Welcome to the fourth edition of Baby Steps, a column about the gestation and eventual birth of a human child!

When it comes to baby showers, Gretchen was pretty certain about what she wanted: not to have one. Baby showers as a concept encompass so much of what my wife attempts to avoid at all costs, such as “being the center of attention” and “allowing others to spend money on her.” So when we announced the pregnancy to our friends several months back and our passionate planner and spreadsheet legend Rachel immediately volunteered to organize the shower, I imagine Gretchen hoped this event would never truly come to fruition, that it was a soft plan, the kind of plan you can set and forget, the kind of plan she could somehow weasel her way out of, eventually, never to be seen or heard from again.

As the existence of said baby shower became increasingly certain, we found an appropriate branding angle that Gretchen could get behind — an opportunity to see all of her friends (she loves seeing her friends) … but with a theme!

Pre-shower selfie

And this is how, this past Saturday afternoon, we found over 30 human beings at our house, each surface marked by an impeccable flower arrangement, our dining room table transformed into a resplendent charcuterie, rich with berries and nuts and crackers and cheeses and cured meats, the lawn scattered with fold-out tables where lesbians of all ages sat with their mimosas and seltzers and macaroni & cheese, intently painting white onesies and bibs for our unborn child.

I saw people I’d known for a long time and people I barely knew at all but all of these people had a very important thing in common which was that they were so much very extremely happy for us. It was so lovely, you know? My heart just felt so full. I’ve always been much better at describing heartbreak then its opposite. But those words, “my heart just felt so full,” are the truest ones, despite their brevity.

I’m not good at accepting help and generosity at a time when I know my ability to reciprocate similar levels of time and support is about to be more limited than ever, but coaxing Gretchen out of her own reluctance to accept help has transformed me into apparently a passionate advocate for it. I’m not sure I deserve it, you know? I don’t know how to conquer that fear, only how to swallow it.

I’d never been to a baby shower before, but I’d seen them on television — games involving chocolate smashed up in diapers, lots of heterosexual women wearing pastels, the expecting mother in a flowy maxi dress, signage with handwritten fonts, silver balloons, gender reveals. Rachel’s invite list was from the specific web of friends we share (a loose group with lesbian kickball at its apex) and initially we thought that would be the extent of it, but eventually we decided to invite some people from our lives that were not part of that group. It took me a few days to do so. I worried. Did people actually like going to baby showers or did they dread them and if so, was an invitation actually a low-key attack, like when someone invites me to an improv show? Would they feel pressured to give a gift even if they couldn’t afford to or simply didn’t want to? I eventually managed to swallow this fear and invite a handful of other friends, and Gretchen did the same with her people. And I was so happy to see them! Would you believe it? That, too, was lovely.

Am I Ready For This?

A friend asked me at the shower if I felt anxious, or unprepared, worried about how much my life is about to change. I think about this not infrequently as I’m aware my general calm about the baby’s arrival can come off to Gretchen as a lack of understanding regarding the enormity of the task ahead. Of course I’m worried about money, and the Trump administration, and climate change (especially right this minute), and managing our special dog Penny, and how sleep depravation will impact my fibro. I think a lot about my sister-in-law telling me raising kids is “a young person’s game.” But ultimately — no, I’m not that anxious.

I don’t know why. Perhaps I should be. But I tried to answer her in the moment and I’m trying to explain some of that here too, now.

Like so many human beings on this planet, my life has not always gone as planned. I’ve set many intentions for the future that I’ve managed to fuck up completely on my own and others that blew up in my face despite my best intentions. I’ve moved 29 times in my 43 years of life. I have twelve serious exes, including one relationship that involved engagement and home ownership. I’ve had more depressive episodes than I could even begin to count. On several occasions I’ve been faced with the reality that everything I thought was true about my life was not. I ran a company for 14 years during which time I saw so many humans I considered crucial to our success come and go. There might not be very many advantages to having a baby at my age, but if there are, this is one of them — much like the characters of Glee, as communicated in their final musical number, I have lived. I lived! I have already lived enough lives and now I want to drive a small human to play practice, to facilitate his life of adventure rather than aching for my own.

