I had an idea: I should publish my memoir Adventures With Postpartum Depression on my blog. So that is what I am doing. If you want to start at the beginning, start with The Prologue. If you want the actual book, it’s available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.

Nathan folded his hands as the waitress walked away with our menus. “I guess we should talk about kids.”

I burst out laughing. It was Monday morning, only a day and a half since my dad had walked me down the aisle while the DJ played the theme music from Star Wars. We were now having breakfast before running errands. There had been an ongoing issue with the front lawn’s sprinklers, and Nathan did not want the grass dying while we were on our honeymoon in Maui. I was more concerned with stocking up on sunblock and procuring magazines for tomorrow’s flight.

We had gotten married in Pasadena just a few miles from our house. My body was still glowing from the sheer joy of that evening: exchanging vows while my cousin Julia officiated; dancing the “Hava Nagila” with all our family and friends; playing with the boas and top hats in the photo booth; and twirling around the brick courtyard to a Bohemian dance number that involved lots of accordions.

“We don’t need to talk about that yet.” I patted Nathan’s hand. “Let’s enjoy the honeymoon first.”

I was not trying to dodge a difficult conversation. We had already decided we wanted to have children before we even got engaged.

“It’s just that we are not getting any younger.”

“I know. I’m not saying we need to wait until our forties.” I was thirty-two. He was thirty-one. “I just think we only get to be newlyweds once, so we should enjoy this before we leap into the next big phase of our life.”

“That makes sense. I don’t want to rush you. Besides, if you change your mind and don’t want to have kids, I will support you no matter what. It’s your body. I don’t want you to feel obligated to have kids for my sake.”

“Thanks, babe.” I peeled the top off a miniature half-and-half container. “Where should we go first? Home Depot or Walmart?”

***

“So what do you want to do today?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Except the Coke museum.”

My college friend Kendall laughed. I had dragged her and several friends to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta during college. Dartmouth required all students to attend school during the summer of their sophomore year. Most students went home for the long Fourth of July weekend, but Los Angeles was too far for a weekend trip. Kendall had convinced a bunch of us to go to her hometown instead. I was excited to visit Atlanta but had one condition: I had to go the Coke museum. Kendall had pleaded for us to do something else, anything else, explaining the museum was a big boring advertisement for the soda brand, but I could not be swayed. Sometimes we can learn only by making mistakes.

“Let’s go wine tasting.” That was Jason, Kendall’s husband, speaking. Jason and I had met our very first day of college, when we were assigned to the same pre-orientation hike in the woods.

I frowned. “They have wine tasting in Atlanta?”

“Of course,” Kendall said. “Georgia is the wine-making capital of the South.

Sometimes I am gullible. “Is that true?”

Kendall laughed. “I have no idea.”

I had flown to Atlanta for a long weekend with my college friends. Nathan had stayed home because I did not expect him to fly across the country to listen to Kendall, Jason and me reminisce about our college days. The Aires, a Dartmouth all-male a cappella group, was performing at a local school. I swear, I did not schedule my trip around a college a cappella group, but Kendall and I had some serious feelings about the Aires. Nathan would be much happier in Pasadena having breakfast at our favorite Mexican dive restaurant and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

As we drove to wine country, I sat in the back of the car with my friends’ seven-month-old baby, Annie. I made silly sounds and played peekaboo to amuse her.

Babies usually left me feeling hollow and bored. Inevitably the mother wanted me to hold her baby, and then I had to feign admiration while wondering when I could politely pass the baby back.

But not Annie. Or more accurately, she had evoked the “hot potato instinct” when I first met her, but after a few hours, I’d found myself enjoying her babbling company.

Nathan had asked about kids only once after the honeymoon. I had told him that I was not ready to get pregnant and would let him know when I was. He had assured me that I should take all the time I needed and would fully support any decision I made.

I had plenty of time to think. The job with the small firm had eventually made me even more miserable than the job with the big firm. I had resisted the idea of quitting, terrified that people would think I had waited for Nathan to propose so I could stay at home all day and eat bonbons. Nathan, though, told me repeatedly to stop worrying about what other people would think and pursue my dream of being a writer already. A few months before our wedding, I’d finally quit. Since the honeymoon, I had been working part-time from home, doing legal writing for a plaintiff’s attorney and using the rest of my time to write a novel. Lately, my life seemed to be divided into three parts: part-time creative writing, part-time legal writing, and full-time worrying about whether I truly wanted to have a baby.

When I asked myself if I wanted to have a baby, my inner self jumped up and down and screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” My lawyer brain thought that was too easy. Surely such a momentous decision required a little more thought.

