December 2006
You say you hate me through your clenched teeth. I know you don't mean it.
I still don't do well in hospitals and we've been here for hours, my back feels a magnetic tug towards the walls of the delivery room, insisting that I'll feel much better if I just glue myself to the wall until all this is over. But, even in the state I'm in, the one I'm trying desperately to hide because you don't need to deal with my shit right now, I know you don't mean it when you say you hate me.
Your entire body hurts and you're exhausted and we both know it's because the baby is already being a difficult Lyman; like father like son. I'd say that out loud but you're in the homestretch now, you're fully concentrated on getting that baby out and you're in no mood for one of my quips.
You didn't mind The Comedy Stylings of Josh Lyman earlier in the evening but once you went into transition you made it clear that you didn't mind me touching you or holding you but I was to keep my mouth shut, so that's what I've been doing.
Despite my frayed nerves and the pain coming from the hand I'm certain you've broken I can't help but take a moment to stare at you in absolute awe. I've always known you were strong but this- this is something else.
And it isn't just what your going through physically that has me amazed, it's everything you've been through and done these last several months, ever since we discovered that we'd managed to become a part of the 8% failure rate statistic.
You lugged around the mini-Lyman for nine months while helping me run a presidential campaign and finishing school, finally getting the degree that I don't think you need because everyone in this town knows how smart and capable you are and would hire you in a heartbeat. But you deserve the diploma that will be arriving in the mail in 4 to 8 weeks, you've more than earned it and I'm so proud that you can finally say that you have a degree in Political Science that I might bust a button or two just thinking about it.
I'm starting to think that you willed this baby into not making an early appearance before you were officially done with school but there's a Lyman in there who clearly wanted to make an entrance so of course you went into labor during your graduation ceremony.
You waited until after our parents took dozens of photographs of you with everyone who'd come to see you graduate to calmly inform me that we should probably make our way to the hospital. I nearly took you to task for waiting so long to say something but you gave me one of those looks, the one you use to get me to shut up and rein me in, and told me that everything was fine, reminded me that these things take time, and told me that the contractions weren't very strong yet and they were few and far between.
I really don't know how you do it, the first few months of the year I was perilously close to unspooling because I'd added "Campaign Manager to Impossible-to-Control Candidate" to my list of responsibilities, while you were juggling being a wife, mother (to a teenaged stepson), student, and eventually head of the DC campaign office with what appeared to be unbelievable ease.
That isn't to say that there weren't freak outs here and there, minor nutties, because there certainly were. Like the time you were frightened that you'd be a terrible mother.
You got mad at me when I laughed, but I couldn't help it, it was the most absurd thing I'd ever heard. I took you by the hand and led you into the living room where Jake had dozed off, a textbook on his lap and his arm still in a cast.
Dr. Bartlet and CJ would've eviscerated me if I'd said that it would come naturally, hell, Amy's feminist spidey senses probably would've tingled and she would've shown up at our doorstep ready to launch water balloons at me. However, I may be an idiot and a jackass most of the time but I'm not stupid enough to believe all women naturally become good parents because if their gender. Instead I reminded you that I haven't been the only one responsible for raising a sad and frightened eleven year old into the seventeen year old Bartlet-level nerd that was snoring softly in front of us.
You didn't take my compliment without a fight though. You brought up Toby, Lilly, his grandparents, his mother and just about every adult that has ever been a part of his life. I agreed that we'd had plenty of help and they'd all had a hand in raising him.
"But, God, Donna," I said. "Don't you see that you've given him one of the most wonderful things about you? He cares about people the same way you do."
And he does. He isn't like Toby, he doesn't hide the fact that he cares behind a gruff and sad exterior. He's not monomaniacal about it like I am; sure the kid's got my determinarion but he's not going to drive anyone up any walls with the intensity and cluelessness that comes with my brand of caring. He doesn't even approach it with the same logic of his grandfather, a logic grounded in religion and philosophy, or Lilly's former militant brand of caring, the kind that led her to join her political (now former) girlfriend on protests and marches. No, his compassion is beautifully sincere, soft, and out in the open, sometimes giving the illusion that he's naive, but he isn't, just like you aren't.
And after I tell you all of that I ask you "What does he call you?", and you whisper "Mom".
He's been calling you that since the day he slipped up a few months after we got married.
You cry when I point that out. I didn't set out to make you cry but I'm a Lyman through and through and things rarely work out exactly according to plan. I certainly didn't plan on feeling emotional myself when all I wanted to do was tell you that you're already a good mother even if you've never had a baby, I remind you of my own lack of experience in that department, and I assure you that we'll figure out this whole baby thing together.
When it's all over and you're holding our curly-haired newborn you tell me you love me and I know you mean it.
And guess what, I feel the same way about you too.