Nesting
By Neidy Hess
@neidyhess
Even with the desire to do all things in the right order, war makes living difficult. My new husband is a U.S. Marine due to deploy. I also need to resolve my undocumented status from my parents’ migration. Both are complicated realities resulting from war.
Two circumstances completely at odds—especially with the hope of growing our family. The saying “love knows no bounds” clearly has not met immigration law or military service.
Despite everything, the arrival of our first baby is now in our near future. The time to build our nest is now, not later when everything is far less complicated.
Our instinct relies on optimism—to hope for the best.
***
Nesting—a noun. It’s defined as a point in pregnancy where a mother is compelled by an irresistible urge to make a home ready for an infant. It is also characterized by a burst of energy that leads to organization, painting, cleaning, or even moving furniture around. Nesting shares this meaning with migratory birds.
***
“It doesn’t matter if you’re married. If you reveal you made an unlawful presence, you have to go back. And when you do go back to your home country, you’re automatically barred for ten years. No exceptions.”
Instead of looking across the cold metal desk at my weathered, aloof military immigration lawyer, I watch the tears land on my swollen belly, which held my growing sixteen-week-old baby. Breathing no longer seems natural.
The buttons on my favorite pair of jeans pull a little tighter along my waistband for the first time this week. I can’t believe a little human is growing inside me—a joy I hold tight-fisted. A joy now crushed by my lawyer’s emotionless words reverberating in her canyon-like office. The background fades as the news of my family’s very possible separation surrounds me, my husband, and our baby. I wanted to fly away.
“I wish I could give you better news,” she says in her grizzled, monotone voice while her shoulders remain straight like her absent smile. She scribbles a note on a yellow legal pad. “But that’s what the law says.” Her stern gaze meets my puffy, teary eyes. She clears her throat, “Can I ask you both to sit in the waiting room while I make one more phone call?”
My husband thanks the lawyer. The pulse from my heartbeat radiates throughout my fingertips as I hold in crushing sobs. The office spins. While my husband helps me up, my eyes remain transfixed on the ground and shuffle into the waiting room. I receive a reassuring squeeze while he holds my hand, but it does nothing to quell the ache in my heart.
Ten years.
She said I’d be banned from the United States, my home, for ten years before returning to adjust my status. My family migrated from their countries when I was three months old and never looked back. But now, there is no telling how old my baby would be before we could come home.
My husband and I sit in the stale beige waiting room outside our lawyer’s office. Still reeling from her words, air and time stand still. This room could break my family apart. He maintains a tight grip on my hand. I stare at the speckled carpet. I shut my eyes. My silent prayer squeezes out hope and lament while I place my other hand on my belly.
“We’ll figure it out,” he whispers with confidence. He shifts in his seat—desperation lacing his promise.
If God fearfully and wonderfully knit the baby I hold inside of me, does He hear the prayer of a scared, migrating woman with a hero husband?
A uniformed lawyer’s assistant calls our last name like a DMV number. We stand up to speak with our hardened lawyer again. The sterile process seems too ordinary for breaking families apart.
Despite the many medals on her uniform and the authority she displays from her neat sock bun, her once stiff shoulders relax in surrender. She sighs, “We have one last shot, and it may not be approved. But we can try.”
Her words hit me. One last hope—and for a second, I think I could feel a little flutter.
***
Our last shot is a “Parole-in-Place” form—its approval is dependent on me staying to adjust my status while I wait for my husband to come home. We wait for our lawyer to email it to us. When we receive it, we send it later that night at 1:00 a.m. before my husband boards his plane to Afghanistan, one month after meeting her for the first time.
At 6 a.m., my husband kisses my five-month-round belly and whispers, “See you … two later.” I wave goodbye to his departing bus as it heads to the airport for Afghanistan. I wipe my tears away, and rush to the lawyer’s office to sign another form. Parole-in-place says I can stay—for now. My urgency feels nothing short of instinctual at this point.
Months pass. My closet fills with stretchy maternity clothes. I attend all my OB appointments, marking them on the same calendar to count down the time until deployment ends. I look for letters waiting on the status of my green card, clearly sent by carrier pigeons. I finally make it to my due date—my body shows signs of labor, but I waddle my body to the mailbox for any letter with a USCIS stamp. The letter doesn’t arrive, but our son does.
