N         Nurse

Toward the end of labor, I ask if there is anything anyone can do to help me. It is a moment of desperation in which I don’t know how my body will finish the task before it. My voice cracks as I experience surge after surge, my throaty screams making way for tears during the height of it, my husband letting me squeeze his hand as he watches the doctor and nurses. He is calm and gentle all night, sweet and ready to help.

I lose all sense of modesty in the height of labor. I labor in the tub and on the toilet. I feel like my butt is going to fall out of my body. I don’t care if I poop as I push, and the nurses are accommodating anyway. They don’t offer pain medicine (my choice) and encourage me. You’re already doing it, they tell me.

A         Anniversary

Exactly one year from the day we say our vows, we meet our son. I cry at least five times that day, big happy tears that pool in my eyes until they can’t be contained. It is a day of being unable to contain things. A year before, I wore a pink dress and promised to love my husband forever. Today, I promise my son the same thing, over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you.

For dinner, we eat hospital stir-fry. It is terrible, but we can’t stop staring at the tiny person we made, parts of each of us. It is our paper anniversary, though Nathaniel’s birth certificate will not arrive for several weeks. The Friday before (June 24) we celebrate our anniversary at the Cottonwood Grille with a gift certificate I won from public radio, not knowing when our now-late baby would arrive. We drive down a bumpy road in a futile attempt to start labor. It works.

T         Two

Or, the number of times I swore during labor, which means that there were only two times when I really didn’t think I could make it. Women who say that labor is easy are kidding themselves. Labor is beautiful and incredible and something I would do again—but it is work.

In our birthing class, we watched videos of beautiful women breathing their babies into the world. That isn’t what my labor looks like. It is gritty and difficult, but it ultimately ends with my son on my chest, looking alertly into my eyes as he army-crawls his way up. It ends with my husband cutting the cord, with us looking at each other, teary eyed and love-drunk, this family of three.

H         Home

Coming home feels like a relief because we are free to do as we please. It also feels like a mistake. Nothing we do makes the baby consistently happy. Oh, we think, he likes the swing. Next time, he wails when we put him in it. Later, he likes the Moby, even falls asleep in it. Nothing works twice. Still, it is good to be home.

Everyone tells me to sleep when the baby sleeps, but it’s impossible to write when the baby writes or cook or clean or bathe, and so I find ways to fit everything in. I feel more sane and the baby almost certainly feels more loved (as though a five week old can feel loved). Feeling safe is another way to feel loved and I am grateful for my home and my husband everyday.

A         Abs

I can’t pretend that I had visible abs before pregnancy, but I can say that my new body is very different than my old body. It’s easy to tell myself that a baby took nine months to grow and stretch my body so my expectation of thinness a week after is unreasonable. But maternity clothes are too big and make me look too pregnant (that belly that I longed for in the early days of pregnancy!) and my regular clothes are too ill-fitting. Even my yoga pants look weird.

And, while I’m busy worrying about my stomach, I’m trying to fill his, which is a gift, which is special, which is incredibly difficult. When my milk doesn’t come in like it should, I beat myself up. I take thirty pills everyday so that my body can do what other women’s bodies do on their own. It makes little difference. I use a breast pump every three hours and supplement with formula, though never in public, lest I be judged.

N        Noon

We don’t tell anyone when I am in labor, just as we didn’t share the news of our pregnancy. These both feel like announcements made later in the game, secrets kept between the two of us, not for fear that something will go wrong–no, these secrets are celebrations that we want to share, just us, for a few extra moments. Nathaniel is born at 8:53 am, and after, I eat a strawberry milkshake and a cheeseburger. Randall has french toast. Nathanial, miraculously, makes his way to his breakfast all on his own. He’s already capable of doing so much.

Our parents and siblings squeal in delight, make the trip to the hospital where I was born thirty years before. This baby is so loved.

I           Idaho Mets

The day after I give birth, I go to a softball game with the baby strapped to my chest. Our lives are different now, but Randall still plays softball and I still watch in the stands. He says Nathaniel knows how to be a baby. We’re learning how to be parents. For us, this means softball on no sleep, warm sun, milkshakes on the way home.

E          Enough

Nathaniel smiles at five weeks, a real smile that isn’t gas or milk drunkenness. Every time he does it, my eyes brim with tears. He is so beautiful in his fluffy cloth diapers and secondhand onesies. There are days when I don’t shower and the fenugreek I take makes me smell like maple syrup. I can’t go to the grocery store without worrying about him. I worry that we bought concert tickets for mid-August. Will we be able to leave him?

It’s hard to remember life before him and yet five weeks has somehow flown by. What did we do before? How to I describe parenthood without using clichés? I cannot.

L          Lips

 Nathaniel has my lips and it’s changed the ways I see my own face. He’s got his father’s eyes and nose, my ears, daddy’s feet. I can’t believe I had a part in making a person so perfect. He’s cuddly and sweet and I think a lot about what kind of man he’ll become.

He’s changing the way I see his father too. Randall laughs at everything he does in a mix of amusement, love, and disbelief. They look at each other with such love and sleep open-mouthed in front of the television, Nathaniel resting on Randall’s chest, his tiny fingers clasping his father’s. I kiss them both, these men who’ve given my lips and my heart a place to land.