1.5: Starting a Family

~*~Saskia’s Point of View~*~

It took me a few months to fall pregnant. I was really excited when the test came back positive. Unfortunately, the first sign of my pregnancy was morning sickness. Or should I say constant nausea. I felt like a puke machine. It was awful. I couldn’t help but wish for the pregnancy vitamins we had in Oasis Landing, they were apparently amazing at stopping morning sickness.

I spent more time in the bathroom than anywhere else. I just had to clean my teeth all the time to get rid of the foul taste in my mouth. Then by the time I was feeling clean again, the nausea would be back.

After what felt like an eternity but was really more like 8 weeks, the nausea started to fade to just an occasional feeling. This meant I could get back to my garden which was crying for attention. It was out in the garden that I felt the first little flutter kicks of my baby. I was so excited that I almost ran inside to tell Paul, before remembering that he was at work.

Throughout my pregnancy I continued to work on my cooking skills. I was getting a lot better at cooking which was lucky since I was craving pancakes for almost every meal. I managed to avoid causing anymore fires, and Paul informed me that my creations were starting to taste more like food and less like cardboard.

As my pregnancy progressed both Paul and I became even more excited about the impending arrival of our child. Every night, after Paul came home from work, we would sit down and read parenting books. I think Paul read the books mostly because of his excitement, whereas I was trying to learn as much as I could about how babies were raised in this time. There wasn’t going to be any sleep syrup or plumbot nannies to help with this baby.

Even though we were both excited about the baby, Paul made sure we spent lots of time together before the baby came. He would take me out every weekend, always surprising me with another exciting date. We both knew that we wouldn’t have as much time to go out together once we had a newborn, so we cherished those times together.

One sunny afternoon we went out to the nearby beach and had a picnic. The food was simple, burgers and hot dogs, but delicious all the same.

“Thank you for doing all this, Paul. I know how busy you have been lately. It’s lovely to spend time with you.”

“You don’t have to thank me darling. You are the most important thing in my life.” Paul insisted.

Once we had finished off the yummy picnic food we just sat and talked. Paul told me about work and I told him about my gardening.

“How are you feeling about your pregnancy, Saskia? Has my little man been giving you any trouble today?” Paul asked with a proud smile. He had been overjoyed when the ultrasound had revealed that our child was a boy.

“I feel pretty good at the moment. My back is starting to hurt a little when I spend too long in my garden. He’s been kicking a lot lately. It’s scary and exhilarating at the same time; knowing that there is a new person growing inside of me.”

“I can’t wait until he is here. It’s so exciting.”

“Well there’s only a few more months until he’s due,” I smiled. As an afterthought I added, “Maybe we should start looking into buying some baby furniture.”

It took a couple of weeks to decide on which furniture to get for the baby. We didn’t have huge amounts of money to spare but we wanted to make sure we weren’t comprising the safety of our son just to save a few dollars. We finally settled on a sturdy crib that wasn’t fancy but had all the safety features we were looking for.

“That’s where you are going to sleep when you get here,” I murmured to my belly, as I rubbed it gently.

“Are you coming to bed, Saskia? Or do you want some help getting into the crib?” Paul joked from the bed. I poked out my tongue at him before changing into my pyjamas.

Once I settled on the bed Paul pulled me into a hug. We spent a moment simply gazing into each others eyes, not needing to say anything. I wondered if our son would have my grey eyes or Paul’s green ones. It didn’t matter to me what he looked like but it was fun to wonder.

“I love you Paul. I’m so lucky to have you in my life.” It’s true, Paul has made my life feel so much fuller. Yet there is a part of me that can’t help but wonder, what if I hadn’t been selected for the Do Over Project? Would I have found someone I love as much as I love Paul? Or did I have to travel through time to find my soul mate?

On the Wednesday morning two weeks before my due date I was sitting in the armchair reading another parenting book when I felt a wave of pain ripple along my spine. I practically jumped out of the chair in surprise. The pain was bearable but it still had me grinding my teeth together. Once the wave of pain passed I called Paul, and then a taxi.

Luckily the taxi arrived quickly and the driver was very level headed. She didn’t freak out about me being in labour, she just drove me to the hospital as quickly as was legally possible.

Once I arrived at the hospital I waddled inside to check myself in. I knew Paul wouldn’t be far behind, since his work place wasn’t too far from the hospital.

I was in labour for about 7 hours. The increasing pain was awful but I kept telling myself that it would all be worth it.

All the pain certainly was worth it. I was relieved and overjoyed when I heard the first cries of my little boy. We were kept in the hospital for a couple of days. When were were released Paul and I were both very happy to be able to take our son home for the first time.

