JANUARY MOVED LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN, ONE that had been too long delayed and now needed to make up for lost time. Everyone seemed in a hurry. This was no doubt because most people justified holding off on doing things until “after the holidays.” And now that it was “after the holidays,” everyone was suddenly overwhelmed by what needed to get done.
And when you’re having a baby, Nathalie thought, the amount of stuff you need to get done is exponential.
She’d made no progress on the nursery. Oh, she had cribs and changing tables and layettes and WubbaNubs bookmarked on her computer. She’d swung by the hardware store and selected a dozen or so carefully curated paint chips. But no actual decisions had been made. This was because she couldn’t make these decisions without David’s input.
After the debacle of the gender reveal party, David had apologized profusely for missing the big moment. He was even super excited for a little girl. He’d gotten a little misty when he was on the phone to his parents in Italy (whether or not his parents were misty, was unknown—but unlikely).
And since the Big Deal had managed to be finalized before the end of the fiscal year, David had taken a much-needed New Year’s Day off. They watched football and ate popcorn and didn’t clean anything.
But when Nathalie tried to bring up baby stuff later that day, David just hummed, and said, “We have time to think about it, right?”
And she said yes, sure, and they went back to watching football.
In Nathalie’s estimation, “time to think about it” was a day—a couple days, tops. But apparently to David it meant weeks—or perhaps never. Because on January 2nd, David was back in the office an hour earlier than normal, and home late.
“I’m sorry, hon,” he’d said, seeing the cold dinner she’d labored over (well, the dinner she’d taken out of the box and heated up—her culinary bravado had been tempered by the events of Thanksgiving). “They loved the work I did on the foreign acquisition, so they handed me a new one . . . it’s smaller but I’m taking point.”
He’d said it with excitement. And he deserved to be excited. It was a big deal that they gave him this kind of responsibility, considering he’d only been in-house counsel a couple months, he’d told her.
And she’d kissed him, and told him she was happy for him.
And she was left holding the paint chips a little while longer.
Honestly, it wasn’t a big deal . . . but it would be, soon. Because they needed a plan. If she couldn’t get his attention when it came to the color of the nursery, what was she supposed to do with the stuff that actually mattered—like writing a will and trust? Like how they should go about saving for the baby’s college plan?
But all of this took a backseat while school started up again, and time began to speed forward for Nathalie, too. Most of her students, who had been so lackadaisical in the last few days of December, had suddenly awoken to the new calendar year with a panic. Her juniors were panicked about the SATs. Her seniors—those that had not gotten in early admission—were panicked about college applications and the impending AP exams (a mere four months away!). Their panic translated into more test prep, more after-school counseling, more student hand-holding. So much so, that even Nathalie was tired enough at the end of the day to not want to come home and discuss the baby.
But that didn’t mean the baby wasn’t there, and growing, and making herself known in the most, er, audible of ways.
This was most readily apparent during the super in-depth ultrasound, where she had to drink all the water and then hold it while a technician spent half an hour grinding a detector into her uterus, to get high-resolution photos of every conceivable part of the baby.
When the tech was done she’d peed for longer than Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own.
The screening went well—the baby was growing beautifully—and Nathalie was given a sleeve of pictures to take home of their little girl, Shirley. At least, Shirley was her name today. The day before it had been Madison, and tomorrow it would probably be Sarah.
Just another decision she couldn’t make without David.
Yes, the screening went well . . . except for one, surprisingly loud thing.
“Oops! It’s okay.” The technician smiled, while she covered her nose. “Gas happens.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nathalie replied, beyond embarrassed.
“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” the technician said. “I’ve had worse on my table. But I’ll be more gentle with the detector, okay?”
“Honestly? It’s been really bad,” Nathalie had replied. “I feel like a hot air balloon.”
“I’m not supposed to advise you medically—I’m just an ultrasound tech,” the technician replied. “But I can tell you with my pregnancy, it sorted itself out eventually. Your body’s just rearranging itself to make more space. But if it’s causing you pain, you should talk to your doctor.”
