"I can do this by myself."

It had started out as a rebel yell, when her perfect husband decided the life they'd created together had no room in it for new life; that it was a baby or him.

Victoria had chosen unconditional love over all the terms Dustin suddenly had tried to write into their wedding vows.

"I can do this by myself."

It was said as reassurance to her ever-worrying mother who could not imagine having a baby without a husband and all the way away Boston. "Mija, move home, there are jobs in Houston. I can move closer." Her mother hated Houston and would miss San Antonio everyday, but Victoria knew she would make that move. Boston was an entirely different world and, according to her mother, she would rather "Voy al Diablo" than live there through a winter. She'd come to visit when things were better, when She and Dustin were on the same page and that page was gonna make her an abuelita and she still would not suffer the cold. She would come in the summer. "Mi sangre is too skinny, mi amor," she'd said. Her mother was cold at 60. That declaration had come a year ago and her mother was getting her wish. Sort of. Victoria pulled her jacket across her belly and was thankful for the internal heater she carried. Though her blood was a little skinny even after years in Boston too.

Her mom was worried, for new reasons now, but women did this all the time. And she'd heard, "se casate y Dami nietos, o que? voy a ser la unica de mis amigas que no tiene nietos" too often, even before Dustin and often from the beginning seven years they were married. Maria Luisa wanted grandchildren. She wanted him in the best circumstances, from her only daughter and her husband. But she wanted them no matter what. Even if they didn't live in Texas and their dad was picked, by his genetics and the collection center's impressions, out of a book.

"I can do this by myself." It had been a reminder while she was daunted by those choices. This man was 6'2" and played college football. He had green eyes, which she loved, and his grandfather was Spanish, like hers.

But he'd been brusque with someone, his impression was standoffish. One staff member said rude. So, she turned the page. If she was gonna pick, she realized that it wasn't just physical stuff. She wanted an athletic guy, but not a frat boy. Unless he was a frat boy like Chris Evans, who was technically a client, and was a dream to work with. She doubted he'd ever given a sample, but Victoria could hope, he'd been a student once. So, she kept turning the page.

She'd settled for 6'0" with green eyes. A master's candidate who swam. Athletic, on his way to accomplished, but not a World Cup champion with a PhD.

It was too bad dating wasn't this smooth.

Victoria reminded herself she could do this herself, again, with her feet in the stirrups through the light cramping. Not everyone felt it when they had the IUI procedure, lucky her. She almost asked if that indicated she had better orgasms, but didn't. She didn't know the doctor well, the nurses, them she could joke with. 

"I'm gonna do this myself!"

She cried it out on her bathroom floor from joy when the test came back positive when she'd just known. It was way before she made like a broken typewriter and missed a period. The coffee in the break room of her law office was always gross, but that day she'd had to leave the room it nauseated her so bad.

She'd ducked out at lunch to CVS.

Her hands had gone numb while she sat on them to contain herself.

The nausea at least made it easy to use the test long before she made her delivered ingredients into a meal.

Code blue! She was gonna be a mom!

"I can do this by myself?" She'd cried in disbelief when the doctor had found two heartbeats and a high protein level. They had told her it didn't always take, so it was common practice to fertilize mutiple eggs.

Twins- by herself.

She almost moved to San Antonio.

"I can do this myself!" She'd cried Into the disturbed surface of the toilet bowl when she'd timed her daily upchuck to avoid meetings with her boss, it would make it worse. Rodney was already abysmal at not eyeing her growing stomach with downturned lips.

Victoria wasn't interested in being a partner anyway, which was a good thing to have already decided. But she'd need to continue working full time after her maternity leave, all 6 weeks of it.

"I can do this by myself!" She screamed at the poor attendant when he asked if the father was meeting her while wheeling her to the delivery room. Poor guy couldn't know what a contraction felt like.

"I can do this by myself," she wept when she got both babies, Maribel and Mateo, strapped into their seats for the first time because they were just gonna let her leave the hospital with these tiny fragile things. 

By herself? 

Without a book or manual?

"I can do this by myself," she reassured herself when her madre got back on a southbound plane after suffering through 6 weeks of winter, but with a smile on her face and a baby on each hip.

It only took 3 weeks of daycare drop offs, no matter how highly rated the place was, and pumping through her lunch break for her to finally admit it.

Victoria couldn't do this by herself.

Well, she could, but she could use some help. So she had found another catalog, on the internet, full of international students looking for room and board and a job.

And that was how she wound up sharing mother's milk tea and overnight oats with the beautiful boy standing up in her kitchen. He was about 6 ft and had green eyes, may have been a swimmer, but he was fresh from London.

"Hi, I'm Harry."

He'd taken a baby, because she had one in each hand, and helped her get them both settled in lieu of an interview. She'd totally forgotten about his appointment. The others had been so lackluster.

She'd been ready to kiss him when Mateo not only fell asleep on his shoulder but was transferred to his crib with barely a peep.

He was hired when he tasted the fenugreek tea he'd asked for, made a face like an unhappy frog, and said. "I'm gonna go buy you some Guinness. That's good for the milk too, and tastes a whole lot better!" Then he took Maribel, and cooed her down to her sheeted mattress as well.

The door closed behind him,  before Victoria could get her open mouth to close around any word, thanks or please, or what? "Right!" she said to the closed door, and it was suddenly ok, she didn't have to do this by herself.