When Nathaniel comes back into our house the morning after his brother is born, we gesture toward the baby. This is Parker we say. He repeats, Parker, and kisses him on the lips. My husband films and I sit, teary-eyed, in the back. You can hear my voice crack, overcome by the sweetness of it all, my two boys, who are sitting in my lap.

Parker is roughly twelve hours old when my sister brings Nathaniel home, and we are settling in. The thing about a home birth is that there really isn’t any unsettling–Parker was born at 10pm in my bedroom, and we didn’t leave it until the next morning, except Randall, who brought bowls of bananas and cheerios to celebrate a job well done.

Parker is twelve days late, which is six days later than his brother. We are unprepared for the emotional turmoil that a this-late baby has on us. Will the baby come today? we’ve woken up asking ourselves for four weeks now. Second babies are supposed to be earlier, even early. With every task we cross off our to-do list, we tell ourselves we’ll bring baby. We add a few names to the list. We write thank-yous. Install a second car seat. Wash the diapers. We stock up on snacks and then eat them all while we wait.

On June 12, I have an appointment with the midwives and elect to give the herbal induction a try. They assure me that the baby will not come unless they are ready, even with the drink. I can’t imagine how they wouldn’t be, when I’ve been ready for at least four weeks. I drink the cocktail–a blend of a bunch of things that include (and taste like) almond butter and lemon verbena oil. It tastes okay, though I am warned that some people throw up. We fein modesty for a few more hours and cover my lap with a towel when they check my cervix. No signs of progress, so I go home and take a nap.

Nathaniel’s preparation for the baby has included playing with his baby and saying baby when people ask what is in mommy’s tummy. I can’t imagine he knows how we’re going to shake up his world, and I hope he’s prepared for it.

In the afternoon, nothing has happened. My first labor started without warning–there were not contractions and then there were, and they didn’t stop. I drive back to the midwives for another dose of the smoothie, call my sister, and start contracting on the way there. I have a half dose, and it tastes considerably worse.

On the drive home, my contractions get closer together as I sit in traffic. It’s funny to drive away from my medical providers once labor begins, and I feel sort of empowered doing it. The midwives warn me that second labors are fast, and say they’ll be nearby. Around six, my sister comes to pick up Nathaniel, and things are getting serious. By 7:30, the midwives are in my house. Later, I find out they’ve been at the park down the road for about an hour, waiting for my call. They know second time mothers.

This time, I only want to labor in my bedroom and (of course) my toilet. I walk back and forth between bed and bathroom, saying things like Oh my gosh! Labor is SO hard. I remember this now. I’m sitting on the toilet when Sexy Back comes on and Randall and I laugh. I don’t remember adding it to the Labor Party list, but I’m glad I did.

Between contractions and when midwives are in the room, I ask them questions. Is there a variety of sounds women make? Not really, it’s kind of the same. I love this, the feeling that birth is universal. I have a banner of birthing affirmations and one of them reminds me that lots of other badass bitches are giving birth with me right now, all over the world. I come back to it again and again. We’re doing this.

The midwives float in and out of the room, knowing when they’re needed by the sounds I make. They monitor the baby where I stand, mid-contraction. Modesty is gone. The light is low, and slowly, the team assembles. I know it is time before I notice that the room is full. I gave birth to Nathaniel on the bed, so I assume I’ll do the same. My water breaks. Payette, the almost-graduated student midwife who is running the show tells me that the baby doesn’t like that position. I move to my hands and knees. She has the right amount of authority in her voice when she tells me I need to get on the floor. I am not scared, but I know that it is important to get it done.

I’ve been feeling pushy for awhile, and I know that we’ll meet our baby soon. It has been about four minutes since my water broke. On the floor, Payette instructs me to put the energy of noise-making into pushing, sending energy downward. It is the most helpful advice I’ve ever received. I push once, and then twice, and the baby slides out, surprising everyone but me.

I ask, daddy, what do we have?, but we both know we have a boy. They pass the baby between my legs, and I hold him to my chest. Instantly, my body is pain-free. This is one of the most amazing things about birth. The placenta comes while I’m sitting on my feet beside the bed, and I mention it, a sort of afterthought. I notice a new person in the room, a midwife I’ve somehow never met who shows up about five minutes after birth. Hello, I tell her, holding the skirt of my nightgown up and the top down,  I’m Heather, I say, laughing.

Awhile later, the midwives ask me if I have to pee, and I haven’t really thought about it, but I guess I do. On the toilet, they tenderly wipe the blood from my legs with warm washcloths while Randall holds our second boy. In that moment, even with a partner who is supportive and wonderful, I feel very glad to be a woman in the company of women.

