“I don't think we should. It seems like such a spoiled rotten thing to do. It's not like we can't afford to have a baby … I just don't feel I have the time, or …not the energy,” she thought about it carefully, “but the interest. The last time we talked about it, I just figured that was it. The conversation was over. We're happy like this …and then, blam …we're pregnant.”

He grinned ruefully at her. “It's ironic, isn't it? We finally decide not to, and you get pregnant. Life certainly has its little curve balls.” It was one of his favorite expressions, but it was true. And this was a doozy. “So what do we do?”

“I don't know.” She cried when she thought about it. She didn't want an abortion, or a baby. And after two weeks of agonizing about it, they decided to go ahead and have the baby. Alex didn't feel that they had a choice, morally, and Sam agreed, and they tried to be philosophical about it, but they were anything but enthusiastic. Alex was depressed every time she thought about it, and Sam seemed to forget about it completely. And when they did discuss it, which was as seldom as possible, they sounded as though they were discussing a terminal illness. This was certainly not anything they looked forward to. It was something that had to be faced, but they were clearly dreading everything about it.

Exactly four weeks later, Alex came home from the office early one afternoon, throwing up uncontrollably, and with such acute pains in her abdomen that she was literally doubled over. The doorman helped her out of the cab, and carried her briefcase inside for her. He asked if she was all right, and she insisted that she was, although her face was the color of paper. She got upstairs in the elevator, and let herself into the apartment, and fortunately her cleaning lady was there, because half an hour later, Alex was hemorrhaging all over their bathroom and barely conscious. She had taken Alex to the hospital herself, and called Sam at his office, and by the time he got to Lenox Hill, Alex was already in the operating room. They had lost the baby.

They both expected it to be an enormous relief. The source of all their anguish was gone. But from the moment Alex woke up in a private room, crying miserably, they knew that it wasn't that easy. They were both consumed with guilt and grief, and everything she had never allowed herself to feel for their unborn child, she felt now, all the love and fear and shame and regret and longing she had never felt before. It was the worst experience of her life, and taught her something about herself she had never known or suspected. Maybe it had never even been there before, but it was there now. All she wanted, to fill the aching void the miscarriage had left, was to fill the void with another baby. And Sam felt it too. They both cried for their unborn child, and when Alex went back to work the following week, she was still feeling shaken.

They had gone away for a few days over a long weekend, and talked about it, and they both agreed. They weren't sure if it was a reaction, or real, but they knew that something major had changed. Suddenly, more than anything, they wanted a baby.

Sensibly, they decided to wait a few months, to see if the feelings stayed. But even that was impossible to do. Two months after the traumatic miscarriage, Alex sheepishly told Sam the news with barely concealed glee. She was pregnant.

And this time, unlike the first, it was a celebration. A cautious one, because there was always the possibility that she would lose this one too, or that she would never be able to carry a child to term. She was thirty-eight years old, after all, and she'd never had a baby. But her health was excellent, and her doctor assured them that there was no reason whatsoever to anticipate another problem.

“You know what? We're nuts,” she said, lying in bed one night, eating Oreo cookies, and getting crumbs all over their bed, but she claimed they were the only things that settled her stomach. “We are completely crazy. Four months ago, we were suicidal about having a kid, and now we lie here talking about names, and I keep reading articles in magazines in the doctor's office about what kind of mobiles to buy to put over the crib. Have I lost my marbles or what?”

“Maybe.” He smiled tenderly at her. “You're definitely harder to share a bed with. I had no idea that cookie crumbs would be part of the deal. Do you think you'll have this fixation for the whole time, or is this just a first trimester addiction?” She giggled at him, and they cuddled in bed. They made love more frequently than they had in years. They talked about the baby as though it were real, and already part of their lives. She had an amnio, and as soon as they knew it was a girl, they decided to call her Annabelle, after their favorite club in London, but it was a name that Alex had always loved, and it had good memories for them. This pregnancy was completely unlike the first one. It was as though they had learned an important lesson the first time, and felt as though they had been punished for their indifference and hostility to that baby. This time, there was no question of anything but unbridled excitement.

Alex's partners gave her a shower right after the New Year, and she left the office reluctantly that week, only two days before her due date. She had wanted to work right up until she went to the hospital, but it didn't make sense to continue working on cases she couldn't complete, so she left on schedule, and went home to wait for their little miracle, as they called her. Alex was afraid that she'd be bored, but found that she enjoyed setting up the nursery, and was surprised herself at how much time she spent folding little undershirts, and arranging diapers in neat stacks in the changing table. For a woman who struck fear into most lawyers' hearts when she entered a courtroom, she seemed to have changed in a single instant. She even worried sometimes that it might dull her skills when she went back, maybe she wouldn't be as tough, or as focused, but in spite of her concerns about that, all she could think of now was the baby. She could imagine holding it, feeding it, she wondered if she would have red hair like her own, or dark, dark hair like Sam's, blue eyes, or green. Like a long-awaited friend, she could hardly wait to see her.

They had arranged to have the baby in a birthing room at New York Hospital, Alex wanted everything to be natural. She was planning to savor every moment of the experience. At thirty-nine, she couldn't imagine doing this again, so she didn't want to take any of it for granted. Despite Sam's aversion to hospitals, he went to Lamaze classes with her, and was going to be at the delivery with her.