And so I thought. I read all the books I could find that addressed the weighty matter of choosing to be a mother or not. Then I wrote, pondered, and reflected in my journal. Between my history major and legal career, I knew how to weigh and analyze evidence, but those skills were not helping me answer the question at hand. How would I ever know that I absolutely wanted to be a mother?

The Atlanta visit was a nice vacation from that nagging question.

One afternoon, we stopped by the grocery store, where I pushed Annie around in a shopping cart. I stopped in the produce section and dramatically picked up a pineapple. Her eyes widened in wonder.

Jason drove me to the airport for my flight home. One last time, I sat in the back with Annie. Before I left, I kissed her forehead and whispered, “Good-bye, Annie. I love you.” I had not planned on saying that but realized as I spoke the words that they were true.

I had my answer.

Except that answer gave rise to yet another question.

***

The hummingbird perched on the stick. I raised it a few inches off the ground into the air. It started to flap its wings.

“That’s it, little guy, you’ve got this.”

It hovered in the air for a few seconds and then crashed back onto the grass.

“That’s okay, maybe you need a little more rest and nectar.”

An hour ago, I had discovered the hummingbird lying on the sidewalk in front of my house. I assumed it was dead but, upon closer examination, discovered its chest was moving. A quick internet search suggested the hummingbird had fallen from its nest and was now stunned. It would need nectar before it could possibly fly again.

I had raced to the hardware store and procured a hummingbird feeder and a gallon of red nectar.

My neighbor Alice pulled into her driveway.

“What are you doing?”

“I found this hummingbird.

She gasped. “Oh! It’s so tiny and perfect.”

“I think it must have been trying to fly a little too early.”

“Poor baby.”

Alice dropped her purse and settled on to the sidewalk next to me. We had been neighbors for over a year now, and Alice often updated me on her pregnancy status. It amazed me how easily Alice spoke of her struggles with infertility. She was a breath of fresh air, but at the same time, her honesty made me squirm. Since she wanted to talk about pregnancy tests and IVF, her very presence made me think about babies.

Nathan and I had been married for eight months now. Ever since I had returned from Atlanta a month ago, I knew I wanted to have a baby, but now I was struggling with another dilemma: Should I be a mother? It did not seem fair to bring a baby into this world unless I would be a good mama.

Nathan got home a little before twilight. He made a nest at the edge of our garage, and I transferred the bird to its evening quarters. We went inside for dinner and Mario Kart. Every twenty minutes or so, I paused the game and went back outside to whisper reassurances to the hummingbird and offer it another sip of nectar.

The hummingbird survived the night and even managed to flop itself eight or nine feet away from the garage. I found the contact information for a hummingbird expert in Hollywood, and she told me to take the bird to the Humane Society. There was legal research that needed my attention, but this was more urgent.

A couple of days later, I called the Humane Society to see how the bird was faring. It had peeped on the drive over in its little shoe box bed. I knew it was going to be fine. I provided the case reference number and waited as the volunteer tapped it out on a keyboard.

“It died yesterday.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone.

Lowered my head into my hands.

And wept.

When I’d first quit the small firm, I’d started writing a fluffy comic novel about a disastrous wedding. After a few months of writing, it morphed into a more serious story about a woman whose twin brother died in college. My grief over Kim’s death had finally found a way to bubble to the surface. By writing about a fictional character’s loss and how it affected her, I was able to come to terms with my own feelings.

As I wept for the hummingbird, I also cried for my cousin. My tears were not enough to cure my anxious tendencies. The anxiety was far too deeply embedded in my body, mind, and soul to be so easily resolved. But I did cry enough to answer the question of whether or not I would be a good mother. At least, that was what I thought was happening: that I truly needed proof that I would be a good mother and the fact that I could feel so much love for a hummingbird was the proof I sought.

What was actually happening, I realized later, was a little more complicated. The questions of whether I would be a good mother and whether I actually wanted to have a baby were delay tactics. So long as we weren’t trying to get pregnant, whether or not we had a child was in my control. As soon as we started trying, I opened myself up to the possible pain of infertility, miscarriage, premature delivery, and a baby with health issues. I lost absolute control. That was terrifying.

Something about the hummingbird’s death took away that terror. Less than a week later, Nathan and I started trying to have a baby of our own.

***

My general physician scribbled some notes on my chart. “I’d like to get an X-ray before I order physical therapy,” she said.

I had hurt my back while testing beach chairs at the drugstore. The pain had subsided after a couple of weeks of painkillers and heating pads, but after a cross-country flight, it had flared up again.