The space immediately after baby comes is kind of floaty–the midwives leave and come back, leave and come back, weigh the baby on one of those scales that dangle him from a piece of fabric. Elbow’s One Day Like This, the song I walked down the aisle to, plays. Somewhere, we name our son. Parker Everett. Parker, because we like it and Everett, after the street where we rented our first home together.

The team of midwives comes upstairs, offers hugs before they go. Everyone should hug the people who bring their baby into the world. I don’t know if I’ve ever meant a hug more. They leave, and we’re home alone in bed and eating cereal.

Outside, at the border, children are being separated from their parents, some of them too small to talk. We’ve been watching Handmaid’s Tale, and, in one episode, crazy Janine says that her baby smells like her–that they couldn’t possibly seperate people who smell like each other. I smell Parker’s head, which is my smell too. I hold him close, though I miss Nathaniel.

It is impossible to think about my birth and my children without also acknowledging that not every parent gets to sleep next to their babies as I do tonight. The two events are intertwined, my bringing a child into the world while other mothers are having theirs taken away. Badass bitches all over the world.

The next day, when my boys are both here, I sniff Nathaniel, who still smells a little like me. Who is with me, who is safe in our home, who is a big brother. Who taught me about birth and parenthood and choice and advocacy. I’m grateful for my birth and my boys, and I know the work is just beginning.

I had coffee with Megan today and we talked about allowing ourselves the space to make mistakes or even allowances as new parents. I don’t allow myself this often, because it sometimes feels like failure. Nathaniel might never sleep in his cradle because I put him to sleep in the swing. I’m trying to sleep train, but so much of me resists. I make excuses and talk about how I’ll do it when he’s five months.

Still, I think I’m doing a good job meeting his needs, though I lean on him too often to meet mine. He’s not even five months old and I’m counting on him to get me through the next four years.

Yesterday, I reached into my mouth and ripped off a taste bud. I didn’t mean to do it, but it was swollen and painful and it just came off in my fingers. After, there was no more pain. My mouth was bleeding, but it didn’t hurt. Maybe this is what Trump supporters were/are feeling.

Yesterday was my sister’s thirtieth birthday, which she spent curled up with her daughter, my niece, who is both female and not white. She’s only in kindergarten, but there are difficult conversations ahead, though I hope they are unnecessary. I am hearing a lot of stories from people I know about people they know who are really suffering and really afraid. I try to understand their fear, but I know it is greater than my own. I will do my best to advocate for change.

Before the election was called but after things weren’t looking good, I put on my lucky underwear. I was wearing them when Obama was elected and then reelected. I have a hard time letting things go. I don’t think I really thought that a pair of old underwear would alter the course of an election, though it is nice to have sufficient enough privilege to believe that, if only for a second.

Like so many, I am in a state of grief. I walked into a donut shop with coworkers this morning. The case was nearly empty. We’re all eating our feelings, which I hope turns to activism, eventually. But today is for carbs.

I don’t speak or write about the times I’ve been sexually violated because they haven’t ended in capital R rape. Even now, it is easy for me to dismiss this violence because it could have been worse, I wasn’t as careful as I could have been, I’m lucky to have led a life that is largely fulfilling and positive.

In light of recent comments made by the Republican nominee for President, a number of women (so, so many) have come forward to share their stories, a collective unburdening of the violence we’ve silently carried. There are Trump supporters in my family, which makes me first angry and then deeply sad—dismissing his (repeated) comments as locker room talk hurts men and women alike. I’ve known a lot of good men, am married to one, hope to raise one. Not all men are bad, but we live in a society that makes it possible for them to be bad without consequence.

Here is a partial list of men who have violated me with their behavior and bodies:

When I was thirteen, my mother’s then-boyfriend repeatedly went through my underwear drawer. This didn’t physically hurt me, but it was weird and icky. It is the first time I can recall feeling violated and very, very, female. What business does a grown man have going through the private spaces of a teenage girl?

When I was in college and my boyfriend was away, I hung out with a lot of his male friends. I drank with them too. Once, I fell asleep, after drinking, on a couch. There were a number of people around. When I woke up, this friend’s penis was hard and in my face. He was rubbing it along my cheek and ear. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat silent and pretended to shift in my sleep. I waited. I closed my eyes and waited for him to go away. Eventually, he did. I told nobody, save one friend who, it turned out, had also been assaulted by him. I thought I deserved it or I’d been drinking or this revelation would ruin the friend group. I remained friends with him, though I’m not anymore. I never spoke of it.

When I was at a party, a colleague of the man I was in a relationship with kissed me on the lips when I was talking to him. The moment wasn’t romantic. It felt relatively harmless and I didn’t want to complicate things, so I said nothing. After that relationship had ended, that boyfriend found out about the kiss and blamed me for not telling him. I understand why he felt betrayed, but I also don’t think I need to defend myself for being kissed without my consent.

