Winnie and Thomas Amato have decided to have their first baby together. Although the excitement levels are high, Winnie, especially, is also full of dread. Already prone to being an anxious person, the fluctuating hormones and nauseous waves aggravate her fears. In fact, she calls it “the Fear” because sometimes it becomes so loud that there is nothing else.
After Winnie becomes fed up with her suffering and feelings of madness, she finds that her new desire to nest runs deep into the very marrow of her bones. She cleans and preps and spends countless hours preparing a nursery for their baby. And somewhere within the frantic nesting, Winnie finds moments to breathe and discover peace.
But can these minor moments of noticing and slowing down really stop “the Fear” from reappearing? Can Winnie make it through her pregnancy without losing the baby? Will Thomas and Winnie remain together as man and wife? Nine months turn into eons for a woman who is holding a growing baby inside her body for that long. Every day brings unfamiliar sensations and new ways of exploring the world, as if both soon-to-be parents were only babies themselves.
Winnie and Thomas Amato have decided to have their first baby together. Although the excitement levels are high, Winnie, especially, is also full of dread. Already prone to being an anxious person, the fluctuating hormones and nauseous waves aggravate her fears. In fact, she calls it “the Fear” because sometimes it becomes so loud that there is nothing else.
After Winnie becomes fed up with her suffering and feelings of madness, she finds that her new desire to nest runs deep into the very marrow of her bones. She cleans and preps and spends countless hours preparing a nursery for their baby. And somewhere within the frantic nesting, Winnie finds moments to breathe and discover peace.
But can these minor moments of noticing and slowing down really stop “the Fear” from reappearing? Can Winnie make it through her pregnancy without losing the baby? Will Thomas and Winnie remain together as man and wife? Nine months turn into eons for a woman who is holding a growing baby inside her body for that long. Every day brings unfamiliar sensations and new ways of exploring the world, as if both soon-to-be parents were only babies themselves.
I, Winnie Amato, have had sex today with my husband, Thomas Amato. We are both signing with our blood this oral document to have a child together. We are committed to bringing life into this world. But our journey to this point all began with Thomas asking me to marry him, and then time jumped so quickly to our appearance at a courthouse in our little town with me wearing a white dress and him wearing his best tux and both of us shaking from the excitement and overstimulation of the moment.
With our “I dos” said and done, our parents demanded in on the action. “Winnie, when will I get to hold my grandbaby?” “Thomas, get to it, boy!” “Winnie, have you been taking any prenatal vitamins?” The nonstop pressure from the family drew me closer to Thomas as I often hid my head in his arms or his neck wherever I could get away from the outside influences telling me that “geriatric pregnancy is upon you” and “good luck having a normal baby once you reach your forties.”
I was nowhere near my forties, being in my early thirties still meant I had time. At least, I thought I had time. Until one day, Thomas came home from work and clasped my hands between his own.
“Thomas, dear, you’ve already done this, remember?” I smiled, stroking his silver fox hair.
“I want to have a baby.”
“With me?” I stammered.
He paused, trying to keep his face straight. “No, with your sister. Of course, with you! Will you try with me?”
My eyes grew large, like lychees ready to pop out of their shells. “Already? I thought the plan was to build up our finances a bit more over the next few years…”
“Well, my buddy told me at work that there never really is a perfect time to have a child. So, let’s do it!” And with that quite literal statement, Thomas whisked me off my feet to the bedroom.
After having a romp, I said: “You know I can’t conceive until I get off my birth control pill, right?”
“Right, right, I knew that,” he said as his face turned red. “Let’s go make something to eat. I’m starving after all that playing with you.” He offered me his firm hands and hoisted me up off the bed.
***
The day after Thomas’s “second proposal,” I ended up sitting vulnerably on my ob-gyn’s medical table, attempting to wrap myself tighter in the kimono-like patient gown that was much too large for me. My breasts were completely lost in the sea of scratchy blue, and it depressed me terribly.
Sitting under the fluorescent lights and curious about why I had a lump in my throat already, the doctor finally knocked.
“Come in,” I said.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Penelope Sapienti. Nice to meet you, Winnie. I’ll be your primary doctor throughout your pregnancy. Congrats! Are you ready?”
