Julia Fierro - Cutting Teeth

“We don’t have a choice, Nic,” Josh had said. “We can’t return him.”

It was a story they now told to their friends, most parents to little children, chuckling at their naïveté over a bottle of wine, on a night they’d booked a babysitter. They could look back on the terror they had felt (this tiny little life in their hands) and laugh because there had been so much to love since that first night. The warm doughy smell of Wyatt’s newborn scalp. His first belly laugh. The satisfied flutter of his lashes as her milk let down ten seconds after he latched on to her breast. The way he lifted his chin and closed his eyes when she buckled his scooter helmet, an invitation for a kiss she could not resist. The first time he had looked at her, and said, “You my best friend, Mama.”

There were the nights she had watched him fall asleep, his eyelids like a shade slowly drawn. When he slipped into slumber, his breath deepening, diminishing, she tortured herself with the thought that he was gone forever — all for that moment of ecstasy when she thought, no! he was still with her, and they had so many years ahead. They — the new life that was their little family — had just begun.

Before had become a powerful word. One that needed no explanation when you were talking to another parent to a child under five. In life after children, Nicole often felt as if she were a character in a story; sometimes fraught with urgent meaning (fevers, falls, first steps), where time sped by, so fleeting that it made her crave for more life, for a hundred years even. Mostly, the story slogged along in monotonous tedium (diaper rashes, runny noses, potty-training purgatory).

Four years ago, she had woken groggy and sore, three layers of her body sliced open during the last-minute Caesarean that had interrupted Wyatt’s birth. She rose as if still dreaming, into a new story, one that came prepopulated. She hadn’t chosen these mommies and daddies. They were just the players that came with Wyatt. She had spent hours and hours with them only because they shared the story, which was a comedy, and occasionally, a tragedy. A story about loving little children.

What fools we are, she thought, to love something so brief, so fragile, as life. And especially that handful of sweet, little-children years. For all their complaining, Nicole knew that every mommy and daddy chided themselves each time they took these years for granted. It might be the best time of their lives. What else was there, after this? Freedom, sure. But for what? For ambition? For career? To grow old? To scrapbook, to join a book club, or garden or journal or renovate? Was that what she was waiting for?

Nicole knew there would be no more Friday afternoon playgroups. Excuses would be made. Lingering fevers, pediatrician appointments, nap-scheduling conflicts. The end hadn’t come after all, but another had, and she felt certain she was to blame.

HANKSDADDY76 BIG NEWS! I’m starting the TWO-WEEK-WAIT! Anyone else?? Could use buddies to chat with to get through this brutal wait! How early have people started feeling symptoms? How soon can implantation start?

It’s been 4+ years since I had a baby. I’m rusty, girls!

Me: 36

My Wife: 35

Son: Henry (aka Hank the Tank) DOB 8/3/2006 (IVF #3)

TTC #2 since December 2009

Diagnosis: Sperm mobility

HOPEFUL80 OMG!!

That is the best news EVER, HANKSDADDY76!!!!!

No one deserves to be a daddy more than you!

How many days ’til you can take a preg test?

Fingers crossed that you get a BIG FAT ++++++++++++++++++++

Me: 28 (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome)

Dear Hubby: 30 (Normal Swimmers)

Married: August 2007

2 Fur Babies (Brandy & Bailey)

TTC #1 since Nov. 2008

Miscarriage 8/13/10 6w1d (ectopic) Looking more and more like IVF in 2012 …

MAMA2ANGELS I’ll pray for sticky beans for you, HANKSDADDY76. Put your trust in the hands of God!

Blessings to you and your wife. Bet your little guy is excited to be a big brother (God willing!)

Me: 39

Husband: 42

June 2005—mc @ 6 weeks

July 2007—mc @ 8 weeks

March 2010—mc @ 9.5 weeks

On the TTC journey as of January 2005

HANKSDADDY76 Ladies! What would I do without you?

Re: MAMA2ANGELS — thanks for the prayers. I need them!

Things are a little complicated these days.

But all is good! I might have a bundle of joy on the way.

Let’s just say a VERY good friend may turn out to be the surrogate mama of my dreams.

Let’s hope that evil witch doesn’t show up.

Me: 36

My Wife: 35

Son: Henry (aka Hank the Tank) DOB 8/3/2006 (IVF #3)

TTC #2 since December 2009

Diagnosis: Sperm mobility

XCITED_2BA_MOMMY Hot damn! Daddy has a bun in the oven. Spill the beans on this mysterious mama, buddy!!

Me: 32

Fiance: 38

Daughter: Mackenzie DOB 5/22/07

TTC #2 since December 2009

Diagnosis: Unexplained infertility

Member of “Clomid Chicks”

HANKSDADDY76 Re: XCITED_2BA_MOMMY — All in good time!

10 minus 2 days and counting … More soon …

In the meantime, say it with me, ladies: STICKY BABY DUST! STICKY BABY DUST!

Endless gratitude to my ideal readers, the two women who believed in and accepted my complicated characters with open arms: Maria Massie, my brilliant agent, who made everything possible; and Elizabeth Beier, my literary fairy godmother, and the most charming and enthusiastic of editors, for her relentless optimism, boundless vocabulary, warmth, wit, and genius.

Caeli Wolfson Widger — my constant reader and my literary kindred spirit — you made this novel sing with your generous, and always spot-on, edits. Heather Aimee O’Neill, thank you, dear friend, for luring me back into writing.

To everyone at St. Martin’s Press — you are as fabulous as the building that houses you, and the most hardworking and patient team an author can ask for, especially Michelle Richter, whose honesty and humor kept me grounded. Stephanie Hargadon, Angelique Giammarino, Anya Lichenstein, and Dori Weintraub — I owe you a lifetime of hand-delivered cupcakes.

Thank you to Cutting Teeth ’s earliest readers, whose generosity and kind words reminded me why I write: Emma Straub, Megan Abbott, Karen Thompson Walker, Therese Anne Fowler, Joyce Johnson, Michele Filgate, Deborah Copaken Kogan, and Bret Anthony Johnston.

Twelve years worth of gratitude to the two thousand five hundred students and instructors who have passed through the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop since 2002, and a very special thank-you to my own students. I am grateful for every workshop around my kitchen table with the talented and compassionate writers who helped me believe, with a religious fervor, that anything is possible.