I’m pregnant with my second baby, and everyone kept warning me that the second time around would feel different. “You’ll be more emotional,” my mom said, in that knowing tone mothers use when they’re waiting for you to admit they were right. I rolled my eyes at her.
Turns out, she wasn’t completely wrong. But the storm of hormones didn’t come from my unborn child. It came from my husband.
During this pregnancy, I’ve wanted nothing more than to disappear into the couch with greasy takeout and whatever snack the baby demanded that hour. Hiding felt easier than being social. But Ava—my best friend and self-appointed pregnancy cheerleader—wasn’t having it.
“I found this adorable pottery studio,” she announced one afternoon while blending me a strawberry smoothie and lecturing me about self-care. My feet were propped up on her coffee table, swollen and aching. “They do these little pottery parties.
You sign up, paint something cute, hang out.”
“We paint pots?” I asked flatly, mentally listing a hundred other things I’d rather do. “Maybe! Or bowls, or nursery stuff,” she grinned.
“Liv, come on. We can make decorations for the baby’s room.”
I sighed dramatically. “Fine.
But you’re buying whatever the baby wants tonight.”
“Deal,” she laughed. “I already told Malcolm to stay home with Tess.”
That caught my attention. Ava had never been Malcolm’s biggest fan.
The fact that she’d coordinated with him ahead of time showed how determined she was to drag me out of the house. When we arrived at the studio, the place was buzzing. Fifteen women, maybe more.
Laughter, wine, paint splatters everywhere. It was meant to be lighthearted—a break from real life. We settled in with our brushes and palettes, and conversation drifted naturally toward birth stories.
Some women shared their own. Others repeated tales about sisters or cousins or dramatic midnight deliveries. Then one woman—brunette, nervous energy, too-wide smile—started telling a story about her boyfriend leaving her on the Fourth of July because his sister-in-law had gone into labor.
“We were watching a movie,” she said. “It was almost midnight. He suddenly got a call and said Olivia was in labor.
The whole family was rushing to the hospital. He said he had to go.”
My heart skipped. Tess was born on July 4th.
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