“Are you ready?” stuck deeply, and I forgot to breathe. There was no way I was ready. How could I? All I could say was: “As ready as I can, I suppose. My husband said there was no perfect moment, and he seems ready. I thought we would build up our finances more, but he’s in charge of most of that, anyway.”
Dr. Sapienti just smiled and nodded. She had probably had every single patient who walked into her office feel the same way before, so nothing much surprised her. At least I was not crying. I hate crying in front of other people. I never wanted to look like the stereotypical woman who was hysterical about every change in her life.
“Well,” said Dr. Sapienti, “your husband’s not wrong. There is never a perfect time, and your reaction is not uncommon. But, at least, you both want to have a child, right?”
“Yes,” I said, “absolutely.”
I had signed my name in blood on the dotted line.
I spent the next two hours in that horrendously lit room, with the breezy gown serving as my only shield from more invasive probings. Dr. Sapienti got to know me really well that day. She knew what the inside of my vagina was like, what my breasts felt like, how my medications were going, and where my head was with all this. She advised me of the risks of certain pills and supplements, took a look at my family history, immunization history, contraception methods, any sexually transmitted infections, and current lifestyle habits. I had to stop taking my birth control for two weeks before actively trying to conceive. The doctor recommended wearing condoms until after those two weeks had passed.
I snorted. “My husband would rather not touch me for two weeks than wear a condom.”
Dr. Sapienti just shook her head, hiding her crooked smile.
I had to start taking vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids on top of the prenatal vitamins. I suddenly became a living science experiment. By the end of that prenatal checkup, I understood what it meant to be a vessel, and perhaps I was closer to what being a woman really meant.
Upon coming home, I told Thomas all about his sperm and how it can live inside of me for up to five days. I taught him about basal body temperature. I mentioned his reluctance to wear a condom while I was waiting for the birth control to stop regulating my cycle. I made him nauseous just thinking about “fertile periods” and paying close attention to my “cervical mucus changes.”
“Hey, you wanted this,” I said.
“Yeah, I want a baby, not to know about how to make one,” he said, his handsome face all squished and sickly.
“Too bad,” I said. “You signed up for the whole deal. It is signed in your blood.”
“What did I sign with my own blood?” asked Thomas.
“You signed the oral contract to conceive this morning. I imagine we signed with our own blood to make it really stick.”
“I love how macabre you are, Winnie. I really do.” Thomas patted me on the leg as he got up from the couch with a grunt and walked off to find a good place to panic about his decision.
In fact, there was a lot of panicking going on between the two of us. We had not even truly tried for a baby yet and already our heads were dancing, not with sugar plum fairies at night, but with the cries and fears and expectations put on us by others. I dreamed about labor and how sweaty and exhausted I would be caught up in the painful contractions. Yet, we clung to each other for comfort.
At night, when I was awake tossing and turning, I would frequently wrap my arms tight around his body and hide my head in his back. We were two spoons in a drawer, linked together, each trying to lower the other’s flighty heart. By the morning, I would stir my tea with a spoon filled with the love and warmth garnered from last night.
Life went on as usual for the next month. The two weeks after stopping birth control have passed, and the sex was as frequent as when we first met each other. My period came back with a vengeance after not being on the pill anymore and I spent the first two days trying to avoid passing out from the pain. I remembered those days back in high school when I slumped over my desk in health class from the pain and awoke seconds later to find that the teacher had not even noticed my absence. My classmates thought I was just picking up my pencil from the floor. Or the time when I was waiting for the pain relievers to kick in when I was young and found my only comfort on the bathroom floor. I stretched my entire naked body out on the cold tiles, especially my head, and waited there in my own sweat, pleading with the pain to stop. My mother used to say, “Oh, honey, you’re becoming a little woman,” but she neglected to tell me how much getting a period would stink.
Thankfully, I learned to take my pain pills early and take the week easy. My husband never understood the transformation I went through every month. Women were a strange species to him, all wired by this miraculous ability to give birth. The period served as a constant reminder of what we were made to do—make babies. Initially, babies were the furthest thing from my mind as a tomboy child. Later on, I wanted a career and a life of luxury and not walking down fluorescent aisles in drugstores looking for baby diapers or stuck in hospitals waiting to deliver again. I shivered at the thought, even as a young adult. I even saw other people’s children as competition until I was much too old to admit it. Other children were my competitors for cuteness and ability and talent. That is, until I met a man who spoke about wanting children with such kindheartedness, and I had been completely isolated from children myself for years at a time. With that kind of space and longing needing to be filled, I began dreaming of such crazy things as children. Did I want one? Two? What would I name a child? By my family members? By my fictional heroes? There were too many questions floating around in my head that came out in bits and pieces as I grew closer to Thomas.
