And it Will Feel Like Truth — Day Twelve
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Our honeymoon is short: we only have two nights before we head back to Temple where we’ve already moved into our cheap newlywed apartment. Russ has to work, and I’m starting classes for teaching certification at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Our apartment is unassuming and suffers from a horrible foundation that has me tripping on the way to the bathroom at night, but it’s ours. We stay there until the guy delivering our washer and dryer looks at me and says, “get out of here. Make them open up a new apartment for you or let you out of your lease — whatever — but you can’t stay here anymore.” He looks around and winces at the slope in our floor.
Russ is on it before I can even blink and within two weeks, we’re moving into another apartment across the property. They give us more square footage for the same price and beg us not to get anyone else involved. We agree. We knew our time there is borrowed, anyway. As horrible as it is, and has bad as I want to move, there are good memories here. It’s where we bring home Gatsby the Great, our daschund-golden mix. It’s where my family comes and stays for New Years Eve.
It’s also where we start talking about kids.
It’s not our first conversation, but after the shock of our first month where I seriously thought we’d be bringing home a honeymoon baby, we decide to make it concrete. I’m on birth control and it seems to be working (so far) but do I want to take it forever? Do we even want kids? Our answers are pretty unanimous: I don’t know how long I want to take birth control, but I do know it’s what I need to do. He supports me. He would like to try and wait five years before we have any kids. I agree.
“I just want to focus on us,” he says.
I nod. “I can’t imagine having kids right now…” I grow quiet, trying to picture it. Nothing comes. My mind is completely blank. “All I know is every time I think I might be pregnant, I freak. And maybe that’ll change in the future, and maybe we’re being completely naïve thinking we can control this, but five years sounds amazing.”
I’m not lying. I really can’t picture having kids. I don’t think much about it. It doesn’t feel as if I’m missing anything, and I’m so focused on surviving my first year of teaching in public schools I can’t see how a baby thrown in the mix would work for us. So we agree all over again that we’ll revisit the idea in five years, sooner if fate forces her hand.
A year later, fresh off another move to a nicer apartment in Belton, I start experiencing symptoms right as I start graduate school. I don’t want to eat, and then I’m starving. When I start eating, I feel sick to my stomach. I’m crying randomly, and I can’t breathe, and I’m having these debilitating headaches, and I’m more exhausted than I’ve ever been in my life. A nagging thought persists, but I dismiss it. Eventually, I can’t anymore. One night while we’re lying in bed I wake from a dream of me holding a baby boy. When I open my eyes and see the fan above me, I know with a certainty. We’re having a baby, and he’s going to be a boy. I place my hand on my stomach and let out a small laugh.
Me. A mother.
I still have weeks before I can even take a test, but even still, I look at Russ one night at dinner and let him know.
“I think I’m pregnant.” There are tears in my eyes and they start to run down my cheeks. He pauses a beat.
“Are you sure?”
I shake my head. “No. Yes. I haven’t taken a test, but I can’t shake it — I’ve been having all of these symptoms…”
He nods his head. “I’ve been wondering, actually.” He looks away and then catches my eye, reaching across the table. “It’s okay, love. We’re going to make it.”
The tears come fast then, because this wasn’t our plan and yet Russ is not swayed. He knows our foundation is strong enough to handle the what ifs. We finish dinner, talking about what it might be like if I really am pregnant. Will the baby have his skin tone? My eye color? Will they love to write or sing or draw or will they be our complete opposite: invested in team sports and vying for football scholarships? I look at Russ sitting next to me and smile.
“You’re going to be a great father.” I say it without thinking. But now that it’s out, I see it. I believe it. I get up from my seat and wrap my arms around his neck. “Now or later, I can’t wait to see you with our kids.”
Kids. Plural. I’ve gone from not being able to think about tiny little feet running around us to having multiple. He places his hands on my hips and kisses me.
“You’re going to be an incredible mother, too — you know that right?” And I inhale sharply. I’ve heard those words before — my first year of teaching, during my yearly review. My principal sat in one of the desks in my classroom and wiped his glasses with his shirt, and then tapped the desk with his pen.
“You’re going to be a great mother, Elora. Your love for these kids…” he had trailed off then, saying something about how I cared for his son and under that care he started to love to read or something. I can’t remember the specifics now. But the statement did something to me and that I am remembering. It branded me. One of those statements of truth spoken over you that maybe you don’t necessarily want to hear because it hurts a little bit — burning away the extra pieces that don’t fit anymore. I brushed it off then, not being able to see myself as a mother. I think I might have even shrugged.
But in this moment, hearing those words come from Russ’ mouth, I feel like I can do anything. It’s always this way. I doubt myself and then he holds my hand, saying I can do it, that he believes in me, and suddenly I can do anything. My dreams build themselves with his belief.
I lean forward to kiss him and then his grip tightens and he’s guiding me toward the bed and his breath leaves a trail of goosebumps down my skin.
Later that night, I’m still awake. Russ is next to me, his arm draped over my side. I’m watching the moon outside our window and tracing shapes into our sheets, thinking about our conversation over dinner. I’m realizing it’s the first time I actually admitted that I could see us as parents. The more I think about it, the more I know it’s only a matter of time.
Russ is meant to be a father.
Even more shocking: I know I am meant to be a mom. I don’t know when this changed for me. Maybe with the supposed pregnancy? The thought freaks me out a little bit, and I have to breathe a few times to get used to the idea. But me being a mom is not a maybe type of thing anymore. It’s a for sure thing. It’s just a matter of when.
