Read an Excerpt

The Fourth Trimester (0 to 3 Months)
 
Present day…or is it night?
Sometime, somewhere, some year
 
“OH SHIT!”
 
The pain hits, without warning, as if someone has just thrown a brick at my face. I fall to the floor. “Shit!” I cry out again, blinking back tears.
 
“What? What is it? What happened?” the Fiancé asks in a loud whisper, after racing in to find me rocking back and forth, groaning, on the floor, in a ball.
 
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I shriek. I’m seeing stars and fighting the urge to pee, which is always what happens when I hurt myself. What the hell just happened to me? What the hell did I just do? Where the hell am I? Who the hell am I? Shit!
 
“Shhh!” the Fiancé demands. He doesn’t sound as compassionate as he should, especially upon finding me, supposedly the love of his life, writhing in pain on the floor. “You have to be quiet! What happened?” he asks, hovering over me.
 
Is it just me, or does he sound incredibly annoyed? As if I wanted this to happen! What had happened?
 
I lift my head and see the red digits on the alarm clock. It’s 3:37 A.M. “Turn on the light! Just turn on the light!” I say, not even attempting to keep my voice down. Now I’m the one who sounds irritated.
 
He flicks on the switch. Right. I’m in our bedroom. Right. I haven’t been to sleep yet. Right. I haven’t slept a full eight hours in weeks. I touch my nose and feel wetness. I look at my hands. They’re covered in blood.
 
“I think I just broke my nose!” I cry, letting the tears fall.”
 
“What the hell happened?” he asks, looking at the blood pouring out of me like my nose is a tap. My entire face is pounding. I have a sudden migraine. I’m sweating. Even my teeth hurt. I think I might very well be one second away from throwing up.
 
I’m now in full-fledged sob mode. I manage to stutter, “I, uh, walked, uh, right into the, uh, wall! I, uh, think my nose, is, uh, broken!”
 
“Oh God! Oh God! How did that happen? Okay, I’m going to get you some ice and a towel. But please, try to be quiet! You have to be quiet!” He still sounds annoyed. His tone infuriates me. I didn’t mean for this to happen! I fight the impulse to tell him to go screw himself. He’s not the one who’s bleeding! He’s not the one who just broke his nose! He’s not the one who just walked smack into a wall! He has no idea how much pain I’m in.
 
I know he’s right though. I have to calm down. I have to be quiet. I pick myself up off the floor and wobble back into our king-size bed, trembling and sobbing like a baby. Of course I know now that babies don’t exactly sob. No, “sob” is definitely not the right word. Babies scream bloody murder, for hours, and for no reason. Whoever came up with the phrase “sobbing like a baby” apparently never had a baby, and certainly never lived with a newborn, like we do, in a two-bedroom condominium.
 
4:00 A.M.
 
I’m lying in bed with a bag of frozen peas on my face and two pieces of tissue stuck up my nose. I wonder where the Fiancé found the bag of frozen peas, since I don’t recall us ever eating frozen peas. Then I remember that I feel like I’m dying. I kind of wish I were dead. Why we have frozen peas in our freezer is the least of my worries.
 
“At least she’s finally asleep,” the Fiancé grumbles, climbing back into bed beside me. “I thought she’d never shut up. I can’t believe I have to get up and go to work in two hours!”
 
I’ve always pitied the Fiancé, not only because he’s a corporate lawyer but also because he has to wake up at such ungodly hours to do whatever it is he does all day being a corporate lawyer. I should say something sympathetic to him right now like “I know, sweetie, I know. I feel for you.” But I’m too tired, and in too much pain, to feel sympathy for anyone other than myself. I’m the one so exhausted I just walked directly into a friggin’ wall!
 
The Fiancé did, to his credit, halfheartedly suggest we go to the emergency room. I declined. “I’m too tired. I’m just so tired,” I said. Plus, the baby was finally asleep. After four hours of nonstop crying, the baby was asleep. Not even to find out if I had a broken nose, not even if I was having a heart attack, not even if Johnny Depp called and asked me to come over to his place, would I dare go anywhere if it meant possibly waking the baby.
 
It was my fault I may have just given myself the nose job I’ve always thought I might like to have. I had been trying to get the baby to fall asleep for what seemed like six months. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had called out to the Fiancé, who was in bed, “Can you come in here? Please?”
 
I knew he hadn’t fallen asleep yet either. There was no way. A fire alarm was a more soothing sound than this baby’s wails.
 
“I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t! I might hurt her if you don’t take over now!” I had told him. It was the first time I had actually thought about dumping the baby into her crib, putting a pillow over my face to drown out her cries, and giving up. I had tried everything to get her to fall asleep. I’d run tap water. I’d put her in her car seat. I’d rocked her. I’d sung to her. I’d put her in the swing. I’d walked around with her. I’d changed her. I’d fed her. I’d burped her. I’d put her in her bassinet. I’d done everything I could think of.
 
But every time I thought, “This is it. She’s finally down! God doesn’t hate me after all!” and attempted to tiptoe out of her room, she’d start wailing all over again. I honestly felt that if the Fiancé didn’t take over, I might injure the baby. At least I knew enough to know that I had had enough. I didn’t really want to harm the baby. I just wanted her to shut up, shut up, shut up!
 
When the Fiancé came into the baby’s room, I handed her over and headed back to our bedroom. That’s when I walked straight into the wall. Fuck.
 
“It’s so rewarding, isn’t it?” the Fiancé asks as I rearrange the bag of peas on my pounding face. I’m too tired to even attempt a smile. In fact, I don’t think it’s funny at all. How is it all those parents had told me when I was pregnant that having a baby would be “so rewarding”? Liars, all of them. Did their babies not make them want to run away from home and check in to the Four Seasons for a week? Or was it just this baby? Or was it just me? At what point would having a baby become “so rewarding”?”