Monday

I have become one of those moms with her baby on her computer desktop. I said I'd never do it, but I can't help myself. Even when my screen is buried 12-deep in documents, I love knowing that I can visit him with a click. Today, as an exercise, I imagine two faces smiling out at me from my monitor. How does it feel? Like I just got punched—twice. Two wallops of guilt, right in the stomach. Both doses are for Finn.

Tuesday

You can relax now," says the Polish bikini-waxer. She has finished her brutal grooming but, I realize, I'm still lying rigor-mortis stiff on her padded table, gripping the sides, white-knuckled. "Was it so bad?" she asks, patting my thigh. In fact, I didn't even notice her pulling my pubic hair out by the roots. I read this morning that my risk of having a baby with Down syndrome will jump 25 percent this year, when I turn 36. But I'm less scared of that than I am of diving into this second-child thing and losing—maybe for good—everything I worked so hard to regain after Finn: my sleep, my concentration, my career, my waist (Okay, the last is still a work in progress). When the Polish lady leaves the room, I get dressed and look at myself in the mirror. In my Burberry hat and tailored coat, I appear to have my shit together. And sometimes I even convince myself (however fleetingly) that being a good role model to your kid is as easy as looking like one when you walk out the door every morning.

Wednesday

On the subway platform, I bump into my good friend M. She takes one look at me and says, "What is it?"

"What's what?"

"What's wrong? You look sad."

"Oh God," I sigh, and it all comes rushing out: "Ted is basically leaving it to me to decide if we should have another baby, and I thought I did want to, but I don't want to be pregnant right now—I do not have the energy. But then again, I feel like I'm running out of time!"

Immediately, I feel a hot flush crawl up my neck: I am a married, 35-year-old woman complaining about her biological clock to my recently single 34-year-old friend—who wants a baby of her own.

"Never mind," I say. "I'm being an idiot. There's plenty of time."

"Of course there's plenty of time," M. says a bit curtly. "Remember our conversation last week? To quote you verbatim: 'Fuck your clock. We have science. We have Madonna.' "

We stare at the train tracks in uncomfortable silence.

Thursday

Finn and I are watching Sesame Street when he gently (for once) removes my glasses and regards me with a concerned look.

"Hi there," I say, sniffling. "This is a real tearjerker, huh?"

Finn looks dubious. I lift his pj-clad body into my lap and ask him, "How is it I can love you so much? Huh? And if you had a sister or brother, would I have double the love to carry around in my heart all the time? Wouldn't that be too heavy?" Perhaps these are unfair questions to ask a toddler, but Finn has these gray blue old-soul eyes that make me forget whom I'm talking to sometimes. He stares at me for another beat, then scrambles out of my lap and runs his funny little run around the corner and into his room. When he returns, he's carrying his two favorite animals. Solemnly, he hands me first Bunny, then Lion. "Two," he says simply. I decide—how could I not?—to take this as his blessing.

Friday

In bed, as Ted and I are settling into sleep, I think of my boy, the good sharer, offering me his animals. "We're going to go for it, aren't we?" I whisper into Ted's shoulder blades.

"Of course we are," he says. I can feel him smiling in the dark.