Walking down the street in Portland, a man yelled show me your pussy, bitch! and the man I’m now married to was relatively shocked—this was an experience totally new to him. Of these experiences, it was the least demeaning and I felt less violated, probably because the word pussy isn’t the problem. The problem is in the taking of things, the invasion of personal spaces, the men who don’t speak up when other men are behaving badly.

I am somebody’s wife and mother and daughter, but my relationships to men aren’t what make Trump’s behavior deplorable. I am a human and, coincidentally, a woman. There is a lot of writing out there that does a better job than I can in explaining why we can’t have a presidential candidate telling it like it is, or engaging in locker room talk, or otherwise participating in the kind of behavior that hurts women and girls. But I want to lend my voice to the millions of others demanding accountability, not only of Donald Trump, but of his supporters. This election feels personal, particularly because I live in one of the few states that would still elect Trump if only women voted. How? I can’t answer that question, but I can tell you that it doesn’t feel good.

While I unapologetically support Hillary Clinton, I know that many do not—but a reluctance to elect Clinton should not equal support for Trump. I hear his supporters when they argue that it is nice to finally have someone running who doesn’t care about political correctness. But words are important, particularly as they relate to a man’s right to control a woman’s body because he is in a position of power.

Words matter because they set the stage for generations of American men. As a mother to a son, I’m worried about the kind of locker rooms that facilitate such blatant disrespect for women. Will he be safe within those walls? Will I?

I questioned my decision to write this because, again, so many women have written so much, and so articulately, and meaningfully. I questioned myself because I don’t want pity or shame or political arguments on social media. I want to be listened to—now, and on Election Day.

My wedding ceremony lasted less than ten minutes and quoted Vin Scully four times. It was difficult to get it to four—hours of careful editing and the desire to include both Joan Didion and Carl Saigon gave Vin space to speak only four times, though he could have filled an hour. It was important to me that Vin Scully narrate our wedding day, that he be a part of it in some small way.

I came into baseball as an adult, so Vin Scully is all I’ve ever known. He’s been at it 67 years, so he’s all a lot of people have ever known, but I don’t have a childhood nostalgia for him. His words evoked an adult affinity for poetry in me, an instant in into a sport I didn’t yet understand.

When my son was around two months old, Vin Scully came onto the television while we were at my sister’s house. Nathaniel looked up immediately, Scully’s voice being as recognizable to him as his father’s or mine. I’ve thought often that Nathaniel is lucky to have been born when Vin was still broadcasting, even if he won’t remember it.

There are a lot of things to say about Vin Scully, but they’re already being said. His humility, compassion, voice, gift for language, humor, passion are well documented. His love for the game and for the crowd. Our love for him. There’s a comprehensive mourning happening across the nation now, which offers some comfort. The grief of his retirement feels both universal and personal, in a way that only he could evoke. Vin Scully is my friend, Vin Scully is the world’s friend. Most of us don’t even know Vin Scully, or, he doesn’t know us.

When he signed off for a final time yesterday, I cried. Randall cried. We laughed and I said that it was silly, and Randall said that it was okay to be silly.

You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know in my heart that I’ve always needed you more than you’ve needed me, and I’ll miss our time together more I can say.

But you know what — there will be a new day, and eventually a new year. And when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, rest assured it will be time for Dodger baseball.

I’m grateful to have been ushered into the world of baseball so tenderly. I’m grateful for words that take me back to my wedding day whenever I hear them played on the television or radio. I’m grateful for the wisdom. Finally, I’m grateful for a sport that made space for language and for silence and for the red headed boy who finally filled it.

1.     The way his dimpled hands clasp together all of the time, an exclamation of joy made visible through his body, his fingers folded into each other in every way. His hands too big for his body, like a puppy who will grow into them.

2.     His coy smile when he looks at the ceiling fan and laughs, turning into my body shyly because he is made so happy by the spinning panels whenever he wakes up.

3.     Tiny feet (big for his body though) with toes that curl up for no reason, the way his dad’s do when he’s putting on socks.

4.     The way he laughs because dad is wearing red shorts and dancing and singing a song.

5.     How grumpy he is when he decides, at a moment’s notice, that it is time to eat, how he has no patience, no time to wait, for he is hungry now.

6.     A hand on his cheek will calm him if I am in the front seat of the car and he is in the back, a small reassurance that I am near, even if I am out of sight.

7.     The way he talks to me when daddy whispers in his ear, looking at me, cooing something that sounds, if only in imagination, an awful lot like I love you.

8.     How, when he poops, we know immediately because he farts like a grown man, grunting and breathing heavily until he has finished, demanding to be changed immediately after.

