Baby Love Read Free Page B

head out of a storage bin at the back of the closet. I had forgotten about those. Weren’t several of my friends still paying off their student loans, and didn’t they seem as neurotic and happy as anybody else? I gently extracted a purple sweater from the giveaway pile.
    Having a partner who thinks rationally and optimistically even when I cannot does not eliminate my anxiety about supporting another human being for the next twenty years, but it certainly helps.

April 22
    I made it back from Minneapolis last night in one piece, but this morning I almost killed myself with a spritz of perfume. I’ve been trying to ignore the growing intensity of my reaction to smells, but today I just couldn’t. I took off all my clothes, got back in the shower, and scrubbed off the barest hint of perfume I had put on my neck. Then I drove to my homeopath’s office grumbling about what a bummer it is that I can’t wear scent without feeling like I am on a capsizing catamaran.
    Marie’s excitement cheered me up. I feel it’s her victory, too, because from the moment I said I wanted to have a baby, she’s been right there with me, giving me flower tinctures and vitamin D, progesterone tablets and visualizations of myself big and pregnant with a happy, healthy baby.
    After the hugs and whoops, I confessed that I almost gave up on our noninvasive plan because I thought that after six months, I wasn’t getting any younger and should try the medical model. I told her that I had already scheduled the HSG (hysterosalpingogram), where they inject dye into your fallopian tubes to see if they work, and I had a prescription for the ovulation-inducing Clomid in my bag. It was the preliminary, precautionary pregnancy test Dr. Lowen ordered that revealed the fruit of our homeopathic work.
    Marie didn’t bat an eye or get judgmental, and that’s why I love her, my kindhearted M.D. homeopath. She just said, Well, good thing you didn’t have to go through all of that! and started making a list of all the foods I should start eating: farm-raised lamb, eggs, Norwegian fish oil.
    Then we talked about whether I should stop taking the low-dose antidepressant I’ve been taking to counteract God-knows-how-many generations of depression in my family tree. The thought of quitting cold turkey is terrifying. I have gone from being skeptical of my little purple pill, to angry that I need it, to hugely grateful to all of the good people in big pharma involved in creating it. I’m not exaggerating when I say it has allowed me to have some semblance of a normal life.
    As I looked on expectantly, Marie checked her big pharmaceutical handbook to see if trials have been done on pregnant women. Limited trials, she said, but the drug is rated B for pregnancy, which means it’s not stellar, but it is doable. I looked at her across the desk covered with mugs, supplements, and files. Unless we know for sure that it will hurt the baby, I said, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stop. The first thing depression takes from me is hope, and I am pretty sure I can’t have a baby without that. She agreed.
    I left her office feeling good about the decision, but still full of concern. In addition to all of the other ways I can lose or harm this baby, I can now add the possibility of damaging his nervous system with what to some is an optional drug.
    I also wonder about straddling the medical ob/gyn and homeopathic worlds. In theory they are compatible, but in reality I am not so sure. Dr. Lowen is all business and efficiency, Formica and fluorescents, and Marie is soft lighting and colorful art, hugs and flower remedies. Of course, Marie says they are compatible—after all, she is an M.D.—and Dr. Lowen tries to sound sympathetic when I mention the natural methods. But in real life, there seems to be an eerie disconnect between the two that leaves me slightly uncertain about both.
    Which brings me back to where I started, at the perfume that triggered