Page 86 of Free Agent

From the looks on their faces though, it was easy to see the answer; they wanted to know too.

So this has been a topic of discussion, I see…

“It’s fine, Tatum,” Rori said, with a soothing hand on my back and a gentle smile on her face.

Maybe she was just a good actress, but it seemed genuine enough.

“Uh, you’re right,” she said, looking to Grandma Jenny. “I don’t have children of my own, and I’ve never been pregnant. But I have a wonderful little niece, and I am godmother of another delightful little girl. I’ve seen the struggles of my sister, and my friends, right in front of me. Heard the experiences of lots of other women through social media, focus groups, and so on. Enough to understand that something like BabyBee was very much needed.”

“But there’s lots of apps for pregnancy, development, all that, right?” Tam asked, and I shot her a dirty look that she shrugged at. “Damn, I can’t ask questions?”

“Yes, you can!” Rori said. “And to answer that question, yes. Lots of apps are quite similar to BabyBee—a shared goal of helping navigate pregnancy symptoms, the birth process, tracking milestones after the baby is born, and all of that. To the point of confusion about which one truly works the best for that person. But at BabyBee, we put really special effort into not just presenting the information, but helping them process it, and giving them resources to utilize that information in a way that improves the lives of these families. We contract with doctors, nurses, midwives, doulas, nutritionists, speech therapists, social workers, literally any field that has a vested interest in the welfare of families, we have on our consult board. And we have a pretty sophisticated algorithm too, that suggests certain articles, certain questions, all that, based on past inputs,” Aurora spoke, the pride in what she did so coming through so vividly, it put a smile on my face too.

“Ah, so you like problem-solving,” my mother said, nodding. “You’re obviously a brilliant young woman, and applying that in a positive way doesn’t have to be about you specifically for it to be valuable and useful,” she commented, directing her gaze pointedly at her own mother.

Meanwhile, Rori shook her head. “It is personal though, actually. These life stages are so major in the lives of people that I love, in a community that I love, that it’s vital to me to support. Especially postpartum mothers. There’s so much stress, so much pressure, so much trauma often involved, that doesn’t get the attention and support that’s needed, and so many families slip through the cracks.”

“Oh child, your generation is so sensitive,” Grandma Jenny quipped, waving her off. “Pregnancy, childbirth, raising kids… it’s the most natural thing in the world. We’re built for it!”

“No, we take it for granted,” Rori countered, as Tam and my mother nodded.

I’d heard more than one knock-down, drag-out argument about this topic.

“It’s life changing,” Rori said. “And too often, actually life-threatening or disabling, and we can’t treat it as a given that everyone will survive it. We have to affect the results, not expect them.”

“Most people are not dying in childbirth anymore!” Grandma Jenny argued.

“But too many still are, and in pregnancy, and postpartum too,” Rori argued, not backing down. “Dying, developing life-altering disabilities, having their mental health severely impacted… and those are just the extremes. There is a whole spectrum of adverse outcomes before we even get there, and we have to stop pretending otherwise. It is extremely important that we learn about, prepare for, and mitigate those possibilities while we can. My own sister, for example,” she said, her voice faltering for the first time since she started speaking. “Perfect pregnancy, beautiful birth experience, healthy baby. Things were very idyllic, and then… a few months down the line, my brother-in-law called me, and said hey, Nova is really not herself.”

“She’d just had a baby, of course she wasn’t herself,” Grandma Jenny scoffed, and Rori shook her head.

“No. It was more than that. And as bad as things got, I’m glad we didn’t brush it off as just had a baby, because it could’ve been worse. We had hell trying to get anybody to take it seriously. ‘Baby blues’, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression. Everything the doctors offered, everything insurance covered, weak.” Rori shook her head, staring off in the distance like she’d been transported back to that moment. “And unhelpful. And then suddenly… we were dealing with untreated postpartum psychosis. We found a private program. An insanely, prohibitively expensive private program. We got her in, though. And we thought it was working; it was working. And Nova was finally coming back to herself. And then… um… she accidentally nicked the baby while she was clipping her nails. Baby girl screamed her head off, of course, but it was just the tiniest little nick, barely even bled. But… I guess that was just like… the last…”

“You don’t have to do this,” I told her, grabbing her hand to squeeze. I brought it up to my lips as she turned her glossy eyes to me. “You don’t have to?—”

“I do, though,” she countered, flashing me a sad smile. “I need to finish saying it.” She turned to my grandmother. “See… all the things that a healthy, prepared, unclouded mind can synthesize as just part of life… we take that stuff for granted. For so many people, that situation would’ve been a few tears with the baby, maybe feeling stupid or clumsy for a few minutes. For Nova… it was proof enough that she was a danger to her child, that she took her life in the bathroom while my brother-in-law was settling the baby.”

Those words pulled the air out of the room.

Even I was stunned. I had no idea about this branch of the story.

“I’m not saying that everyone will have that experience, just that some will, and it’s impossible to predict or necessarily prevent. But when education is in place, and preparation is there, we can get in front of it. Start treatment sooner, not do things that exacerbate. There’s research now about sleep hygiene, hormone therapy, proper vitamin supplementation, accessible things! That’s the type of thing BabyBee is putting money behind, to save and change lives,” she said. “And then… also of course there’s a contraction timer and a diaper tracker in the app.” She laughed, and the rest of us did too, welcoming the levity after such a heavy conversation shift.

“We’re sorry for your loss, sweetheart,” Grandma Jenny said to Rori, accompanying the words with a deep nod.

“Yeah,” Tam spoke up, stepping forward to grab her hand. “We didn’t mean to… We didn’t know… that wasn’t on the about page for the app.”

Rori smiled, accepting Tam’s hand squeeze. “No, it isn’t. But her influence is all over the website, and her story is laid out in the postpartum mental health section. Even the community support forums… that area is named after Nova.”

“It sounds like a beautiful tribute,” my mother spoke up, joining Tam to approach Rori. “And I, for one, agree with you about the lack of education and preparation around all this stuff, especially the birth process. I did my best to prepare Tam?—”

“You mean you scared the living daylights out of me?” Tam teased, and Mama shook her head.

“Call it whatever you want, you had a contingency for every possibility, didn’t you?” Mama looked at Grandma Jenny and rolled her eyes. “More than the pat on the head and a prayer this one gave me.”

Grandma Jenny sucked her teeth. “Don’t you start that, especially not with Tater’s big grown ass standing right there, healthy as a good ox. All that fussing and worrying and the boy was perfectly fine, exactly like I always said he would be!”

“Are we pretending the boy wasn’t hooked up to tubes for the first year of his life, mother?”

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