We wait, new baby and his mom, for a letter that says whether or not we will stay in the U.S while my husband waits for the day he can leave and come home to us.
My son turns three weeks old when I finally receive an appointment letter stating I need to get fingerprints later that month. I call to set up a final time. My head and heart ache when they coldly said, “No, your baby cannot accompany you—even if you’re nursing.” I wonder if this is how mother birds feel when they have to leave the nest to do something important.
I get fingerprinted. I wait. The baby grows.
***
Every day I peek out my window while I cradle my baby. Despite growing bags under my eyes care of my ten-week-old’s sleep schedule, I keep an eye out for the mailman.
On an unassuming Tuesday in April, I receive another letter with a USCIS stamp while I bounce my little guy in his carrier on my daily trip to the apartment mailbox. I try to feel the envelope to see if I could feel a card, indicating my permanent stay. But I didn’t want to crinkle the letter too loud so as to wake up the snoozing baby.
The short walk to the mailbox turns into a journey on the way back to my apartment. Gravity tugs on my whole body as I take each step.
The door creaks open—the impending news more urgent. I set the envelope on the dining room table and walk toward our pack-n-play. The loud unclick from the straps on my carrier causes me to flinch, but I hold onto my son. Wrapping my trembling hands around his small frame, I pull up and bring him in close while I bounce to keep him asleep. My fingertips tingle as I place him in the pack-n-play. I gather the courage to open the letter.
I unseal the letter, ripping it open. The thick set of papers open to reveal a letter stating, “Welcome—”
***
My husband and I park our meager, beige Corolla in the gravel parking lot. He’s home at last.
I panic over being on time but glance at the sleeping four-month-old in his car seat. With stealth maneuvering, I unsnap the car seat, place it into the stroller, and cover my snoozing baby to keep the sunlight from waking him—a normal pattern.
We race toward the sandstone, rectangular building from the gravel parking lot. The servicewoman at the door greets us, asks us for our appointment, and points us toward the same waiting room we sat in a year ago.
I place a hand on my stroller, roll it next to me, and gently rock it to keep my baby’s schedule. I relax my tense shoulders—we’re fifteen minutes early.
After ten painstaking minutes, the lawyer’s assistant calls our names. The office that once seemed so large and vacuous can barely contain the stroller I now push. My husband and I wedge ourselves between the stroller and the shelf and sit at her desk.
Our lawyer smiles while she flips through our file and finds her seat. Her gaze drifts toward the stroller. The wrinkles by the corners of her eyes showcase her grandmotherly affections toward my baby son.
She congratulates us for our willingness—for our responsive emails and phone calls, our unafraid inquiries, and making copy after copy after copy. I tune her out, remembering the weight of separation, the stress, and the overwhelming exhaustion from taking care of a newborn. Our lawyer taps our file onto her desk and wraps up our conversation. I look at her M&M-themed calendar and imprint the date into my memory. I’m home.
“That’s it! But before you leave, can I take a peek?” She motions to the stroller behind my head. I enthusiastically bubble over and exclaim, “Of course!”
She gingerly opens the cover of my stroller.
My baby stares at her wide-eyed. His periwinkle fleece blanket exposes his tiny, tan sockless foot. The straight-laced, perfectly-pressed military lawyer drops her square, rigid shoulders and cracks a small smile while she lightly touches his toes.
“Oh, I love baby feet. There’s so much hope in their little toes.”
On our drive home from the office, babbles filled the backseat, and sniffles filled the front. Every so often, my husband looked over at me and smiled. He squeezed my hand. I squeezed back. Affirmative.
We found home driving on the 405 that day, flying past motorcycles and palm trees. We made our nest.
Guest essay written by Neidy Hess. Neidy (pronounced nay-dee) is a Mexican-Guatemalan creative with a love of Georgia peaches, sweet tea, and cold brew coffee on tap. She lives on the Iowa side of the Omaha metro with her three incredible niños and firefighter-paramedic husband. She's the Exhale content manager. You can find her on her website, on Instagram, or every month in her Substack newsletter.