“Thanks,” she’d said. “I will.”
And she did, at the next appointment.
And was given the same answer.
“It’s a fun symptom,” Dr. Duque said. “You could start your own section at the symphony.” Which made Nathalie crack a smile. “Here are some things you can do to relieve gas . . .”
As she left Dr. Duque’s office she felt marginally better, but was once again confronted by the dreaded feeling of Not Knowing.
Not knowing what else to expect. Not knowing what would likely happen, or come next.
After that appointment, Nathalie went home in a funk. And amazingly, David was there.
“Hey!” she said as she opened the door. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
She shook out her umbrella as she took in the sweet, warm smell of onions cooking. January in Los Angeles meant winter—and winter in Los Angeles meant rain, if they were lucky. And this January was luckier than most.
“We sent out the paperwork this afternoon, the client won’t get it until they get into the office in the morning, so I thought I’d spend some time with my wife.”
Nathalie smiled, running forward to embrace her husband.
“What’s that marvelous smell?”
“The one thing I found in the cupboard that I thought I could reasonably make,” David answered with an irrepressible glee. “Franks and beans!”
Nathalie’s smile froze on her face. Considering what byproducts her intestines were currently manufacturing, franks and beans were not an ideal dinner.
But David looked so proud of himself. Like a puppy who just figured out how to fetch. So she swallowed, and kept her smile up as she said, “Great! I’ll grab us drinks.”
Water, she thought. Dr. Duque had prescribed lots and lots of water.
Dinner was served quickly, and they settled into the IKEA table, still with their old metal folding chairs—David had been so busy, he hadn’t had time to assemble the new ones that Nathalie had finally chosen.
“Pretty soon there will be a high chair sitting right there,” Nathalie said, as she took a bite of beans. And a big sip of water. “We have to start getting this place ready.”
“Hm. Yeah. It’s really coming down out there,” David said, tilting his ear toward the dining room window. Raindrops pelleted the glass in angry fistfuls. Being a SoCal native, Nathalie loved rain like this—it was so rare, and always so, so necessary. And when it cleared, the air would be crisp and you could see the mountains clearly for miles beyond miles. But right now, she was happy to just be in her little house, safe and warm with her dinner-making husband.
Blllllllllurrrrrrfffffttttt . . .
And a disturbing amount of gas, she thought as she shifted in her seat uncomfortably.
“What was that?” David asked, whipping his head back, concerned.
“Nothing!” she replied quickly. “I’m just a little . . . gassy.”
“What did you eat?” he asked, doing his best to not breathe through his nose.
Nathalie felt inexplicably embarrassed. It was kind of ridiculous. She and David had been together since they were in their late teens. She’d farted in front of him before. Millions of times.
But for some reason, she felt the need to maintain the ladylike fiction that the pregnancy was not causing her any form of discomfort. Which was equally ridiculous, because it wasn’t as if she hadn’t spent her first trimester puking up breakfast every morning.
“It’s not me, it’s the baby,” she said, defiant. There. She was going through this pregnancy, so he had to go through it, too.
“Oh,” David said, a pained look crossing his face. “Is that . . . normal? Nothing’s wrong, right?”
“Completely normal,” she said, nodding fervently.
“Good,” David said. Then, looking down at his food, “Good.”
Water, Nathalie thought. More water.
“We should also talk about some stuff,” Nathalie said, breaking the silence.
“Like what?”
“Like . . . what’s the plan for saving for college? Do we want to put the baby under your health care or mine? Estate planning. Whether we want your parents to visit when the baby comes, and if so, where we’re gonna put them. When should I go back to work—tangentially, I am planning on breastfeeding but I have no idea what kind of pump to get for when I go back to work.”
He blinked twice. “Is that stuff we have to decide now?”
