“I think you do too.”
He laughed through a sniffle.
“Yeah.”
The next morning, after a few hours of sleep and one extremely loud burp from Noah, I called my doctor.
Ethan called his.
He found a counselor who specialized in anxiety among new fathers. He later admitted he had experienced smaller versions of the same anxiety for years without knowing what to call it.
Together, we threw away the mini bottles.
He kept the notebook.
At first, I was uncertain how I felt about that. It seemed too personal and raw.
Then, when Noah was six months old and finally able to nap without waking every few minutes, Ethan handed it to me.
“You can read the rest of it,” he said. “If you want.”
By the time I finished, I loved him differently than before.
I loved his honesty and vulnerability.
Noah is eleven months old now.
He sleeps through most nights, which still feels strange.
I am better.
I eat, shower, and laugh without immediately feeling guilty.
Some days remain difficult, but they no longer feel endless.
Sometimes Ethan still wakes at 2 a.m., but now he tells me when the panic becomes loud.
Sometimes we sit together on the nursery floor while Noah sleeps in his crib and talk about how close we came to losing each other during those first months of parenthood.
A few weeks ago, I found Ethan writing in the notebook again.
I smiled.
“Still documenting our collapse?”
He looked up and smiled back.
“No,” he said. “Now I’m documenting the recovery.”
Then he showed me the latest line.
“This is the night your mother and I finally started saving each other.”
I cried when I read it because he had saved me just as much as I had saved him.
But beneath the tears, I also felt calm.
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