The
countdown for having my own baby began for me when I was old enough to hold
one. No infant could move past me without my
deer-in-headlights gaze, no toddler could escape my standard but effective
stooge face. Conversations often were
put on hiatus while my puppy dog attention magnetized to the small nearby human
begging for a smile. Though I eventually
grew out of my desire to birth ten kids simply for the sake of having children
all around me, I still find that my best audiences are often children. Perhaps that is why I am an elementary
teacher.
I laugh
now at my childhood plans for how life would unfold. Married by 21, pregnant by 22, a house, a car
and a job as an astronaut/botanist/pediatrician/etc. by the time I reached
23. College slapped me in the face,
however, and I awoke to find that my actual dreams had much more substance to
them than the lifestyle many young girls dream about. The world called to me, inviting me to live
in unfamiliar places, take life-changing risks, and see my surroundings in new
dimensions. I learned to be an
independent caretaker of myself, pushing the idea of motherhood way down the
priority ladder, extending my countdown even further. Of course I still took advantage of
overwhelming any baby passing through my day, but I still had so many places to
conquer, so many people to meet, so many ways to grow.
Love
slipped into my unsuspecting life one day at a Jamba Juice in Tucson. Jason won me over so quickly that it took me
off guard. It turned out that the more I
stopped trying to make my life into a romance movie, the more it became
one. Each new day of our six-month
dating period spun our lives together in an intricate and mesmerizing tangle
that I never needed to unwind. Before I
knew it, I was standing hand-in-hand in front of our Puget Sound alter, salty tears
slipping into my toothy smile, marrying my best friend. I now had a companion to share my baby
countdown with, and I couldn’t have picked a better soul.
Spending
my days with the man of my dreams made me selfish for a while, however, and I
savored every moment, every adventure, every touch between the two of us, just
the two of us. We could talk about our
dreams without hesitation or embarrassment, and though we both were excited to
produce a mini-Jalecia, we decided to accomplish some life goals first. We bought a house, adopted a cat, canned fish
for extra funds, explored Vietnam and Cambodia, trudged through a Master’s
program, achieved National Board status, and enjoyed each other’s company along
the way.
One
Tuesday evening last June, I sat in the bathroom staring, not believing that
the digital word read “pregnant” on the stick in front of me. Had I known there had been any chance of this
happening, I would have found a more creative way to present the news to my
best friend upstairs, especially since he is so gifted in the art of romantic
gestures. But excitement and my
childhood dream of being a mother left me sputtering the good news as I bounced
on the bed next to him, the beginning of a night of no sleep but big dreams.
The end of our countdown began to
creep closer. It was dotted with so many
vivid and important memories: fruitless battles with nausea, tear-stained
cheeks of future grandparents, a hasty extermination of caffeine and wine in my
diet, my new favorite pair of maternity jeans, a new house to fit our new
family, ultrasounds that clearly showed a penis, over-the-moon kisses from
Daddy as we turned off the lights and snuggled close, and baby, baby, baby
everywhere. We inherited a garage full
of kindness from mothers and fathers moving into new chapters of their child’s
lives, and used it all to prepare our future son’s new room. Dresser drawers overflowed with onesies that
read “Tough Like Daddy” and “Bananas for Mommy.” Toys and spoons and bottles and little socks
and blankets and stuffed animals and books and miniature hats and more expanded
our little house with happiness and love for the small person yet to come. There was no better way to count down the
days.
At midnight on February 15th,
the countdown spinners began to move at rapid speeds. Mind-blowing contractions two minutes apart threw
us out of our comfort zone and our warm bed and sent us out into the cold, clear
night. I tried to savor the quiet
moments in the car between the volcano eruptions that started in my lower back,
reassuring my worried husband that the pain only meant that we were one step
closer to being parents. I will never
forget the look in his eyes that night, with a furrowed brow, wide lids, and concern
illuminating the air around him. He
wanted nothing more than for me to feel no pain. It was a look of pure love for his wife. He was ready to move mountains for me, stop
freeway traffic for me, carry me up the slopes of Mount Doom. Sadly, none of this would have alleviated the
mounting pain from my abdomen, but his look was enough to keep me strong enough
through socializing with batty triage nurses, the painful ten minute process of
finding my veins for the saline flow, the terrible urge to push our son through
my seven centimeters of dilation, and the final administration of the epidural
once we were safely moved to our new room.
As I settled into my numbness and
our heart rates both fell to a reasonable count, we were able to enjoy the
remainder of the baby countdown. At 6:30
a.m. after a slight nap and some time to digest the early morning events, Dr.
Heshmati ignited the final process in my delivery by breaking my water. I began to push in increments of ten seconds,
and I can remember so clearly the final countdown. Ten… nine…eight, shouted the doc. Seven… six… five…four, Jason shakily
whispered into my ear. Three… two… one,
I screamed in my head as Elliott Morgan Aillaud escaped the darkness and came
into view for the first time. The
countdown was finally over.
As he
screamed his first breath, Jason clutched my hand tighter, and we cried
together, knowing that this accomplishment meant that a whole new series of
countdowns had just begun. There will be
short countdowns; 100 more rocks in the chair before I can move his curled up
body to his bed, twenty more minutes until his soft, round belly needs to be
satisfied, counting back from three as he decides not to make that really bad
decision. There will be longer
countdowns; nine more months until he says his first word, two to three more
agonizing years until he is trained to pee in the toilet, 16 years until he
learns to drive a car. And there will be
more life-changing countdowns; eighteen years until I wipe away the tears as he
drives away to college, waiting for the day he finds his best friend to marry,
counting down the moment until I get to be a Grandma. As Elliott was placed against my skin and
Jason caressed both my face and our son’s soft back, I only felt happiness and
love for the two boys in my life, and I looked forward to the next countdown.
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