And she and Sam were having dinner at Elaine's three days after her due date, when her water broke, and they left quickly for the hospital, and were then sent home, until labor had started in earnest. They did everything their coaches had told them to do. She tried to sleep for a little while, then she walked, Sam rubbed her back, and it all seemed very pleasant and very easy. There was nothing difficult about this, nothing they couldn't handle, or she couldn't do. They lay in bed and talked, about how amazing it was that after thirteen years of marriage they had come to this, and Sam glanced at the clock, and tried to guess in how many hours they'd have their baby. They both fell asleep eventually, and when the contractions woke Alex again, she took a warm shower, as she'd been told to do, to see if labor would stop or get harder. She stood in the shower for half an hour, timing the pains, and then suddenly, with no warning, hard labor began for real. She could barely stand as she got out of the shower, and when she went to wake Sam, he was dead to the world, and she started to cry in panic as she shook him. He awoke finally, and gave a start when he saw the look on her face.

“Now?” he said, leaping out of bed, with his heart pounding, looking frantically for his trousers. He had left them on a chair, but suddenly in the dark, he couldn't find them, and Alex was doubled over in pain, gripping his arm, and crying.

“It's too late …I'm having it now …” she said, panicking, forgetting everything they'd told her. She was too old for this, it hurt too much, and she no longer wanted natural childbirth.

“Here? You're having it here?” He looked terrified as he stared at her, unable to believe it.

“I don't know … I … it … oh God, Sam …it's awful … I can't do this …”

“Yes, you can …we'll get you drugs at the hospital …don't worry about it … go put some clothes on.”

In the end, he'd had to help her dress and find her shoes, and he had never seen her as vulnerable, or in as much pain. The doorman had found them a cab instantly. It was four a.m., and she could hardly walk when they got her to the hospital. The doctor was already waiting for them there, and the labor nurses were well pleased with Alex's progress. She, on the other hand, was a lot less pleased with the process they referred to happily as “transition.” She sounded like someone Sam didn't even know as she shouted for drugs, and got hysterical with each contraction. But as labor progressed, she calmed down finally, and two hours after they'd gotten to the hospital, Alex was hard at work pushing out their baby. She'd had an epidural finally, and was calmer, as Sam held her shoulders and everyone in the room cheered her on. It seemed to take forever, but it was only half an hour before Annabelle's little face appeared. She had bright red hair, and she let out a huge yell, and then as though she'd surprised herself, she looked up at Sam, as tears coursed down her parents' cheeks. Annabelle just stared at Sam, as though she had been looking for him for a long time and had finally found him. She was introduced to her mother then, and Alex held her, overwhelmed by emotions she had never even dreamed of. She felt complete in a way she had heard people talk about, but never believed, and she couldn't even imagine what her life would have been like if she'd missed this experience. Within an hour, she was holding Annabelle as though she were an old hand at it, and happily nursing her baby. Sam took a thousand photographs of them, as he and Alex cried, unable to believe the blessing that had been bestowed on them, the miracle they had almost missed, and fortunately hadn't. They had been spared from their own stupidity, they felt, by a wiser Power who had showered them with good fortune.

Sam spent the first night in the hospital with them, and he and Alex spent most of it staring down at Annabelle, taking turns holding her, wrapping her and unwrapping her, changing her diapers and her nightgown, and Sam watched raptly as Alex nursed her. He thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and as they looked at her, they both agreed, what they wanted now was another baby. They couldn't believe that they had almost deprived themselves of this. And Sam could hardly believe that Alex was willing even to think about it so soon after the ordeal of labor, but she said it to him as they kissed over Annabelle sleeping soundly between them.

“I want to do this again.”

“You're not serious.” He looked stunned, but pleased. He had been thinking exactly the same thing. He would have loved a son, but another little girl would be fine too. Their little girl was so perfect and so beautiful. He kept touching her tiny toes, and Alex kept kissing her tiny fingers. They were completely enamored with their daughter.

It remained a passion with them once they got home, and Annabelle flourished in the unbridled adoration of her parents. Sam came home early as often as he could. And Alex went back to the office, with regret, when Annabelle was three months old. She tried to continue nursing her even after that, but it became impossible with the pressures of her schedule. What she did instead was come home for lunch as often as she could, and she made a promise to herself to leave promptly at five, whenever she wasn't in trial, and work at home at night after Annabelle went to bed. And on Fridays, she left at one o'clock, come hell or high water. It was a system that worked for them, and she was religious about coming home promptly whenever possible. And in exchange for their love and efforts, and their incessant appreciation of her, Annabelle adored her Mommy and Daddy. She was the light of their lives, and they were all that mattered to her. Carmen took care of her in the daytime, but Sam and Alex took care of her themselves the moment they got home from work, and Annabelle lived for that moment. She would squeal with excitement and delight whenever she saw them.

Carmen liked working for them. She was crazy about Annabelle, and they were nice people. She bragged a lot about Alex and Sam, about how important they were, and how hard they worked, and how successful. Sam was in the financial columns a lot. He had made a big splash early on, and had continued to make news frequently with record-making deals for important clients. And Alex had been on television more than once, with exceptionally newsworthy or landmark cases. Carmen loved that.