Parenting in an unstable world

THE PARENTS: Molly Baird Ashodian, 34, and Seth Blume, 38, of South Philadelphia

THE CHILD: Noah Irving Baird-Blume, born May 2, 2022

HIS NAME: Noah is for Molly’s brother, who died as an infant; Irving is because Seth was binge-reading John Irving novels around the time they conceived.

Molly and Seth had been talking about living together. But when the pandemic hit in March 2020, it was a catalyst to step up that plan. “All of a sudden, on a Friday, I packed a duffel bag and headed to Seth’s place,” she recalls. “It was existentially terrifying and also kind of fun. It felt like a snow day for two weeks.”

Except that the snow day never ended. At the time, Molly was a staff person for a health-care workers’ union; she had Zoom meetings 10 to 15 hours a day. Seth works at a biotech company that was encouraging employees to take care of themselves.

The world felt atilt: COVID-19; the upcoming election. “I remember saying, ‘But I don’t have questions about our relationship; that’s something I feel really sure of.’ It was a stabilizing force,” Molly recalls.

They’d been in each other’s lives, thanks to Tinder, since 2015 — a few years of on-and-off dating, then a reconnection when Seth noticed that Molly had changed her profile picture to one of herself with his dog, Hershey.

“I was jokingly angry that she was using my dog to get dates with other men,” he says. “I reached out, we decided to have a cup of coffee, and I think we were both in different places in our lives. We were a little more mature, a little bit more ready to find a life partner.”

Despite their differences — Molly’s a voluble talker, while Seth is more concise; she wants to process things quickly, while he prefers to mull them over; she barely tops 5 feet while he’s 6′1″ — they share a love of dogs and a commitment to extended family and friends. “We’re both progressive-minded and care a lot about the world and our community,” Molly says.

In January 2021, they moved to South Philadelphia, where Molly had lived when they began to date. They talked about marriage but wanted to wait until friends and family could celebrate with them safely.

Molly wasn’t keen on marriage as an institution — and she definitely wasn’t interested in a ring that would mark her as a “taken woman.” So the two designed rings with an assortment of stones from family heirlooms; they each wear one now. They have a wedding planned for October.

In the meantime, Molly wanted kids. There had been loss in her family — her mother died when Molly was a college senior, and there was a baby, born in-between Molly and her brother, who lived for only two days. She felt close to her father and her grandparents.

“I always had imagined having a family, but … it felt easier to imagine it with someone I really wanted to make a life with,” she says.

“I was hesitant to have children,” Seth says. “But Molly very much did, and I wanted Molly in my life forever.”

Once they were back in South Philly, surrounded by friends, many with kids, who lived fewer than 10 blocks away, the time seemed right. Molly crept out of bed one Monday morning, used a pregnancy test in the bathroom, then hid under the covers and told Seth to go look for himself.

“Just tell me what it says,” he insisted.

“I can be a little anxious, so I took four more tests, four different brands,” Molly recalls. “I couldn’t believe that it was real.”

Seth believed it; in fact, he blurted it to the first person he saw that day: the counterperson at a Vietnamese restaurant, where he asked for a shot of whiskey before sharing the news.

They told their parents with a series of photographs from recent family get-togethers — ultrasound pictures tucked into the mix as a surprise — after genetic tests indicated the baby was healthy.

Molly remained healthy, too, except for a fall at 30 weeks that fractured her ankle; she was in a brace or a boot until a week before delivery. They worked with Lifecycle WomanCare, a birth center in Bryn Mawr, but Molly’s anxiety led them to opt for a hospital birth with midwives.

Early on May 1, Molly woke Seth: “I’m really having contractions,” she said. A few hours later at Bryn Mawr Hospital, the pain eased by an epidural, she watched old episodes of Friends and waited to dilate.

But after Molly pushed for nearly three hours, the baby’s heart rate began dropping. The OB said it wasn’t an emergency … yet, but that Molly and Seth could opt for a C-section before the situation became scary.

“If we say yes, when will we see our child?” Seth asked the doctor. The answer: 30 minutes. “I looked at Molly; she gave me a wink.”

In the operating room, surgeons asked Molly if she wanted a clear drape. “I want the most opaque drape you have,” she said. But once Noah was out, both parents couldn’t stop looking. “He’s really cute,” Seth told Molly. “He’s got a lot of hair. He’s got a huge cone head.”

“He was so bright pink,” she remembers. “He was staring at me, his little tongue was sticking out. I was in awe.”

A friend of Molly’s from Central High School described the first few weeks postpartum as “survival mode.” Molly says that’s apt. “Your house is a disaster, you don’t know if you’ve brushed your teeth. If you are alive and your baby’s alive and the dog has been fed, it’s an accomplishment.”

Friends and family have leaned in with support: a meal train, chats, offers to hold Noah so Molly or Seth can shower. Meantime, they reckon with what it means to parent in an unstable world — not just the news from Uvalde, Texas, which Molly can barely read, but climate crisis, court rulings, and the rest.

“It feels like a heavier weight,” she says. “I feel responsible to leave a not-terrible world to this beautiful little baby.”