Yes. Her mind screamed. Yes, let me start planning this. “Well, not this second. But sometime in the next nineteen weeks might be good.”
“Okay. We’ve got time then.”
Time. Time tick ticking down. It was already the New Year. January speeding by, soon it would be February, then March, then . . .
“I don’t get it,” she finally said. “Why don’t you want to talk about any of this stuff? It’s important, and we need to—”
Brrrrffffffttttttt . . .
David choked on a laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “But—” and he was laughing again, as the brffffttttt echoed out again.
And then, Nathalie, ruefully, was laughing with him.
After a solid minute of enjoying the giggles, David slid his folding chair over to Nathalie, the chair making its own brfffftttt noise, which set them to giggling again.
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk,” he said, once they’d calmed down. “I just didn’t expect to be talking about wills and estate planning. I came home tonight to spend some time with you,” David said, closing his eyes. “Because I was a shitheel at the gender party thing, and this is the first chance I’ve had to do anything about it.”
“Okay, okay . . .” she said, holding up her hands.
“I’m sorry. I promise, we’ll talk about all that stuff. Tonight, even,” he said, taking her hand. “But for now, let’s turn down these overheads . . .”
David flicked the lights off.
“Maybe light a candle to take care of that smell . . .”
She smothered a reluctant chuckle, wrapped her arms around his waist. But he’d gone completely still.
“Oh, shit,” David said, looking out the window.
“What?” Nathalie said, standing immediately and rushing to the window.
“Our driveway,” David said. “It’s flooded.”
Nathalie squinted out the window, into their driveway. With the lights out, she could see out into what was now a bona fide river in their driveway.
“The pump stopped working,” David said, as he rushed to put on shoes, a raincoat.
The pump, rarely employed in their desert climate, was installed at the base of their driveway next to their house. The land their home sat on was flat, and drainage was bad, so when it did rain, the water pooled and collected at the back door of the house, next to the driveway. The pump collected it and sent it via pipes underneath the driveway to the street, where it could flow into a gutter.
Without that pump, they basically had an aboveground pool for their backyard.
“Oh shit,” David said again, as he rushed out the door and into the dark, cold wet. “Stay inside! I don’t want you getting sick.”
“I’ll call a plumber,” she said, reaching for her phone.
As she dialed the number, all thoughts of 529 plans and breastfeeding—heck, even a candlelit franks-and-beans dinner with her husband—fled her mind.
LATER THAT NIGHT, as she lay awake, unable to sleep from what the few bites of beans were doing to her intestines, Nathalie snuck out of bed and to the guest bathroom. Last second, she grabbed her phone. Seriously, who knew how long she’d be in there?
She knew she had every right to use her own en suite bathroom, but she didn’t want to wake David with her . . . er, midnight musical endeavors. At the moment, it just felt like . . . like she didn’t have the right to burden him with anything.
Not even flatulence.
After David had rushed out to try and adjust the pump, she’d called the emergency plumbers. Together, the guys had gotten the pump working again, and David spent a freezing cold hour shoving water with a broom down the driveway and away from the house.
When he’d finally come in, he immediately took a long hot shower to get feeling back into his extremities, and then promptly went to bed.
They didn’t talk. Not about college plans, or paint chips, or even share any more jokes about Nathalie’s current most persistent pregnancy symptom.
Which was fine. The last thing she wanted for David was for him to be spending his one night off in forever dealing with her questions on top of dealing with a household emergency.
But she did have questions—planning the future, about what to expect in her pregnancy . . . about all of it. And no one to talk to.
She couldn’t talk to her dad, he didn’t remember how her mom dealt with her symptoms. She couldn’t talk to Lyndi, who no doubt was wrapped in the blissful cocoon of being completely taken care of by their parents and therefore not having to worry about a thing. Even her friends who’d had kids, like Vicki and Kelly . . . she couldn’t imagine calling them up with questions about college savings plans and breastfeeding pumps.
Brrrrrfffftttt.
