Page 54 of Chasing The Goal
Honestly might be the cleanest option.
Dakota
Can we do a gender reveal where we also reveal your new real estate listing? Like, “It’s a girl! And we’re moving into a two-bedroom with natural light!”
I love you both.
Dakota
We love you too. Now hydrate, turn off the mental spiral, and text us in the morning.
Ava
Exactly. You’ve got a brain full of big feels and a whole human growing in there. You’re doing amazing.
I smiled at my screen, heart a little bruised but held together by humor and sisterhood.
It wasn’t the ending I’d expected tonight. But it was exactly the one I needed.
And for the first time since the knock on the door, I felt like I might actually sleep.
Mallory
Three weeks later, Ifound myself sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat that smelled vaguely of feet, trying to focus on a woman with a soothing voice and a foam pelvis in her hands.
Birthing class.
Jackson sat beside me, his legs too long for the tiny mat, hands resting stiffly on his knees. He looked like he wanted to ask for a syllabus, or maybe the emergency exit. I could feel the discomfort radiating off of him like steam.
The instructor—Sharon, according to her name tag—was explaining the stages of labor with the help of laminated posters and a baby doll that looked far too cheerful for the demonstration.
I tried not to laugh when she said “transition phase” and Jackson visibly paled. To be fair, it was a lot. There were words like dilation, crowning, mucus plug—all delivered in that oddly calm, affirming tone that made you feel like leaking and screaming were all part of a guided meditation. And they were, in a way. Just the real, messy, blood-and-guts version.
The class was full of other couples, most of them curled into each other, hands linked, bodies leaned close in a quiet show of we’re in this together.
Jackson sat upright, as if proximity might get him pregnant by accident. I tried to tell myself it was fine. That showing up counted. That he was trying. That this—being here—meant something. But when Sharon turned the lights down to play a short video of a live birth, I felt him tense beside me. His shoulder brushed mine, rigid.
He whispered, “Do we have to watch this?”
I whispered back, “Yes.”
He didn’t breathe for the full eight minutes. Not until the baby cried. Then he blinked hard and ran a hand through his hair.
Afterward, Sharon invited us to practice breathing exercises with our partners. I turned toward Jackson and found his eyes darting everywhere but me.
“Okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Henodded, but it was the kind of nod that meant not really.
Still, he took my hands. Loosely. Like they might burn.
We did the first inhale together, but on the exhale, I saw it—his jaw tightening, his knee bouncing. The faint sheen of sweat along his hairline.
By the second round, he let go.
“I need a second,” he muttered, and stood.
He stepped over the other mats, mumbled something to Sharon, and walked out the door.
