Read past episodes here:

part 1.

part 2.

part 3.

For the last couple of months, the sofa in our TV room had been the most comfortable place for me to sleep, which meant that the bugs had discovered me in there, and were finding my shoulders and neck a delightfully reliable source for a meal. We were even getting bit when we hung out there in the evenings, so my husband decreed it off-limits. I would have to move back to the bed.

To make it less inviting, he overturned all the furniture.

My due date, Dec. 26th, came and went: no baby yet. The exterminator came again just before New Year’s, and laid down a thick layer of pesticide that left drifts of a white sediment along the edge of every room in the house. It made me feel better. Sort of.

My mother had taken some time off work to visit when the baby came, so she decided to come up anyway. She was there for New Year’s, which, since the TV room was out of commission, we spent on the uncomfortable thrift-store mid-century modern sofa downstairs, watching the celebration from Times Square on my husband’s laptop on a low-res video feed that seized up at crucial moments, heightening the suspense.