Chris Marselli

Baby Food

One of the women raised her hand and Carmen nodded toward her.

"What happens if you can't get your milk flowing?"

"Like they mentioned in the video, the first couple hours are the most important, but if it doesn't happen, don't worry. Today there are lots of steps you can take before giving up. Always start with the assumption that your baby will be breastfed for at least the first several months and work from there. It wasn't long ago that formula didn't even exist, so they had to figure it out. It may seem strange at first, but it's the most natural and sensible thing you can do."

"And probably most important of all is the bonding between you and your child. You don't want to miss that experience."

Hope looked around. She sensed that her comment might have been a bit inappropriate. After last week's class, Carmen had asked her to try to leave more room for others to participate.

Hope got in her minivan and headed across town to Memorial Hospital. There was a presentation by a child psychologist that she should be able to make if she didn't find too much traffic. She wanted to be as prepared as possible. Her first marriage, along with several attempts to get pregnant, including five in vitro fertilizations, had failed. After the divorce, Hope was more determined than ever. She read just about every book on pregnancy and parenting she could get her hands on, prepared the baby's room, and bought clothes for the first year, the stroller, car seat, crib, high chair, and a pile of toys, books, stuffed animals, and dolls.

The prenatal classes had given Hope a boost, but she worried that she wasn't showing. Some time during the third month of classes she found PregPros.com, a prosthetics company that specialized in devices for the movie industry.

Hope ordered a four-month model for nearly $500. Ten days later it was on her doorstep when she arrived home from work on Friday. She carried the box upstairs to her bedroom, dropped her jacket and briefcase on the floor and the box on her bed. She pounced on it, jerking the lid open to get past the packaging tape and on to the contents inside. The skin felt almost real, and the tone was nearly perfect. They had matched it to the color swatch she had provided along with her measurements on their website. The navel seemed a bit odd, but she imagined that it was how hers might look at four months.

Hope took off her shirt and pants. She wrapped the device around her stomach, buckling and then pulling tight the three straps that fastened behind her back. The skin sections extended around with the straps and there was a flap that hung below her waist that she tucked into her underwear. Hope opened the pamphlet that lay on her bed and glanced at the drawing to confirm that she had done everything right, then turned and looked at herself in the full-length mirror of her closet door.

She put her hand to her mouth as she let out a quick nervous giggle. She was pregnant. Hope put both hands on her belly and rubbed it as she had seen so many other expecting mothers do over the years. She then went to the closet and picked out and put on one of her maternity dresses, a blue denim jumper. The fit was just right.

Hope returned to work two Monday's later after taking the entire Thanksgiving week off. She was still able to wear her normal professional attire and wasn't obviously showing, but had already decided to let her boss and colleagues know that she was nearly four months into her pregnancy.

Later that week in her prenatal class, Carmen noticed right away.

"A couple weeks go by and now you're showing. It always seems to go that way, especially with the thinner women. Nothing looks different, then boom, it's really obvious."

Hope's pregnancy went along smoothly. She used her clothes to gradually uncover and expose her waistline, wearing progressively looser-fitting garments as the weeks ticked by. After a few months, she ordered the six to seven month device from PregPros and started the process over again.

One night during her seventh month, she was sitting in the baby's room in the rocking chair next to the crib, listening to the "Free Floating, Sounds from the Womb" CD, and eating jars of organic baby food. She stopped and looked up. She had felt something move. Hope put her hand on her belly and waited in vain for it to happen again.

One of the classes during the final weeks was on birthing positions. The topic fascinated Hope and she had already studied it quite extensively. At the end of the class time, the instructor offered to give a quick tour of the maternity ward to anyone interested in staying. Hope jumped at the opportunity and was joined by three of the other women from her class.

The tour started in one of the private rooms and then moved onto the more sterile and medically-equipped delivery area. Carmen made special note of the things that were relevant to the day's topic in both rooms. They wrapped up the tour with a stop at the windows of the nursery--six babies in six little clear plastic hospital cribs, each on a cart, like room service trays waiting to be delivered to their guests.

Seeing the babies made Hope feel dizzy. She sagged forward against the window, catching herself with her hands on the glass. She quietly cried. Carmen moved to her and put an arm around her.

"It's ok."

"I'm afraid I'll never be a mother."

"You're almost there. I know you can do it. You're my most determined and enthusiastic student."

Hope regained her composure and left the hospital. Carmen had been right. She could do it if she just stuck to it.

Over the next few weeks, Hope redoubled her efforts. She finished the preparations at home, settled on Heather as her baby's name, ordered the full-term prosthetic, and made her final plans at work and at the hospital.

Four days after the due date she had set, Hope called her boss to let her know that she had started to go into labor.

At ten at night, she took off her prosthetic, put on her scrubs, and headed off to the hospital. She beeped herself into the maternity wing with Carmen's prox card and made her way straight into the nursery where five newborns were all sleeping.

Everything was going as planned, but as Hope approached the cribs, she froze. The collective calm, the magic of the five sleeping angels, held her in place.

One of the babies began to cry and the spell was broken. Hope moved instinctively toward the crib and picked up the boy, so tiny and helpless with a full head of dark hair and lanugo fuzz on his shoulders and arms. He was red and getting redder as he cried. Hope rocked him gently and sang to him.

"The sun has gone to sleep.
The moon's already out.
The stars are all twinkling.
Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight."

He calmed down and fell back asleep, limp in her arms. She noticed the strap on his left wrist, Jason William Stevens, and wondered what his mother's name might be.

Hope was putting Jason back in his crib when the nurse entered the ward.

"I didn't know there was anybody else on duty."

Hope hesitated.

"I'm not. Actually, I...I just needed to hold this baby. I mean, this baby needed to be held."

The nurse looked at Hope without speaking. Hope looked down at Jason for a moment and things came into focus.

"I seem to have misplaced my purse and came in to see if I might have left it here in the nursery. The last I remember having it was here just as I was leaving at the end of my shift earlier today, so I came by to see if I could find it. When the baby cried, I naturally picked him up."

"Did you find it?"

"Unfortunately no, but at least I know I'm not going to find it here."

Hope turned and walked out of the room, went to her minivan and drove home. When she arrived, she unhooked the car seat and brought it inside, then spent the next three hours boxing up all of Heather's things.

Two days later, Hope called her boss and told her that she had lost the baby in the delivery and that she would be in touch as soon as she could.