When Thomas clasped my hands, I knew I was committing myself in blood to marrying him and having his children. I had always longed for the stability I had never had as a child. My desires were deep for a forever home in a town where everyone knew us and I was not a lost face among a crowd. My community would watch me grow and my family branch out from the home that kept them all together.
So on this particular morning, I noticed my breasts were tender. Being paranoid that there were malignant lumps in there, I started obsessively poking around in front of the kitchen sink, oblivious as to who was around and lurking.
“Dear, should I make my breakfast later?” Thomas said as he watched me squeezing my own breasts in a panic.
“Oh, no. Sorry. My breasts are sore, that’s all. I was just checking for lumps.”
Thomas lifted an eyebrow. “Isn’t it more likely that you are just PMSing?”
I hated when he reminded me of the more logical options. “Yes, it could be. My period is supposed to come in the next week.” Fool that I was, I did not even think that by the time next week would roll around I would not get my period and the breast soreness was actually the very first sign of my pregnancy.
I continued in a state of panic as I experienced all the symptoms: tender breasts, fatigue, spotting, nausea with vomiting, urinating every five minutes, cravings and aversions to foods, headaches, dizziness, mood swings, and increased body temperature. After acknowledging and accepting that my period was not coming, I sighed a sigh of relief that there would be no cramps in my near future, but then I went out to buy a pregnancy test…actually six of them. I needed to make sure that I could allow myself the time to get excited over having done the deed. And since I had to urinate so frequently, I had no problem taking the test over and over again in a short period.
A very faint plus sign appeared next to the control line. There it was six times over. Proof that my HCG levels were up and there was a new set of orders going on inside me. My body felt like hormones hijacked it, and this was the reason. There were feelings and sensations I had never felt before. It was like finding alien life inside my body or discovering a new world I had never known about before. I shook with the thrill of it all.
I laid all six sticks out on the bathroom counter and rushed out to get Thomas and show him what I had done.
“Thomas, Thomas! I deserve a sticker on the fridge for this. Come look!” I clung to his arm and dragged him to the bathroom with such renewed force and energy that he already had an inkling of what he might find hiding in the bathroom.
“Oh, honey, six pregnancy sticks, really?”
I gave him a slap on the arm and pointed manically at the sticks and their foreshadowing pluses.
Thomas’s eyes grew as he saw the plus signs on each stick. “Well, I think that means we did it,” he chuckled, nervously scratching his head. “I have to go now. I’ll see you for dinner?”
I nodded and gave Thomas a hard squeeze. I knew he had been selling his old comics and other childhood toys because he was worried about having another mouth to feed so soon. He was so sweet.
My thoughts then gravitated to where I would have this baby. Would it be at home, in a hospital, some kind of birth center, off the side of the road? My mother had had me in a hospital with all the bells and whistles. I remember seeing pictures of her with tubes seemingly coming out of every orifice. Only our ancestors gave birth at home and bloodied their own marriage beds. A hospital seemed like the safest and most modern way to have a baby. Yes, hospital it is.
Pushing myself up off the bathroom counter, I gathered my pregnancy tests up in my hands and stuck them in a box. It was too soon for me to just let go of those plus signs. In case I needed a reminder that this was actually happening in real life, then I needed at least six confirmations of it.
With the sticks put away, I headed to the kitchen to prepare myself lunch and started prepping for dinner. Since leaving teaching, in preparation for being a stay-at-home mother for the next few years, I have been focusing my efforts on eating healthily. And of course, if I am in charge of the food prep, then my husband also has to eat what I consume. We are focusing on a good, strong sperm count…at least that is the only way I can convince him to eat his vegetables.
Lately, I have come up with brilliant ways to mix the greens in smoothies or sautés that hide the bunny-friendly consistency of the leaves; neither of us even notices how many greens we are consuming in a day. I usually start mornings out with some sort of yogurt topped with fruit and granola, lunch is leftovers, and dinner is some sort of protein, vegetable, and grain. My baby will turn into Popeye before it even appears in this world.
