy-so!” We even filled an old bottle of Lysol with water for him to play with—it’s become his favorite toy.
I bring the chocolate cake to the woman in her twenties behind the bakery counter so she can write, “Happy Birthday, Otto.” The woman beams at both of us. “Is this your son?”
“Yep,” I say. “He’s turning one today.”
“That is so cute!”
The woman lets out a long sigh and looks like she wants to pinch our collective cheeks. Wheeling around with a baby on my lap? Big chick magnet. If I wasn’t happily married, this kid would definitely get me some booty.
“What’s your name, cutie?” the woman says to Otto.
“Otto” is not one of my son’s words. He can say “Lysol,” but not his own name. So I answer for him: “Otto.”
“How unique!” she says. Then she smiles at me, “And what’s your name, cutie?”
I’m wearing my wedding band, I swear.
I do flirt with her for a few minutes, only because it’s fun and meaningless and I know Anna wouldn’t care. I’ll never forget how Anna got so paranoid about that receptionist Nicole, but that had to have been because she was off her meds. She’s been back on her meds for a whole year now, and while things aren’t perfect, they’re back to our usual level of normal. This party isn’t just a celebration of Otto’s birthday—it’s a celebration of making it through a stressful year with our marriage intact.
Not just intact, but stronger than ever.
_____
When we get home, Anna is cleaning.
Otto strains at the harness holding him to my chest, crying, “Wy-so!” I laugh, but Anna gets a worried expression on her face. I know she’s scared of Otto turning out like herself. One year old is too young to show OCD tendencies, but Anna’s searching for it. We both want our kid to end up better than either of us.
I release Otto from the harness and lower him to the ground. As Dr. Dunne predicted, my grip strength never recovered to baseline in my right hand. I still drop things sometimes, and I can’t open jars for Anna anymore.
Pushing up the steep ramp to get to our front door became difficult for me. But that ended up being okay because in the last year, we’ve moved to a single-story house. The house was previously owned by another wheelchair user, so it’s really accessible. I can get through every doorway without a problem, wheel under every sink—even the stove is easily accessible if Anna got it in her head she didn’t want to cook anymore (not that I’d ever really cook anything). It’s a great house with a huge backyard that I can see Otto playing in as he gets older. We could even fence it off if we wanted to get a dog in the future. (I’d love a dog, but it’s going to be some serious work to talk Anna into it.)
The house cost us a bundle, but it’s okay because after the project I was working on last year ended up a huge success, I got a big promotion, a bonus, and a raise. Jack Rogers was kissing my feet after it was all over, telling me he was sorry he hadn’t trusted me from the start. I even got an office. An office.
After I place Otto on the floor, I watch him crawling over to the sofa with a familiar pang in my chest. Why can’t he walk yet? He’s ahead of the curve on everything else—he should be walking by now. Is it that he sees me sitting all the time and thinks that’s the way it’s supposed to be?
Shit. I need to stop worrying about this.
“What kind of cake did you get?” Anna asks me.
“Chocolate.” I grin at her. “What else?”
Her brows knit together. “I wish I could bake a cake.”
“Don’t worry about it. This is a really good cake.”
So even though Anna is back on her meds, they don’t work miracles. Meaning, her fears haven’t completely gone away. She’s still terrified of hurting Otto. Part of the reason we had to move from our last place was she became obsessed with the idea of Otto falling out the window. And now she’s unable to use the oven because she’s scared Otto will open it and crawl inside. She uses the stovetop, but only the back two burners.
To be fair, I worry about him too. Just when I thought we were rocking the parents game, Otto swallowed a piece of one of his toys last month (it was for kids under three, but apparently my kid is skilled at making any toy dangerous). We spent the night in the ER and they eventually told us he was fine, and we could expect a little piece of blue plastic to appear in his poop in the near future.
I put the Elmo cake on the dining table for Anna to see it. Otto carefully pulls himself up on the table, motivated by getting to see the cake. If it weren’t under a plastic shell, he’d be fist-deep in that cake right now.
“E-mo!” he declares.
I’m just glad whenever he pulls himself up. It’s something I can’t do anymore—get myself to my feet. It’s a good sign he can do it.
“So why don’t you get some can
dles?” I say to Anna.
I see the fear on her face. “Candles?”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “It’s the tradition, isn’t it? Birthday candles? I bought some last week and put them in the cabinet by the sink.”
“Yes, but…” Anna’s face is a shade paler than normal. “It’s fire.”
“One candle. Just a tiny fire.”
“One candle,” she repeats.
I nod.
This is what’s hard for Anna. She wants Otto to have a normal life. She doesn’t want him to be negatively impacted by her problems. It’s not like he won’t know about her OCD, but she doesn’t want it to make his childhood suck. And that’s a real possibility when your mom is afraid of everything.
So Anna has given me permission to push her a little more. Some gentle pushes when I think she’s being especially irrational. I know she’s imagining the whole house going up in flames from this single candle, but we all know that’s not very likely. (Although when Otto is involved, you really never know.)
“Okay,” she finally says. “I’ll get the candle.”
Before she goes, she leans in to give me a kiss. I pull her closer, tempted to pull her into my lap, but knowing Otto is chomping at the bit to get his cake. A year ago, Anna was still afraid of kissing me. Now we’re back to being hot and heavy again, especially since Otto is finally sleeping decently. My wife is so goddamn sexy—I’m glad I have her back. When our lips separate, we’re both grinning goofily at each other.
“Candles,” Anna says, her face flushed. “I’ll go get one.” She hesitates as she straightens up. “Actually, I’ll get two. One for good luck.”
That’s my girl.
Anna leaves the room, heading into kitchen. Otto watches her go, pointing in her direction and commenting, “Mama.”
“Yep, that’s your mama.”
“Mama bye,” he remarks.
“No, she’ll be back,” I say.
He’s still pointing in the direction of the kitchen. Then, without any warning, he lets go of the coffee table and toddles three steps toward the kitchen.
Baby Crazy (Matt & Anna Book 2) Page 19