I joined the Mom Club—had to, there was no way around that—but I counted the day a good one if both Violet and I were clean and fed and had slept more than five hours total in a night. I had three months of maternity leave, but by the end of eight weeks, I felt like I was fraying at the edges. Being a stay-at-home mom was nothing like I imagined it would be.
Kate called at least once a day to check in on me, even if she could only chat for a minute or two. She’d had her daughter, Victoria, six months before and her firm had a really generous maternity plan, so she’d just gone back to the office and was working like crazy, trying to make sure she wasn’t mommy-tracked. “It’ll get easier,” she told me. “I promise.” But it didn’t feel like it was.
I was nursing, and Violet ate practically all day. Or at least that was what it seemed like. On some days I didn’t even bother putting on a shirt. And I came up with what I called the Fecal Incident Levels. Level One was no big deal. Level Two filled a diaper. Level Three leaked out through the leg holes. Level Four oozed up her back. Level Five was the worst—it basically meant there was feces smeared from her shoulders to knees. It required a bath. And often a change of clothes for me too. Between Levels Three, Four, and Five, I threw away so many onesies, it’s amazing she had enough to wear.
One day, though, Violet somehow managed to reach Fecal Incident Level Six. We’d had a great morning. She was clean, I was clean, we’d both eaten—though I hadn’t really slept more than three hours in succession in days—and since the heat in the apartment was blasting, she was wearing only a diaper and a T-shirt. She had just started to smile, and my heart melted a little each time she did.
We were having such a good day that I’d decided to make a real dinner, something that had happened maybe twice in the last eight weeks. I’d put Violet in a little baby seat that vibrated and turned it on. Then I’d defrosted some chicken and started breading it. The radio was on—a ’60s station that reminded me of my dad—and I started singing along to “My Girl.” My hands were covered in eggs and bread crumbs, but I felt great. And then Violet started wailing.
I looked over, and froze. The first ever Fecal Incident Level Six. Maybe it was because of the vibrating chair, or the angle she was sitting in, or the lack of clothing other than diaper and T-shirt, but somehow there was poop on her thighs that had gotten onto her hands and into her hair. I took a deep breath, quickly rinsed my hands, and lifted her out of the seat. She flailed her arms, so now there was poop on my cheek, on my shirt, and my wrist. And then she spit up in my hair. She was still screaming, and I started crying too.
That was how Darren found us.
“Lucy?” I heard him yell from the entryway. “What’s going on? Why’s Violet . . . ?” And then he made it to the kitchen. “Oh,” he said. “Oh my God.”
He dropped his briefcase on the floor and took off his suit jacket. “I got the poop machine,” he said. “You go shower.”
I looked at him and took a shaky breath. “Strip first,” I said. “You don’t want to get this on your suit. And she’s not just a poop machine. She’s a puke machine too.”
“Yikes,” he said, working the buttons on his shirt and dropping it on top of his jacket. “What do you think the headline should be for this one? Naked Man Saves Wife from Soiled Baby?”
I laughed a little bit. “How about Naked Man Does What Wife Does All Day Long with Soiled Baby?” I suggested.
“Really?” he asked. “This happens a lot?” He’d gotten completely naked, except for his boxer briefs, and took Violet. “Oh, gross,” he said, once he had her by her armpits.
“Well, not a Level Six,” I told him, “but Level Five isn’t that rare.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, as the three of us walked to the master bathroom. It had both a tub and a shower, and we’d put the little plastic baby bathtub in the larger one for Violet. Annie joined our parade once we got upstairs, barking her confusion.
Darren started the water for Violet’s bath while I stripped and got in the shower and Annie curled herself up on the little rug in front of the sink. Through the steam, I explained to him about Fecal Incident Levels. And while I was at it, I told him that I wanted to go back to work when my maternity leave was over. That I needed to. We’d been having this conversation since late in my pregnancy, but I’d put off making an official decision because it had felt like there were too many variables, there was too much I didn’t know. I knew what Darren wanted me to do, though.
“I thought we’d discussed this,” he said.
“We did,” I said, as I quickly shampooed my puke-stained hair. “And now we’re discussing it again.”
“But I thought you agreed that Violet would be better off with you than with a stranger. No one will take care of her the way you will.”
I leaned my head back into the shower stream. “To be honest,” I said, “I think that you’re wrong. And that’s only part of the issue. I’ve been thinking about this thing that my grandfather used to say all the time: Those who can, do. He meant it as a mantle of responsibility. If you can help someone, if you can do something good, if you can make a difference, you should. And I can. I’m capable of making more of a contribution to the world than I would be making if I stayed home with Violet every day. I made a commitment to myself on September Eleventh to live my life in a way that would give back. And I want to do that. I need to do that.”
“But don’t you love being home with Violet?” Darren asked, as if he hadn’t heard a word I said.
I took a deep breath. “There are moments that are wonderful,” I said. “But I love being an associate producer, too. I love making television shows. I’ve worked my ass off for the last five years, and I’m good at what I do. I’m not good at this.”
“You just need more time,” he said, dropping Violet’s T-shirt and soiled diaper into the trash can. “There’s no way you can think your job is more important than your daughter.”