Or asking them anything about . . . that.
At some point in time, she knew that all pretense would fall away, and she would gladly discuss her boobs and body fluids at the top of her lungs in public places with complete strangers.
But damn it, today was not that day.
However, she would happily do it anonymously. There had to be something on the internet to help her deal with this particular grievance, she thought.
She pulled up the mommy forums on her phone, and typed her query into the question box.
Which yielded immediate results.
- Don’t worry! Magnesium will get things moving down there! Just don’t take too much . . .
- Oh, the gas I had with my first . . . doing yoga helped realign my gut. My best friend teaches prenatal yoga at the Silver Lake Center . . .
- OMG if it’s really bad go to the hospital immediately! My sister’s sister-in-law’s cousin had gas and it turned out to be a ballooning intestine! It almost perforated and they had to do lapa roscopic surgery! Luckily she wasn’t pregnant at the time, but that would just make me doubly cautious!
Overwhelmed, she quickly shut the web browser on her phone. All of that was conflicting and absolutely none of it was helpful. Every single time she went on the mommy forums, she felt more confused than when she entered them.
Really, as a teacher, she knew the vagaries of the internet and how it could warp any argument or question. What on earth was she doing on a forum that didn’t even cite sources beyond some random person’s sister’s sister-in-law’s cousin?
She was about to shut her phone entirely, when an email notification popped up. By rote, she clicked over.
Weird. It was a Twitter notification.
Nathalie had Twitter. As far as she could figure, everyone had Twitter—at least, that was what Lyndi told her when she signed Nathalie up. She just didn’t really use Twitter. She didn’t tweet. She had students, and a responsibility to model correct behavior online, so basically that meant not being on social media ever (ironically, the only 100 percent foolproof method of avoiding accidental overexposure was social media abstinence). But she did maintain a Twitter handle to follow one of her favorite TV shows, Fargone. Every week the cast and crew would tweet out behind-the-scenes info while the episode aired, and it was a delightful additional experience. Like those old VH1 pop-up videos, but with fewer random factoids and more photos of the stars being goofy on set. The actress who played Billie was particularly delightful.
The email was one of those “People You May Know” notifications. Twitter prompting you to follow more accounts, engage with more people (and presumably, be online longer and exposed to more ads). But this time, the people she may have known were not official Fargone accounts, or devoted fans. This time, it was for an account called @WTFPreg.
First of all, Nathalie was vaguely weirded out that Twitter had figured out that she would be interested in something to do with pregnancy. Her posts on the mommy forums were sporadic, and unassociated with Twitter. Unless Fargone had a pregnancy story line she was unaware of (ooohhh!! Please let Fargone have a pregnancy story line!) they should have no reason to place a pregnancy Twitter feed in her path.
But, the vague weirdness subsided when curiosity got the better of her and she clicked on the link.
Then complete freak-out weirdness set in.
@WTFPreg—I could set my house on fire from all the methane in the atmosphere. #pregnancygas
The most recent post had gone up only a few hours ago.
Trepidatiously, she scrolled down the feed.
@WTFPreg—Horizontal stripes—verboten except for the extremely vertical or extremely pregnant.
A strange tingling sensation darted through her body. Like recognizing like.
@WTFPreg—The Peanut isn’t a peanut anymore! It’s more of an awkward legume. #anotherdayanotherultrasound
The peanut . . . she’d called their daughter a peanut when she saw the first ultrasound. And she’d noticed the uncanny amount of horizontal stripes in maternity fashion. And she could no doubt explode her house with the methane content it currently held!
And the very first tweet posted within a week of them finding out they were expecting . . .
@WTFPreg—We did not expect this baby, even though we were trying for it. So obviously, we are alarmingly stupid people who should not procreate.
Holy shit. It was as if she could have posted every single one of these tweets herself.
But she didn’t.
But that could only mean . . .
Someone, somewhere, was having the exact same pregnancy she was.
But who?