In the Hallway: Big News on All Fronts

I was writing all through the last few months. I scribbled in my journals and typed in my notes app, just to get it all down. Then I’d stare at it and save it and say I’d figure out what to do with it, later. Because I couldn’t post it. And I remembered that not everything I write needs to be shared, and that helped. It was like I was twelve again, pouring my heart into a spiral bound notebook that I’d try to unsuccessfully hide from my younger sisters. 

I spent most of December though February as sick as a dog. This morning sickness? It kicked my ass, Bane vs. Batman style. I was sick with all three of my other kids, but this was a whole different level. Ever puked so hard you peed your pants? Yeah, me neither. That would be ridiculous. Especially if you were throwing up APPLE SAUCE, the one thing your stomach is supposed to take, always. It’s stomach law. Apple sauce is always good currency, right? Your stomach isn’t supposed to pull that shit for apple sauce. Whatever. What was my point? 

My book came out right around the height of me not vomiting so hard I peed myself. Every picture you see of me with my book, smiling and made-up, is taken with grit teeth. They put me on Zofran, and I got an electro-shock bracelet that sent a literal electric current up my median nerve to try and help me keep food down. “This baby is a strong one,” the nurses would say. “No shit,” I’d moan back, my voice echoing on the porcelain bowl. I signed thousands of tip-ins for my book while laying in bed. The smell of the Sharpie was almost too strong. 

“What happens if I vomit all over these?” I asked my editor, half-joking. She said something about the book being extra special addition. (I didn’t, for the record.)

Then, February. My deadline for LIKE LIGHTNING was fast approaching, and I was running out of “next week I’ll feel better, and I’ll write then!”. My grandfather got COVID. My great-aunt went into hospice. I went to a prenatal check-up and the doctor said my fluid was low. “Are you stressed?” She asked, and I tried not to laugh. “We’ll check again in a couple of weeks,” she said. “Don’t worry about it!”

Those words have never, not once in the history of the human language, actually worked on someone with an anxiety disorder. Don’t worry! Ok, cool. Got that, brain? Don’t worry. Sit. Stay. Hold. 

I googled “low amniotic fluid” as I waited for blood draws. In the first and second trimester, there’s nothing you can do. You can only drink water and hope it goes back up. 

I wrote. Like Lightning is the most personal stories I’ve ever worked on. It’s about sexuality and the Bible and falling in love and honoring God and it’s all so messy. I worry about writing too much or too little. I’m not a theologian. I’m a mom. I drive a minivan and make questionable decisions. And I’m writing about this.

My grandfather was getting better. They took him to a rehab facility and he’d call and say he was ready to go home. He didn’t like the food. Get me out of here, he’d grump, and we took that as a sign he was on the mend. Just a few more days, Grandpa. 

It was a Sunday, and I was almost done with the book. I had a few more hours left, and was riding the high of my paltry allotment of cold brew and the in-sight finish line when my phone rang. My great-aunt was rapidly declining. I answered the phone and expected to hear that she’d died. But it was my mom, and her voice was all wrong. 

Grandpa passed a few minutes ago. 

It didn’t quite make sense. No, it didn’t make any sense. He was getting better. He was on the mend. He was going home, soon. But I guess that’s what COVID does. You think they’re getting better and then it’s a whiplash spiral downward. They’d called my dad to say he wasn’t doing well and that he should come. My dad wasn’t three blocks away when they called to say it was already over. 

I went and sat with my mom a while. Answered my kids’ questions. Why did he get sick? What did the virus do? Why couldn’t he get better? Is he a skeleton now? Can I see the skeleton? What do you mean that’s not a nice question; we all have skeletons — 

And I shuffled back to my office. I had a deadline. 

Ross followed me up and sat down. “You know that no one expects you to finish this book right now, right? You can email your editor and tell them. You don’t have to muscle through this.” 

And I knew he was right. But I also knew that I didn’t know what else I could do. My grandpa would’ve wanted me to finish the damn book. I wanted me to finish the damn book. So I stayed up ’til three in the morning, finishing the damn book and sent it off. 

