CHAPTER SEVEN

Abby

I SPEND THE next twelve hours doing a mental happy dance at the surprise turn my journey to parenthood has taken. I float through the morning on a tide of pure elation, sitting at my desk as if I’m working, but the only thing I work on is my baby binder.

Yes, I have a binder of information about parenting already prepared for a situation like this. In fact, I probably need to split it into two volumes soon. It’s already bursting at the seams and I know that’s only going to get worse over the next few months.

I started reading about parenthood a few years back, mostly on blogs and parenting sites, saving the URLs into a bookmark folder called One Day. At the time, I was just emerging from the dark period after my breakup with Roger, and having a baby seemed like a distant dream. Collecting those pages started out as a way to focus on a positive future, and I eventually felt comforted by the idea that when I did finally find Mr. Perfect and we were ready to start our family, I’d at least be prepared.

I had fantasies of snuggling up on a couch, holding my iPad. I’d be clicking through the URLs while my husband read over my shoulder as he rubbed my swollen belly and marveled at how lucky he was to have a wife with such forethought.

Alas, the One Day folder soon became a little unruly and I needed a way to manage my lists, too. Lists of names, lists of other things to research, lists of things I might need to buy...stuff like that. I could tell it was going to be difficult to keep track of all of that information in digital form, so I soon decided it would be easier for future husband and me to work from printed pages.

So one rainy Sunday morning, I stayed in my pajamas, sent a crap load of pages to my printer and set up the binder. I carefully decorated tabs for Pregnancy and Childbirth, Handling a Newborn, Terrible Toddlers and The Preschool Years. Marcus knocked on my door and asked if I wanted a coffee, and when he saw the chaos of printed pages and highlighters and Post-its in my room, he came in to help. I’m sure organizing a binder full of information for a purely hypothetical pregnancy didn’t entirely make sense to Mr. Wing-His-Way-Through-Life, but that didn’t matter one bit. He sat with me for hours, punching holes in printed pages for our two-person production line...all so I could feel more in control of my life.

In the last two months since I found out about my fertility issues, I’ve added tabs for the practical matters I had never even thought to worry about back when I was just daydreaming about hypothetical babies with rosy cheeks and adorable little wrinkles on their thighs. Now I have tabs for Selecting a Preschool Program, Elementary Schools and Zoning, Surviving Adolescence and, probably the scariest tab of all, Resources for Perinatal or Postpartum Depression.

I prepare for every eventuality because it makes me feel like I’m in control of my life. Sometimes, though, my hyperorganization has the opposite effect. It rubs potential problems right in my face and reminds me that no matter how organized I am, living life means accepting a certain amount of chaos and there’s nothing at all I can do about that.

I am capable. I am resilient. I am resourceful. I am not alone. Whatever is coming, I’ll find a way to manage it, and anyway, now Marcus will be my partner in this and we’ll navigate it together.

It’s time to refocus my thoughts on something positive. Half an hour later, I’ve amassed quite the collection of photos of cute baby clothes. I feel better about my momentary anxiety earlier. I open my chat client and send a picture of a newborn in a jumpsuit styled like a tuxedo.

He doesn’t respond for almost forty minutes, by which time I’ve given up on my bookmark hunt and I’m death-glaring at the screen, waiting for his reply.

He never takes this long to write back. He’s always in front of his computer or his phone—usually both, given the man can multitask like a work-at-home mother with a dozen young children. I remember watching him in awe one time as we ate breakfast and he was juggling his laptop, iPad and phone—preparing a presentation, handling a staff emergency and reading his emails, somehow all at once.

When the indicator that Marcus is typing finally flashes up, panic breaks through and I drop my hands onto the keyboard.

The indicator disappears, then returns. I hold my breath until his reply pops up.

I hit Send on the message, then freeze. Oh, fuck it, that was so much harsher than I meant it to be. I know I can’t delete it, but I frantically mash the delete button, anyway, and then I try to backpedal.

The pause while I wait for him to reply is agonizing. While he’s a pretty resilient sort of guy, I’ve clearly upset him. He deserves so much better than that, especially from me.

He replies immediately this time.

There’s a pause, then:

Another pause, and he adds:

My face feels hot, and tears prick at my eyes. I blink them away and rest my hands on the keyboard for a moment, forcing myself to cool down before I reply.

I wipe away a tear and frown at the screen for a moment before replying.

Ah. That’s right...

A soft smile creeps over my face. Marcus has his flaws, but when it comes to me, he’s more than proven the bond between us. He has never, ever let me down, not in any way, big or even small.