9.     His delight at the moments of nakedness we allow him in the evenings or before a bath, in which he kicks his legs over and over, smiling at us from the changing table that he’ll inevitably pee on.

10. The way he consistently places his ring finger and his pointer finger over his middle finger before his hands join together.

11. One time, he stopped crying and looked toward the television at my sister’s house because he heard Vin Scully.

12. The way he looks at everything, never wanting to face inward, a curiosity that we hope continues as he grows.

13. How he looks exactly how I thought he would look, a perfect blend of his father and I.

14. The fluffiness of his hair right after a bath, right after his dad has combed it and he has cried because it’s the only part he really hates.

15. How he smiles when I smile, every time. How pure his happiness is, how I am driven to happiness by his happiness, the two of us stuck in an infinite loop of making each other happy every day.

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.

Today (or yesterday, depending on who you’re asking) was my official due date, and there are no signs of baby yet. Still, I feel lucky—this has been a relatively easy pregnancy and a week of exhaustion seems like a small price to pay for the son who should make his appearance shortly.

If pregnancy has taught me so much, I can only imagine what parenting will do. Over the last 40 weeks, I’ve learned a lot of things about my body, the space I occupy, the ways we interact with parents as they become parents. Sometimes that makes me feel like a real jerk.

I want to be the kind of person who can empathize with people in circumstances completely different from my own, and most of the time, I am. But pregnancy has shown me the many ways I’ve wronged my pregnant friends, and I want to issue a formal apology.

I’m sorry for treating the pregnant body like public space

Something happens when you’re visibly pregnant—your own body becomes public property, subject to the comments and touches of friends, family, and total strangers. Everyone has different physical boundaries, but the general public doesn’t care.

There are a few things you can say to a pregnant woman about her body, and none of them involve the word “pop” or “big”…or any version of it. You can tell her she’s amazing or beautiful or glowing. It doesn’t matter if she’s big or small or gaining too much or too little. What her body is doing is incredible and so much more complicated than a few adjectives can describe.

I’m sorry for commenting on your birth preferences

Look, there’s no right way for every woman to have a baby. Some need inductions, epidurals, C-sections, combinations of all of those. Some birth at home or in water or in a hospital room filled with doctors. I think it’s so great that these are decisions you get to help make, and none of them are better than any other. Giving birth in any way is a badge of honor and nobody should make you feel ashamed or inadequate or less confident in a decision that is right for you.

Furthermore, I’m sorry if I’ve ever forced myself into your home or hospital room before you were ready for guests. This is such a special and personal time—it’s an honor to be asked to be involved in a new life in any capacity, and if you need a week as a family before I’m invited over, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for it. I’ll never hold that against you, and neither should anybody else.

I’m sorry for offering to help and meaning “let me hold the baby”

I’d never really thought about this until recently, which makes me awful. What you probably needed from me was for me to come over and do a load of laundry and make you dinner. Your baby is awesome, as I’m sure you know—but I really should have done more to take care of you and your family. Everybody wants to hold babies, but that’s such a small part of what I should have offered to do.

I’m sorry too for not following through after the first few months. I imagine that, after the smoke clears, there’s a fairly lonely time for new parents in which friends kind of drop away. That’s when I could have really helped. I bet parenting didn’t get easier, but you had less support. I’m down for hanging out or babysitting or responding to your texts in a timely way, and I mean that.

*

I promise to be a better friend, and I’m sorry that it took me 30+ years (only 40 weeks of which I was pregnant) to realize how silly I was being. I’m ready now.

In early pregnancy, before anyone knew that we were any different from the day before, I recall a moment in a crosswalk in which I was a little bit nauseous but also very happy. You and I and him before he even knew it, growing a secret shaped like whatever fruit the baby was in that particular week.

I felt powerful and maternal and scared all at once. You felt happy from the very beginning, though it was hard to know what to say in the earliest of days, for all of us. Well look at that!, or Can you believe we made a person? was the closest we could come to knowing that there were three of us.

In the car, I cry when I hear things that do or don’t have to do with children and parents. Everything is either about children or parents because everything is about the world and someday he will not live in my body anymore.  Just like that, my focus has become singular.

I cry because teenagers feel so depressed that they take their own lives. I cry because there’s a story in which black mothers are talking about how they’re going to talk to their boys about the possibility that they’ll be shot at. This is right after I know that I am having a son and it breaks me.

I am happy to feel so full. It feels good to be always on the verge of something.

I know I don’t yet appreciate the gravity of that statement, but I think I am learning. The moment we first heard his heartbeat, I gasped and cried and squeaked like a small animal. You squeezed my hand. It was hard to know what to look at, I was so in love with both of you.