The doctor had already scared me away from eating any sort of raw seafood, so I had to be content with having my sushi days in the past. My husband did not like “sea bugs” anyway. Salmon was also off the list for fear of mercury hurting my baby. There were many other things the duennas of the Internet told me to shy away from as well, like organ meat and raw sprouts. Again, I was learning at a rapid pace what it meant to be a vessel.
After lunch, I dusted the furniture and odds and ends that littered the house. Thomas had a bad habit of stripping off one piece of clothing after work at a time and leaving it where he took it off himself. In the kitchen, there lie his pants, in the dining room, a sock, and in the living room, another sock. In the parlor, I would find his work shirt or a tie, swinging softly over the back of the sofa. His attire was only a restriction to him and home meant comfort, which made me feel good. I wanted a home that was cozy and warm for my babies to grow up in. Their development would consume me entirely. That is why I found it difficult to imagine maintaining a job while taking care of babies who grew so quickly. They needed every second of attention they could get in order to grow up brilliant and strong.
The vacuuming took ages, and by the time I had finished sucking up all the tiny spiders and their new webs, my back ached. I lay down and my breasts ached. I was sore all over, and my head swam with visions of a baby waddling around and hitting its head on the pointy coffee table ends. I saw blood spurting out of my own child’s head and I nearly vomited. I clasped my hands over my eyes until I felt prepared to open them once more, to take in the fact that nothing was there and that nothing had happened. There was no baby; there was no fall; there was no blood. But the spiky ends were still there, and I felt a powerful urge to throw the entire table out the window, but I knew Thomas was attached to that ugly piece of furniture, so I went out to the store and bought four tennis balls.
I carved a hole into each tennis ball and stuck each one onto the end of the baby-killing spikes. “Phew!” I said, “Now, I can relax.” I put the vacuum back in the closet, raised my feet up on the couch, and slid my hands behind my head, planning on just fitting in a little nap. Two hours passed without any awareness. Dinner needed to be on the table by five, so I shot up off the couch, leaned back a bit after the rush of blood seemed to slow down, and went to fetch my apron.
Dinner tonight was two palmfuls of broccoli, one palm-sized piece of chicken for each of us, and a fist of rice for each. The meal was small and rather disappointing, but neither of us felt weighed down afterward by the food choice. The smoothies for dessert helped bring our energy back up for the evening until bedtime.
***
Thomas and I did not want to tell family members anything until we got past the first trimester, which was going to be at thirteen weeks. I was afraid of losing the baby since I had watched many other women talk about how much suffering they went through after having announced it and then lost it. My sense of attachment had not truly grown yet. I still felt more like a science experiment at this point than a mother. I felt like keeping quiet about it was best.
That evening, lying in bed, I thought about all the foods I could not eat for the next nine months: hot dogs, feta, liver…none of those really sounded appealing, anyway. I quickly put my hand over my mouth to avoid vomiting. My temperature spiked, and I began sweating through my nightgown, without an end in sight. Peeking over to see which way my husband was sleeping, I ever so carefully extracted myself from the bed.
I had spent many nights like this, surrounded by various people in my life, always thinking that with this person, I would be different. But nothing changed; I was always the same Winnie, poor, weak, panicky, worrywart Winnie. Inside, my chest beat harder than a drum while the sweat chilled me as it splashed onto the bathroom floor. Alone in the bathroom was my only respite, where I could truly be alone with my thoughts. Years ago, I discovered what kind of anxiety I had—generalized anxiety disorder. The doctor placed the stamp on my head while still suggesting that labels did not mean I was trapped in this anxious corner forever, but on nights like this, when my life was on repeat, I felt like the monster would never leave.
It became apparent to me in my adulthood that fear was really the worst thing that a human being can experience because even the pain after an accident could distract you from the hole that kept getting bigger every time you gave in to the Fear. My mother had experienced this kind of black hole of fear and she still had children, so I slapped myself with my own hand to hold it together and not be so weak as I lay there on the bathroom floor shivering, not from cold but from pure fear—the kind of fear that makes you feel like you will explode from both sides of your body, like you were being squeezed through a tube to death, and once on the other side, you would never be the same person you were beforehand. It was always: This is the last time; this time will break me; this time I will snap and never escape the Fear, the big, black, ominous Fear.