So yes — I know my life is about to change in the most radical way ever, but I’ve managed to adapt to a lot of radical changes. In some ways, my life has never felt more stable than it is right now. I have a wife who I can trust and rely on completely. I’m not leading an entire company, or even in a decision-making position at work.

There have been a few times — the start of the pandemic, the summer of 2023 — when I had to really face the fact that I might never have kids, that the ship I’d planned to sail had long ago disappeared over the milky horizon. I don’t wanna say that it felt like “something was missing” ‘cause I hate discourse that suggests anyone in this reproduction-obsessed society requires a baby to be complete, or that those amongst us who want to be parents but can’t for any number of reasons will always feel that missing limb, that empty room. I don’t want to say that because I know how much it would’ve hurt me to read something like that when I thought my chance had passed. Childless lives are as full and as gorgeous as anything the heart can muster, and mine would have been, too. (And was!) Most of my friends don’t have children and don’t plan to. But for me personally, it turns out that my anxiety that I’d never be a parent was so consistently crushing that the anxiety of parenting pales in comparison.

I know it’s gonna be really hard and exhausting, and that the start of it will be a low-key living hell. But that’s okay. As anybody who’s seen me stick my bare hand right into the oven can attest, I don’t mind getting burned.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Right?

Speaking of God…..

One of the baby shower activities involved everybody writing a page for a book our friends are putting together for the baby. Mid-way through the baby shower, Rachel asked for everybody’s attention and once attention was safely secured, she read out loud to us the introduction that Lucy had written for the book. This is that:

This book is a simple introduction to your people. You’re lucky that your parents have a lot of people, and now all these people are automatically your people, too. Every person you’ll meet in this book loves your parents so much, and so well, that even though bad things happen sometimes, everything is always already okay. We’re fully prepared to love you that much, too. Maybe even more, because you’re smaller and cuter than everyone else (even Gretchen!).

Knowing your parents, you probably won’t grow up to be the type of person who tries to understand God, but if you are, let me save you some time: God is your people. God is when someone orders a bunch of pizzas in the middle of the party and doesn’t even asked to be reimbursed. God is a joke that comes up over and over again and makes everyone laugh every time. God is when someone knows your favorite song and puts it on before you ask them to. God is eating at the Olive Garden with your friends ‘as a bit’ but actually having so much fun that nobody cares that all the food is beige. God is an awkwardly long hug. God is a gentle roast.

Anyway, we’re all just so thrilled that you exist. Personally, I’m learning in real time that God is when your friends finally decide to get serious about dating each other and then you blink and they’re married and about to have a baby and you wonder where all the time went but you’re so glad it all went the way it did. 

I believe in God, like the one from the Torah, but I believe in the God that Lucy wrote about, too. That it’s Gretchen making me take “Olive Garden gift card” off our registry but Jill getting us one anyhow. It’s Crystal sending me a box of clothes her kiddos used to wear for ours to look equally cute in. It’s Erin‘s preoccupation with whether or not the baby will be born on the same day as Rihanna. It’s all of your helpful suggestions and support in the comments! It’s all the incredibly thoughtful and practical gifts, the letters and notes, the effusive offers of help.

You know that last scene of The L Word Season Two when Kit holds freshly-birthed baby Angelica in her arms (after Shane has said “you have really tiny feet” even though Angie’s feet are not visible at that time) and says, “Angelica, you are gonna have a very, very interesting life. You know that? Because we are very very interesting people.” Not every little boy has the pleasure of growing up with the support of so many weirdo lesbians. But our guy will really have the world at his (sight unseen) really tiny feet.

onesies our friends made at the baby shower

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