I had to be up at seven the next morning to register Liam for T-K. I thought I’d crushed it (look at me, finishing a book in the wake of personal tragedy and still getting my son registered for school!) until they called back and told me he didn’t quality because I’d written in his birthday as May 28, 2019. His birthday is October 29, 2016. 

Hahaha sorry about that. I was writing about making out in a car outside a pizza joint and exploring sexual boundaries all the while knowing that my grandfather was in a freezer and would be for the next several months and I’m pregnant with low amniotic fluid and it’s all a lot— 

“I’ll just change it for you, ma’am,” the nice lady said. “He should be good to start in the fall.” 

~

I started keeping food down. I was making headway on a freelance project that got stuck in the gears while I was sick — the client was very understanding, and I was grateful. The most important thing is that you’re healthy! He’d say. 

We found out the baby is a boy. My amniotic fluid went back up, and I went for the full anatomy scan. The ultrasound tech was kind, and the jelly was warm (here’s to all the real ones who know what a difference warm ultrasound jelly can make). 

A couple days later, I got a call. 

“Hi, Ms. Blair? I’m calling to schedule your appointment with the perinatal specialist because of the abnormality we saw on the scan.” 

Everything went still, except for the small thought running in the back of my mind, carrying a torch that illuminated the dark fact I carry etched on the back of my skull: my older sister died of a congenital heart defect. 

“What abnormality?” 

She was quiet. “The doctor hasn’t reached out to you yet?” 

“No. What abnormality?” 

I wanted to shriek. Every second felt like torture. “The abnormality with his feet. We can get you in on the 12th, if that’s good?” 

Then, I wanted to shriek for a different reason. HIS FEET? HIS FEET? YOU JUST AGED ME TWELVE FUCKING YEARS BECAUSE OF HIS FEET? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND — 

“The twelfth is fine.” 

I hung up and slunk to the floor. His feet! They were all upset over feet? Feet were no big deal! But then I did what everyone does… I Googled. Foot deformity in unborn child. 

And it was like ice water in my veins. They hadn’t said what kind of abnormality. Was he missing his feet? Was it club feet? Was it something more involved? Was it a chromosomal defect? I went down that rabbit hole… 

Trisomy 13. 18. Both with short life expectancies. Both with feet deformity as a symptom. 

“Odds are, that’s not what this is,” Ross said softly as I looked down at my phone. 

“The odds haven’t been great this year though, have they?” 

~

I had to go alone. COVID restrictions. 

I stood in line for a temperature check. They put three wrist bands on me and sent me upstairs. The room was dark, save for the light of several ultrasound screens. I sat on the crinkly paper and prayed. 

The doctor came in, with the tech. They introduced themselves and smiled and I laid back. My son appeared on the screen — more detailed than I’d ever seen before. He was twisting and squirming and kicking. 

And it was quiet. The tech moved the camera thing around, and the doctor took notes. No words, just the scribble of pencil on paper. They did some electrical scan, and my son’s heart lit up with little fireworks of red and blue. 

It looks like the bifrost from Thor, I thought. 

Click, click. Scaaaaan. Click, click, scaaaaan. 

They got to his little feet, and I could see they were not right — his ankles are almost at right angles. 

“Ummm… what are your other kids names?” The tech asked me, and I knew. I knew because why else would she want to distract me. I started crying, and the tears soaked the mask. 

“Aryn. Liam. River,” I said. “His name is Ben,” I pointed to the screen. 

When she was done, the tech wiped my stomach down and I sat up. The lights came on. They told me he has club feet. I’d prepared myself for that, so I didn’t know why I was crying. 

They said it looked isolated — that he didn’t have any other issues — but they wanted to do more blood work to make sure. Chances are, he’s totally fine otherwise. 

I met with a genetic counselor. She told me she’d get me the results as fast as she could. She told me everything was going to be okay. The doctor hugged me. “You didn’t do this, you know,” she said. “Nothing you did or didn’t do caused this.” 