After a few hours of curling over my growing baby, I had emptied out my guts and shook out the demons. My baby hairs stuck to my forehead as if I had already completed my future labor. How was I going to manage the pain and fear of pushing out this baby for real? In a hospital where everyone would watch me give in to the Fear? Thoughts like these whirled in my mind and made me spiral further down, forcing me physically to the ground to make sure it was still there, and I was still here.
If only morning’s light could come sooner. The darkness allowed for all the damned thoughts people were not supposed to think about out. A therapist once told me that all people have unwanted thoughts daily, but they never take them seriously, let alone act on them. I could only confirm that it was true when Thomas drove the car. His road rage flared up whenever someone tailgated him on the road, and he would spit out things like, “Don’t roll it over, Grandma!” or “Come closer and see what happens next!” He thought of some awful things, but he drove just like everybody else on the road without one moment of hesitation or divergence from his lane. Every day, Thomas acted rationally and there was no fear there to get in his way. He was in total control of his mind and his actions. In many ways, that is what I love about him: his strength and stability.
I could blame the hormones all I wanted, but I could feel so out of control sometimes, as if in a moment, I could betray myself and the very values I believed in. And that, said my therapist, is where the intrusive thoughts can distress people, people who think of the opposite action and actually worry about acting it out, as if they had no free will of their own, as if their thoughts controlled them. “You become your own worst nightmare,” she said.
The bathroom floor was finally feeling too cold for me to lie on, and I got up to sit on the edge of the bathtub. Staring into the large bowl, I worried about the fact that I could not now halt what I had started, and then the knot in my throat grew larger. I could not, nor did I want to, stop what was happening to me. I wanted to be pregnant, but I was afraid of the laboring and all the sudden changes afterward. I did not know how to deal with any of it. The bathtub only brought to my brain images, like a nonstop film reel playing in my head of Andrea Yates, drowning one child after another after another in her tub. Did they try to fight it? How could they fight against their own mother? The woman who gave them life in the first place? What if I lost control and became such a monster? What if the Fear made me do it?
Choking and gagging were the only responses I could give to such terrifying thoughts, thoughts that I wanted to stop right there and then without such a hard fight. I would never, ever do such a thing to my baby. I have wanted this now for such a long time. I want a cozy home where no tragedy could ever split us all apart. My family would be happy no matter what.
In Kaitlyn Bankson's Nest, Winnie Amato and her husband, Thomas, begin trying for their first child. What starts as an exciting new chapter quickly becomes far more complicated than either of them ever expected. Pregnancy brings physical changes, endless medical appointments, outside expectations, and a growing battle with fear and anxiety that Winnie can’t seem to explain to anyone, including Thomas. As the months pass, she must learn to trust both her body and the people who love her. Together, they must prepare for the biggest change in their lives.
The strongest part of Nest is Winnie. She narrates with complete honesty. Readers are given a ringside look at every hopeful thought, irrational fear, and small victory along the way. Her anxiety is never treated as a simple obstacle to overcome. It actually becomes part of her daily experience. Even ordinary situations make her uncertain. This is especially true when she feels like someone important to her doesn’t understand. That sincerity gives the book its emotional weight. Thomas provides a calming, steady presence that contrasts with Winnie's racing mind. Their relationship appears genuine because neither of them is perfect. They worry in different ways, support one another imperfectly, and continue choosing each other through every new challenge. The novel also stands out for its detailed look at pregnancy itself. It explores doctor visits, changing symptoms, setting up a nursery, choosing a name, and so much more. Winnie’s emotional state during much of the story was the most realistic. Hormones are going up and down, and so was she. Those experiences help readers connect with Winnie's journey. At times the pacing slows, but that’s because of the amount of reflection and medical detail. Those quieter passages reinforce how consuming pregnancy can become when every sensation feels significant.
Readers looking for a fast-paced family drama may find Nest more introspective than expected. Those who enjoy character-driven fiction will likely connect with Winnie's emotional journey. Bankson offers an honest portrait of pregnancy and motherhood before birth, showing that excitement and fear often exist side by side. Ultimately, it’s a book about love, vulnerability, and the hope of building a family.
Trigger warnings: Anxiety, panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, pregnancy complications, medical procedures, vomiting, discussion of miscarriage fears, postpartum medical care.