I thought becoming a mother would be the hardest challenge I’d ever face, but I never expected to feel so alone before my baby was even born. Looking back now, I wish I’d recognized much sooner that something was terribly wrong.
The clock on the nightstand glowed, showing 2:47 a.m., and I hadn’t slept for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. My back throbbed constantly, as if someone had wedged a brick under my spine, and the baby’s tiny heels drummed against my bruised ribs in a rhythm that felt almost cruel.
Thirty-four weeks pregnant, and my body wasn’t mine anymore.
I turned onto my left side, then my right, sat up, lay back down, and repeated the sequence, while adjusting the pregnancy pillow. I got up to pee, an hourly occurrence, for the fourth time that night, waddled to the bathroom, and shuffled back, trying not to make the floor creak.
I hadn’t slept for more than 20 minutes.
Beside me, my husband, Ryan, let out a long, theatrical sigh and dragged a pillow over his head.
Our apartment was tiny: one bedroom, three flights up, the kind of place where even a whisper carried. There wasn’t a couch big enough for a grown adult, and the nursery corner was really just a bassinet crammed between the dresser and the closet.
I remembered when Ryan used to rub my feet during the first trimester. He’d bring me ginger tea and joke that our baby was already bossing us around.
That version of him felt like a story someone had once told me.
I remembered when Ryan used to rub my feet.
***
Two weeks ago, over spaghetti, Ryan had mumbled something about his mom, Dana, wiring “a little help” that month. When I asked what he meant, he waved me off.
“It’s nothing, Em. She just likes feeling useful.”
“Ryan, if we’re struggling, I want to know.”
“We’re not struggling. Drop it.”
He changed the subject to a work deadline, and I let him because I was too tired to push.
“She just likes feeling useful.”
***
Since my maternity leave had started, something in my husband had become tight and mean. He complained about the air conditioner bill, my snack wrappers, and, most of all, about my moving around at night.
***
“You’ve been flopping around for an hour,” Ryan had snapped two nights earlier.
“I’m sorry, honey. I can’t get comfortable.”
“Well, figure it out. Some of us have work in the morning.”
Something in my husband had become tight and mean.
