Valley of the low sun

Round 37: November 2045 (Spring)

Daniel Halmi is 38, Susannah is 35 and Zac Whitney is 11. 
(Kimberly is 74)

Narrated by Daniel Halmi

Susannah and I will have been married for two years in February and so far, it’s been amazing.

I love coming home to her, at least on the nights she doesn’t have to work. 

She does tend to work pretty late sometimes but I always stay up and wait for her. 

It’s usually the only time we get to spend together that day and because Zac is asleep by then (or with his dad, depending on the night), we have the place to ourselves as well. 

It’s mostly because I’d been in his life since he was 3 and moved in with Susannah before we got married but Zac has had no issues at all adjusting.

He’s here with us most of the time - five nights a week during school time and half his breaks - and I try to spend as much time doing things with him as Susannah does.

We share a love of science, so it’s never difficult to find something we both enjoy.

Susannah is quite happy with this development, because it means she doesn’t have to feign interest when Zac wants to watch documentaries about natural disasters on the Weather Channel. 

While we’re doing that, she’ll head over to the computer and work on her cookbook which she’s hoping but not expecting to be finished by the time the baby comes along. 

Susannah just entered her third trimester and we’re looking forward to finally meeting Baby Halmi.

This pregnancy has been less difficult emotionally for Susannah, seeing it was totally planned, but much harder physically. 

She’s noticing a big difference between pregnancy at 24 and pregnancy at 35. 

Her job is a very demanding one physically and although she says she’s been fine, I’ve still been worried. 

Of her own accord, she decided she’d be starting her maternity leave early, in two weeks’ time and I’m very glad about that. The fatigue is catching up with her and she can’t currently do her job as well as she normally can.

With some time off, she can just relax until the baby gets here. There’ll be plenty of time for us both to be exhausted once he/she does.

People ask whether we want a boy or a girl and I never have an answer. Until people started asking, it didn’t even occur to me to hope for one or the other.

I think Susannah might like a daughter but it’s all going to be new to me no matter what. I’ve known Zac since he was pretty small but it’s not the same thing as knowing him from birth.

Zac is quite adamant that he’d like a brother. He’s not going to complain if it’s a sister instead but he's already got a sister on his dad's side, and Zac would like one of each kind of sibling. 

Susannah’s mother Kimberly offered us some money to finish the nursery for the baby. It’s sitting mostly empty at the moment, because we really don’t have the money. Everything is being poured into the mortgage.

If it was solely my decision, I probably wouldn’t have taken the money but Susannah accepted it almost immediately. 

I’ve always been a bit proud about asking for help but Susannah insisted. It’s not going to be something Kimberly holds over our heads or anything. It’s just a no-strings-attached gift, because she genuinely wants to help us out. 

And honestly, we do need the help! Money is very tight for us at the moment. I’ve been more worried about it than I’ve been letting on. 

Shortly after Kimberly’s visit, Susannah started experiencing some complications and went into preterm labour. I was at work at the time and had to rush away to be with her. 

At Sullivan Hospital, they did everything they could to stop the labour from progressing but were unsuccessful. Our baby boy Jeremy Raphael was born at 28 weeks. There’s no NICU at our hospital, so the decision was made to transfer Jeremy to another hospital. 

We’re very fortunate in that he is doing about as well as can be expected, considering how early he was. He’s obviously small and he needs some help breathing but he's responding very well to treatment so far. 

At the moment, we’re spending a lot of time away from Zac, which is obviously not ideal. He’s staying with Sam and Julia during the week, so his schooling isn’t interrupted. 

On weekends, Sarah drives him down to see us and his new baby brother (behind glass only, at the moment).

We’ve been told that most likely, we’re looking at a couple of months’ stay for Jeremy, so this will be our life for a good while yet.

I’m not even thinking about that too much at the moment. I just want to make sure Jeremy has the best chance at making it as possible and we’ll deal with anything else later.

Notes:

• Title is from Valley of the Low Sun by Jakob Dylan. 
• Ugh, so this whole thing was a bit of a disaster and I wasn't ready for it!! I had forgotten to suspend Susannah's pregnancy again after I let her advance to the third trimester, which resulted in little Jeremy arriving early! I was planning on quitting without saving and then absent-mindedly saved anyway. So I kind of had to go with it. 
• The reason you don't see Jeremy in this is because I no longer have the deco premie babies in my game, nor do I have an NICU! But I will sort something out by January birthdays, which is when I plan to revisit this family (Susannah's birthday is then). I think Jeremy would be big enough by then that just showing him as a regular sim baby will not be too unbelievable. He'd be like 34-35 weeks by then. 
• I briefly considered a couple of other solutions once I realised what I'd done but they were both unappealing to me, for different reasons. I could have gone back to a back-up...but I have not been as vigilant recently, so the back-up was from before Josh and Elspeth's wedding, possibly even before November birthdays. I also could have made Susannah pregnant again, got the pics I needed and then quit without saving...but we've already established that I can't be trusted with that. ;) I could have made her pregnant again and then ended the pregnancy with InSim but I've had major glitchiness doing that past the first trimester, so I avoid it wherever I can.