We named our beautiful boy Alex. Alex was a little wriggle monster, always squirming and waving his little fists around. It was amazing to think that Paul and I were the parents of such a wonderful baby.

~*~Paul’s Point of View~*~

Alex was the most handsome little boy I had every seen. His whole face would light up every time Saskia or I were near him. As soon as I came home from work each day I would pick up my little man and give him a hello cuddle.

I would often sit on the sofa with Alex and talk to Saskia as she cooked dinner. Saskia had naturally fallen into the role of a house wife and now insisted on cooking dinner every night.

“What are you making tonight, Saskia? It smells great,” I ask from the sofa.

“Goopy Carbonara. It’s a new recipe I’m trying,” she calls back from the kitchen.

I turn my attention to Alex, “I hope this is better than the first time your mum made mac and cheese. Her first attempt tasted like cardboard with a hint of burnt cheese,” I tell Alex in a teasing tone.

“Hey! I was just starting out back then. I’m a much better cook now.”

We settled into parenthood fairly well. I tried to help out with Alex as much as possible so that Saskia had time to work in her garden or relax. I would feed Alex just before dinner every night, then get him ready for bed.

“Thank you for getting Alex to bed,” Saskia said as we sat down to our dinner.

“You don’t have to thank me. He’s my son too. I love helping out.”

“How was work today?” Saskia always seemed genuinely interested in my day. I sometimes wondered how I became so lucky to have her in my life.

“It was fairly boring today. I was just reviewing the budget for park maintenance. I’m hoping to get some new trees planted in spring.” I leave out the part about Bill Racket trying to prevent the clean energy proposal from being completed. I had been working on getting a full proposal together for over a year and Bill had been trying to stop it from ever happening.

“Well at least nothing bad happened,” Saskia replied, “Do you think you could look after Alex tomorrow? It’s Saturday so you don’t have to work and my garden has just gotten overrun with weeds in the past few weeks.”

“Of course I’ll watch him. I think I’ll take him to the park. We’ll have a nice little father-son day.” I was excited about having the whole day to spend with my little boy.

I was nice to not have to worry about anything other than having a nice day with Alex. He seemed happy to be with me, or maybe he was happy to be out in a new place. He was just such a happy baby it was hard to tell. It seemed everything made my little boy happy.

“Do you like being in the park, Alex? I think you do. I think you like it very much,” I cooed as I lifted Alex up into the air. “You are just the happiest little boy ever. Yes, you are.” I couldn’t wait until Alex was a little bit bigger and I could teach him to swim and fish. I would take him to the park all the time.

“I love you Son. I’m so glad to have you in my life,” I told Alex as I gently kissed his stomach.

We just walked around the pond for a while. I pointed out the fish to Alex and he would smile and wave his hands around excitedly.

“Well look who it is. Hello Paul.” I heard an annoyingly familiar voice say from behind. Turning around I saw that was indeed none other than Bill Racket.

“Hello Bill,” I said curtly. Bill was the last person I wanted to see, especially on my special day with Alex.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard that the mayor has authorised a ten-year contract with the coal suppliers in China. It’s going to be all signed off on the first of next month.” Bill said smugly.

“That’s just over two weeks away! She said she was giving me another two months to finish my clean power proposal!” I couldn’t believe this.

“Ah, Paul. You have been working on that proposal for over a year. We need a permanent solution and you were just delaying the inevitable. The other senior members of the council and I talked some sense into the mayor. The Chinese weren’t going to wait forever for our answer. We had to act now, before their prices went up.” Bill was all too happy with himself. I was speechless.

“See you at work on Monday, buddy,” Bill waved goodbye with mock friendliness.

I could not believe that manipulative weasel. He had been messing with me for months, preventing me from completing the proposal sooner. Now he’d used how long it was taking me to get it done against me. I knew I could get the proposal done but it would mean spending all my free time over the next two weeks away from my family.

“I’m sorry Alex. We’re going to have to cut our day a bit short. Daddy has to go do some work.”

I called Saskia, telling her that I had to handle a work emergency and that I would be dropping Alex home in a few minutes. She seemed a little confused and there was a hint of disappointment in her voice, but she accepted my explanation. I know she needed this day to herself but she cares so much about the environment, I have to make this happen for her.

Once I’d dropped Alex off at home I went to the library to use the computers there. I had all my work on the proposal so far saved on a pen drive so I could work pretty much anywhere. I was getting close now but it was still going to take a lot of time to get everything into an understandable format.

I left early every morning over the next two weeks so I could work on my proposal before work. Then I would head straight to the library after work and stay until sunset. I couldn’t waste even a minute, I had to get that proposal done. I could not let Bill Racket get away with ruining our town just to save a few bucks.