I went to get my blood drawn. The tech who took my info pointed to my mask and then to his face shield. 

“You should invest in one of these if you’re going to be coming here often,” he said. “COVID is no joke.” 

~

Everything waited until that email came. I wrote and worked and answered emails, but I was walking in a half-dream world where I was wondering if my son was even going to survive. Had it been the Zofran? The low amniotic fluid? She said it wasn’t my fault. 

My mom told me how she asked herself the same thing with my sister. She’d gone running almost every day of her pregnancy, and wondered if that had something to do with my sister’s heart. When I mentioned what I was thinking, my mom shook her head. “Don’t do that,” she said, and her voice carried the weight of someone who had walked that road and come back scarred. I knew that my questions probably conjured ghosts — ones that hurt. I nodded and sipped my coffee. “I won’t,” I said. I didn’t voice it around her, again. 

The genetic counselor said it could take a couple of weeks, but that Friday, she emailed. I just saw that I had a message — I could’t see what it said. My hands shook as I logged on. 

“Good news!” was the subject line. 

Ben was fine — all chromosomes were normal. No sign of anything other than club feet. 

I fell out of my chair and ran to Ross. Our baby is okay. Our baby is fine. 

But I knew I had to shift gears, and the shift came fast. The orthopedic specialist called the next day with the game plan. Weekly castings for a couple of months. A surgery — a small one. They used to do it on kitchen tables back in the day. It’ll be over before you know it, he assured me — and then braces. 

“It’s gonna be a lot,” he said. “But your son is gonna be a normal kid by the end of it,” he assured me. 

He asked if I have any questions, and I had a thousand. Make this good, Katie. This is the doctor that you’ll be seeing for a long time. You need to have a good relationship with him. You need to be mature and an advocate and — 

“What if he shits and it’s like… a massive diaper blowout — and it goes down the back of the casts? Like… what do we do? We can’t just let it sit there for a week.” 

“Umm,” he said. “We’ll figure that out if it happens, okay?” He says, and I think I can hear him trying not to laugh. I hope he’s trying not to laugh. 

“Sorry. It’s been a weird year,” I say. 

“That’s the truth,” he replied. 

~

April felt like catching my breath. On my hands and knees, trying to find my balance before I stood up. Ben was fine. Grandpa was dead. The book was done. My managers liked my new pilot. The vaccine started rolling out, and normalcy seemed almost… near. 

I got word from my agent that a book I thought was long dead, A Haunt for Jackals, had renewed interest at one of the Big Fives. My agent said we would just have to sit and wait. I had more generals on the screenwriting side, and I kept my belly out of the frame. 

It felt strange to be getting back into the swing of things after everything. I want to say I channeled my angst into my art, but I mostly just kept my head down and got things done. Prayed for more open doors. 

I finally got to see one of my friends in person. Hilary drove out. She played Exploding Kittens with my kids and we sat in the shade of the backyard, talking about what is next. Scripts, books, pitches. We are both trying so hard. Both in the hallway, passing a La Croix back and forth and busting our asses to open a door. “You know? We just have to remember that the people that are at the top had to, at one point, say ‘Yeah, I can do that. Yes, I want that.’ They speak up for themselves. They go for it. I need to remember that.” 

We ate Mexican food and I thought about that. Go for it. 

The next week, I got an email I never expected. My agent, whom I’ve been with for five years and had a great relationship with, was no longer at my agency. No more info than that. 

I was on my way to a blood draw for Ben when the President of the agency called me. I was late to the appointment, but I paced outside the hospital as I answered, my voice shaky. It was hot, and I sweat as I waddled back and forth in the parking lot, trying not to lose reception. 

He didn’t give me details — just that I no longer had an agent at Writers House. But, he said, I did have options. They would love it if I stayed at Writers House, and if I chose to, they’d help me find another agent in house. If I didn’t want to stay at Writers House, they would help me connect with other agents elsewhere. 

