“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Bryant said, smoothly stepping in and throwing to a commercial break.
That was Bryant: tough, sensitive, competitive, prickly, brilliant. All of which I’d learn to navigate.
22
It’s a Girl!
I WAS PLANNING TO give birth at Arlington Hospital, four miles from where I grew up, a short drive from the 7-Eleven where my lifelong friends Bruce and Janie McMullan and I would stock up on bubble gum and Turkish taffy, then drive around while we were supposed to be at church.
In anticipation of the baby’s arrival, Jay and I had sold my apartment and were renting a place in McLean, a modest ranch house with more room, close to my folks. I braced myself for the drama I’d long pictured—my water breaking in some comically public place, the mad dash to the hospital with a frantic Jay at the wheel. But…nothing. Despite taking long walks to speed things along, my due date came and went.
Then a sonogram revealed that our baby’s efforts to make its way down the birth canal were being obstructed by my coccyx. The doctor gave us a choice: He could either break my coccyx—which didn’t sound like a ton of fun—or I could have a C-section. We chose option B.
When they came in with that epidural needle, big enough to inflate a basketball, I put on sunglasses—anything to obscure the sight. Then I was laid out on the operating table and my arms were strapped to the extensions jutting from either side, a little like Jesus on the cross. I can still feel the pressure of the knife on my skin cutting me open and hear the squishing sound of the surgeon pushing my bladder and intestines aside so he could get to the baby. And I will never forget Jay saying, “Your uterus looks like a portobello mushroom.” Seriously?
Then the doctor lifted Ellie from my guts. “She’s beautiful,” Jay reported. “And she’s peeing.” Welcome to the world.
Something else I hadn’t counted on: The TODAY audience became deeply invested. People from all over the country sent gifts—bonnets and booties by the truckload; one grandmother sent a baby blanket with a note that said she’d been knitting it for her granddaughter but decided to give it to Ellie instead. It was sweet, albeit a little strange; it felt like I was having America’s baby.
I’D NEVER BEEN particularly maternal, had never been one of those women who were desperate to get their hands on other people’s newborns, nor had I been big into babysitting; as the youngest of four kids, I was always the one being looked after. Yet now I found myself in the position of caring for a wriggling bundle of need.
I like to think I have a few talents, but I’ll tell you what isn’t one of them: breastfeeding. My nipples bore no resemblance to the pert, squared-off latex ones I’d seen on those Playtex Baby Nurser commercials. Getting Ellie to “latch on” was like a military maneuver, and my breasts had swollen to the size of melons. Not cantaloupes, not honeydews, but watermelons—and having 20 pounds of produce strapped to my chest was every bit as painful as it sounds. In my version of a “stupid human trick,” I’d sometimes give myself a squeeze and squirt milk across the room, much to my amusement （and Jay’s chagrin）。 And when I used my electric breast pump, making that pneumatic sucking sound as I kept the cones pressed to my yarmulke-size areolas, I felt like Elsie on a factory farm. It was all pretty disgusting. Trapped in my stained green velour robe, I’d wonder, Can I please just take a shower?
On top of everything, Jay was on his way to making partner at Williams & Connolly. We agreed he should gut it out, then parlay that prestigious credential into a job at a New York firm. That meant a commuter marriage for at least a couple of years. （Jay and I always thought one day we’d put his career first. If he realized his dream of running for office, we agreed we’d move back to Virginia.） For now, NBC was paying the rent on our Manhattan apartment—a double-height artist’s studio with a giant window in the living room, a white circular staircase, and the actor Robert Duvall living across the hall. My life had taken a strange and wonderful turn and I was still catching my breath.
There were a lot of moving parts, but we thought we could make it work. Little did I know I was about to be cast in a sequel to The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
23
Brains After Babies
IN THE DOG days of new parenthood, I never took for granted how lucky I was to have Jay. I remember talking to exhausted, frustrated friends from college who suddenly realized that “having it all” meant “doing it all”—holding down a job while handling the lion’s share of the housework and child-rearing. It’s just the way it was. In the early ’90s, the glaring inequity wasn’t even questioned.