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Addie had never felt so alone in her life. All of her friends loved being mothers. Sure, they were a little sleep deprived, but they were happy. Having babies seemed to only enrich their lives, whereas, for Addie, she felt as though hers was a complete and utter mess.
Addie lasted exactly four months before she finally gave in to Patrick’s demands that she quit. He assured her that she would feel better without all of the pressure to do it all. On one hand, Addie thought that maybe Patrick was right. She did feel a ton of pressure. And all of her friends who had had children and now stayed at home seemed really happy with their choices. They’d all said that they wouldn’t have it any other way. So Addie gave her notice and tried not to look back. She was afraid that if she did, she wouldn’t like the reflection staring back at her.
Once Addie quit her job, she threw herself in to motherhood. She became consumed by it, and she found that Patrick was happier. Baby Connor was finally coming around, finally turning in to a chubby little thing that cooed and even smiled on occasion. While he cried less, he still cried a lot. There were days when Addie found herself laying Connor in his crib during one of his screaming fits and walking outside. She’d sit on the front porch for so long that sometimes she couldn’t be sure how long she had stayed out there. Was it minutes or hours? Time seemed inconsequential. The days dragged on, bled from one to another, all seeming exactly the same. Minutes gave way to hours and the hours into days then months. Addie wondered what she did to deserve this. She wondered why she wasn’t good enough and how she could fail at something that was supposed to be innate. Who failed at motherhood, anyway? Why couldn’t she love being a mother the way her friends did? And just how did she get here, in this place, where the girl, or was it woman now, didn’t even recognize herself? Still, she said nothing. She endured and smiled through her unhappiness, all the while promising never to let herself become this invisible again.
Thankfully, somewhere around Connor’s first birthday, things gradually started to shift. He started sleeping for six hours at a stretch, allowing Addie to finally get some uninterrupted sleep. He started walking more and crying less. Addie became happier too, finding little pieces of herself again. Patrick was as involved in his career as ever, but you could tell that, as Connor was becoming more of a little boy, Patrick found it easier to interact with him. Sometimes on Saturdays, Patrick would take Connor to breakfast and the park, leaving Addie with almost a half a day to herself.
It was also around this time that Addie and Patrick started communicating again. Before, it was all the same: the feedings, the changings, and the crying, but now that Connor was doing so many new things each day, there was more to discuss. It was also around this time that the sex life that they both had once enjoyed so much, the glue that had always held them together, started to come back. Slowly but surely, they became a couple again and, with that, a family—the kind of family that Addie had always wanted. Sure it wasn’t the perfect sitcom family she once thought it would be, but it was perfectly hers, and for that she was grateful. She couldn’t ask for more.
Addie had made up her mind that she was done having children, at least for a very long while, and while she didn’t discuss her decision with Patrick or anyone else, it thankfully never came up.
So a year later, when Addie found herself dizzy and vomiting, she didn’t think, not even for a minute, that she might be pregnant. It was actually Patrick who suggested it.
“Nah.” Addie reminded him. “There is no way. We’ve been using protection.”
“Um, yeah, except for that one time that we didn’t.” Patrick said with the shit-eating grin that Addie both loved and hated.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “What one time?!”
“You know, last month, in the parking garage, after my company party.”
“Oh shit, Patrick. Wait. I thought we did! You mean we didn’t?”
Patrick rolled his eyes. “No. Addie. I don’t exactly carry condoms around with me everywhere I go.”
Addie paced the room. “Damn it. I must have been really drunk. I hardly remember that.”
Addie pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling faint.
“Gee thanks.” Patrick called over his shoulder as he walked out, slamming the door behind him.
The next morning when Addie peed on the stick, much to her dismay, two bright blue lines quickly appeared.
She stormed out of the bathroom and over to the bed where Patrick was still sleeping. As she sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at him, he stirred and rolled over, peeking his eyes open “What time is it?” he asked groggily.
“Five thirty. Wake up. It turns out you were right.”
Patrick rubbed his eyes. “Isn’t that usually the case? What am I right about this time?”
“This.” Addie said, shoving the test into his chest.
He sat up and glanced down at the test in Addie’s hands that clearly told him that she was pregnant. “You don’t seem very enthusiastic. It’s not as if we’d planned to stop at one.” He said, squeezing her knee.
“I guess it’s just the timing. I’m not ready. I was actually thinking about going back to work next year with Connor turning three and all. Plus, we had such a hard time with him. What if this one turns out the same way? Or worse?”
“Bad luck never strikes twice.”
Addie frowned.
“Seriously? This is the first time I’ve heard you talk of returning to work. I thought we had come to an agreement and put that thought behind us?”
Addie stood and rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“Well, I, for one, am over the moon. Connor is going to love being a big brother.”
Addie smiled, shook her head, and prayed to God that he was right about this too, of course.
Three weeks later, Addie found herself sitting in the sterile waiting room of her doctor’s office, nervous for a reason that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She felt uneasy, and she had the slightest of feelings that it wasn’t just the excessive nausea she was dealing with. Perhaps, it was just that Patrick was running late. Something had caught him up at the office, which wasn’t surprising.
