I Cannot Control Everything Forever by Emily C. Bloom

Author:Emily C. Bloom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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HAVE YOU NOTICED anything different?

Drop-off at Mother Goose’s was always rushed, with the handful of parents in the crowded hallway jostling babies out of jackets and shoes, handing over diapers, pumped milk, and cubes of pureed pears and sweet potatoes. We had made it past Willie’s first birthday and I was no longer pumping milk, so drop-off was smoother now, without the need to hand off ice-packed bottles of breastmilk. Otherwise the routine remained the same with variations for the seasons. Winter boots subbed in for jelly sandals. Willie was riding the tail end of a bad virus of some sort. She came down with a terrible fever on her birthday and we had taken her to the doctor; she recovered quickly and now just had the run-of-the-mill kid-in-day-care runny nose that she couldn’t quite shake. But that wasn’t what I was concerned about. Something else was not quite right. I wanted to know if anyone else had noticed.

I told Mother Goose that Willie was coming home very thirsty and overnight she was soaking through her diapers. Mother Goose looked taken aback. She hadn’t noticed anything. Willie seemed fine. She shook her head as another child was handed to her. It wasn’t happening during the day, she told me. Her diapers were normal and she wasn’t drinking more than usual.

I went in to work and asked the same question to a new colleague. She had a young son Willie’s age and always seemed to know more than I did. Her mother had recently moved from West Africa to help with the childcare. I knew that they had challenges of their own—not enough space and a husband working his way through a challenging graduate program—but I found myself idealizing their arrangement and wishing for a family member at home helping with Willie’s care, even if we would end up nipping at each other’s heels all the time. When Willie was sick, my new colleague came to work with homeopathic drops of peppermint, juniper berry, and eucalyptus for me to scatter on the mattress of her crib and help her breathe.

I asked if her son ever soaked through his diapers.

She told me that he never had. Maybe Willie had grown out of her current diaper size? What if we went ahead and bought the next size up? See if that helps? Her voice was reassuring but her eyes looked worried.

That night, I woke up at 3 a.m. unable to sleep. I pulled out my phone and opened up WebMD’s symptom tracker. I selected Willie’s age—one year old, the smallest integer I could select—and her gender.

I selected the symptoms from a drop-down menu. Needs to pee all the time. Pees a lot overnight. Increased thirst.

Looking through the possible symptom matches, I started to rule them out in my head. A urinary tract infection came up as a “fair match,” but that wouldn’t explain her thirst. She did not seem sick enough for it to be appendicitis (another “fair match”)—she was not nauseated or vomiting or refusing to eat.

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