My husband and I walked in like we’ve been through war. I was in a dirty maternity dress, no make-up; they let me enter so I guess I was wearing shoes. My boobs were sore from around the clock nursing and pumping and I was still bleeding from giving birth two weeks ago. I think Alex walked in with a burp cloth still draped over his shoulder. If we entered any other restaurant on Valentine’s Day looking like that, other couples would have assumed we just agreed to divorce but the restaurant already had our credit card so we might as well honor the reservation. We looked and felt like garbage. Overwhelmed, emotional, exhausted garbage. “Two baseball steaks, please. And all of the alcohol. “
This was our last meal and we were dead men walking. We have an hour before a baby gets rolled in to our room and our lives forever. My husband picked up his rocks glass of brown booze and toasted “Well, we had a good run. Even Jordan had to retire.” Now looking back, it was in some ways our last meal. It was certainly our last meal that we didn’t have to hire someone to sit in our house to make sure it didn’t burn down around our sleeping baby. That night was the first night of many sleepless nights full of crying, uncertainty, confusion, arguing and absolutely no sex. Oh God, so much no sex.
No one prepares you for the identity crisis your marriage goes through when you bring a baby into your home. For an entire year we put our marriage on the shelf to be full-time baby managers. We made it to January 31 and celebrated our chubby, healthy, super happy baby’s first birthday. While everyone else humored us and wished a clueless Harrison a happy birthday, fellow parents congratulated us on getting through the year with our marriage intact. This is where I’m supposed to tell you that I can’t even remember what it’s like to not have a baby, but of course I can. I can totally remember what it’s like to not have a baby and I’d be a brain dead zombie liar if I told you I never missed those days. I had thirty-five years of being a baby-free me, fourteen years of being a baby-free us and one sleepless, hormonal year of being morally and legally obligated and physiologically compelled to wipe a tiny, helpless person’s bum multiple times a day. A fog lifted at that birthday party and I felt like I woke up from a yearlong baby coma. It hit me that we actually had the energy to execute a party, wear clean clothes, manage basic hygiene and still had adults in our lives to invite to something. The next day we remembered that Valentine’s Day was approaching. In fact, our pediatrician reminded us. Though we now have this time and energy draining third person in our relationship, we organically picked up from where we left off a year ago when we drove to the hospital. We found ourselves back to our Valentine’s Day rituals: making reservations, thinking of gift ideas, going through the closet to see what’s clean and still fits, and now our plans include securing someone to make sure our house and baby don’t burn down. Yes, Jordan retired but he came back, a few times actually. Fine, it was to play for the Wizards, but he felt compelled to come back and do what makes him, him. We’ll probably spend most of our Valentine’s dinner talking about baby proofing and day cares and then pass out by 10, but it’ll all be in effort to hang on to what has made us, us. “Two chocolate soufflés with heart-shaped chocolates, please. And all of the alcohol.”