“Sounds good,” I said. “Oh, by the way, we’ve been trying to get pregnant.”

My period had come and gone three times since we started trying and was due again in a few more days. I assumed that since I knew so many women who suffered from infertility, I would struggle with it as well. At a recent checkup, though, my obstetrician had said we should try for a year before worrying about that.

“I don’t want to give you an X-ray if you are pregnant, so let’s do a urine test.”

I peed into a cup, certain that I would be getting an X-ray in ten minutes. Back in the examination room, I flipped through magazines and berated my heart for daring to beat a little faster.

A nurse opened the door. Avoiding eye contact, she said, “The doctor will be with you shortly.”

My heart sank. At least Nathan had promised I could have a herd of dachshunds if we could not have children.

The door opened again. This time it was the doctor, smiling as if she had won the lottery. She was waving something around in her hand, but for a moment, I could not process what it was.

Yellow.

Square.

Paper.

A yellow sticky note. It was a yellow sticky note.

And what was that scrawled on the sticky note?

Was that . . . ?

Could it be . . . ?

A plus sign?

I jumped to my feet.

“I’m pregnant?!”

“Congratulations!”

The doctor’s phlebotomist drew my blood to confirm the urine test.

“This is so perfect.” I had never been so happy to let someone stab me with a needle. “I wanted to get pregnant after a year of marriage and our anniversary is next week.”

“Ooh, you should wait until your anniversary to tell your husband, and then you can surprise him with a onesie for his favorite sports team.”

“That’s a great idea.”

As soon as I stepped out of the building, I called Nathan. There was no way I could wait a week to share the news.

***

“Wake up, baby!”

The image on the ultrasound screen stayed in the same place.

The doctor, a man in his sixties with a Caribbean accent, wiggled my stomach around with the ultrasound scanner. He was an obstetrician who specialized in ultrasounds. My regular obstetrician did not have any concerns about my baby, but she sent all her patients here during the second trimester.

Nathan had been excited when I called him with the news that I was pregnant. My excitement soon morphed into another feeling: awe. I had to drive home from the doctor’s office and realized I was no longer driving for one. If something happened to me, it would also happen to my baby.

My parents were on vacation in New York when I learned I was pregnant. My sister, who is ten years younger than me, was also in New York, studying art business. I decided to surprise them with the big news when they were back in California and ordered mugs that said “World’s Best Grandpa,” “World’s Best Grandma” and “Best Aunt Ever.”

I gave them the mugs on a Sunday in early August. I was seven weeks pregnant, and my mom nearly fainted when she realized what her gift meant. Everyone was so excited, we decided we had to call my brother Matt and sister-in-law Sara right away. No one bothered to calculate the time difference between Los Angeles and South Africa. Let’s just say that my brother was less than thrilled when I woke him in the middle of the night. (Even Peace Corps volunteers get cranky.)

“Your baby,” the specialist said, “do you want to know the sex?”

“She’s a girl.” During the first trimester, I had gotten an expensive blood test called the Ashkenazi Jewish panel because my mom is Jewish. It was a genetic test to rule out recessive disorders like cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs that are common among the Ashkenazi Jewish people. Insurance did not cover the test, so to make the $800 bill more palatable, my obstetrician made sure the test results included the baby’s sex.

“She is indeed. She does not want to wake up.”

“I didn’t realize babies sleep inside the uterus.”

“Oh yes, they sleep, and your baby seems very determined to stay asleep in this position so I can’t check her measurements.”

“That’s okay. I just like getting to see her.” Though I had no idea what I was actually seeing on the ultrasound screen.

As if reading my mind, the doctor pointed at the grainy blob. “This is her head.”

“Her head.”

“These are her hands.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Come on, baby, wake up.” More jiggling.

“Do all babies do this?”

“Babies often get into the wrong position, but your baby is taking longer than usual to wake up.”

“Is that bad?”

“Bad?” The doctor chuckled. “She’s stubborn. Like my daughter. Which is good when she is a woman, but not so easy on the parents. Ah, there she goes.”

I felt awful—nauseated, constipated, and the pain in my back would not subside—but as the doctor measured my daughter’s limbs, all those crappy feelings faded away. I was going to be a mom! That grainy blob on the screen was my baby!

Besides, the first trimester was nearly over. Surely my hormones had done their worst. From here on out, it would be easy street.

My hormones, though, were just getting started.

Chapter Four is here. ! But if you prefer reading the proper book, Adventures With Postpartum Depression is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Baker & Taylor and Borrow Box.