“Don’t make a decision now,” he said. He sounded like Howard Hamlin from Better Call Saul. I wondered if he dressed like him. 

I was stunned, and realized too late that my shirt didn’t entirely cover my belly, leaving me looking like Shmee from Hook. “Let me know when you decide,” he said kindly. “No rush. Next week is fine.” 

The rest of the day was spent on the phone, where I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I had no answers. After the kids were in bed, I sat on the couch, dumbfounded. I remember what it was like trying to find an agent all those years ago. It was a mountain of rejection, one right after the other. I knew I was in a different place than I was professionally in 2016, but it still felt daunting. Eventually, Ross pulled up the roster at the agency and started looking through the agents to see if there were any that I might fit well with. 

He read some names and titles, and I sipped my seltzer water, wishing it was something stronger. Finally, he said it — “There’s Jodi Reamer.” 

It was impossible: Jodi Reamer. The agent who discovered Twilight. She represents Stephanie Meyer and John Green. Ransom Riggs and Tahereh Mafi. She’s the agent that was at the top of my list every time I queried. 

I snorted. “Yeah, okay.” It was impossible. They were offering to help me find someone else within the agency, but certainly I couldn’t request Jodi Reamer. 

But I thought about what Hil had said, and what we’d talked about. This had just… happened. I never in a million years thought I would be agentless again. What did I have to lose by asking? 

It was a long shot, but hey — if this year hadn’t taught me to go for it, nothing would. 

I emailed the president of the agency, and I told him I was staying at WH. And when he asked if I had anyone I would love to work with, I only gave him one name: I would love to work with Jodi Reamer. 

He told me to stand by, that he’d run the idea past her. I thought it would die there, honestly. At least I gave it a shot. Hours later, he emailed back. Jodi wanted to read me. I sent my book back and I waited. She said she’d be in touch soon. I prepared myself for the rejection of all rejections. 

But hey. At least I gave it a shot. 

~

A week later, I was sitting at my computer, trying not to cry. A freelance client who had agreed to book me for the rest of the year decided to hold his contract off until September. (Which is totally fine, fair, and happens a lot). But…he also wanted to move the payment he was supposed to give me in May until then, as well. 

One day I’ll talk about what it’s like to be a young woman and a ghostwriter. The being called “honey” and “sweetheart”… I’m pretty used to that by now. But I wasn’t expecting this curveball — that because I’d needed more time while I was morning sick with Ben, he wanted more time before the contracted payout. The payout that we desperately needed. A payout that is about 1/4 my yearly ghostwriting salary. 

We figured it out, though I took a big financial hit — not something you want to be dealing with while also preparing for a baby. I went and sat on the porch and tried not to cry. But then, my phone beeped. 

It was Jodi. She loved the book and wanted to talk.

I screamed. Ross thought something was wrong, but quickly started screaming with me once I filled him in. 

I have a call with JODI REAMER!!!!! 

We normally would order sushi on a night like that to celebrate such a big win. But the back and forth with the client made us a little more wary and thrice as cautious — so we made peanut butter and banana sandwiches, instead. 

They were delicious. 

~

Jodi was everything I hoped for and more. She gets the book, and she gets me. I signed on the phon, and we’re already making one hell of a team. 

I found a book for Aryn, Liam, and River. It’s about a boy with club feet called “My Clever Night-Night Shoes”, and it’s all about the Ponseti Method — which is the therapy Ben will be doing until he’s two. We’ve talked to them about how Ben will look a little different when he’s born, and the importance of kindness and empathy, etc. etc., but I don’t think they heard much beyond figuring out that they’ll be able to scribble all over his casts. 

I’ve held a lot of this in for the past few months. I didn’t know how to explain it. I was scared. I still am. There’s a lot of changes happening around here, and they’re happening fast. 

But I’m ready for it, now. I’m ready for Ben and for staffing and selling more books and whatever other sucky rejections that are heading down the pike. 

I’m ready.