Love’s Suicide(28)
Author: Jennifer Foor

“Just based on that I would say you got pregnant somewhere around the nineteenth to the twenty-fifth of the month maybe a little later. Does that sound about right to you? The normal ovulation cycle is usually around fourteen days after your menstrual cycle starts.”

I began to cry, so uncontrolled that a nurse came in to see what was the matter. The doctor dealt with a couple other patients and came back in with all sorts of paperwork and different options.

I flipped out after looking down at one of them and seeing something on being pro-choice. It went on to say that abortion was a legal option.

I threw the pamphlet at him and said words that I knew I shouldn’t have. By the time that they’d gotten me calmed down enough to walk to the car, Sarah was practically in tears with me. I’d embarrassed her and I was so sorry for it.

None of them could understand the complexity of the situation. They could never understand how important this pregnancy was to me. I couldn’t kill something that belonged to him. I couldn’t ever fathom that as being an option.

She closed the door on the driver’s side and handed me a prescription written out for prenatal vitamins. “You didn’t have to be mean to him. He was just doin’ his job.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not like you were happy about that flyer.”

“I would never have an abortion, but I’m not stupid enough to believe that everyone around feels the same way I do. I respect your decision, no matter what it is.”

I put my hands over my face and started to panic. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Let’s get you home and in bed and we’ll figure it out. I’ve got plenty experience havin’ babies. We’ll get through this. You need to remember that you’re not alone.”

But I was.

Sure, I had friends, but the friend that I needed the most wasn’t around. He had more vested in my pregnancy than any of my new friends could have.

I shook my head and looked at her, unable to still admit what was burning through my mind. “I’m not ready to be a mother. My child won’t have a father.”

“Katy, calm down. It’s bad for the baby. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

She drove us to the pharmacy and waited for my vitamins to get filled. She also picked up a bag of ginger snaps, in which she swore would settle my stomach.

After helping me get into a nightgown and back in my bed, she left me to rest.

I didn’t get out of that bed for two days, and in that time I’d soaked my sheets at least three times with buckets of tears. Not only was I having a baby, but based on the doctor’s calculations, there could only be one father. Brooks, the man that I shattered and abandoned, had given me more than his heart that night we’d made love. He’d given me something even more fragile.

I was having his baby, and he was never going to find out about it.

Chapter 15

April 2011

I stared into the full-sized mirror, looking at my stomach from the side. Sarah sat on my bed laughing at me. “It says here that in the second trimester you can expect the sickness to go away. It makes sense since you haven’t thrown up in a few days.” She liked reading my baby books, as if she’d never seen them before. Since she’d been the person to give them to me, with half of the pages dog-eared, I knew she was just revisiting her own two pregnancies.

I often wondered if she’d end up pregnant one day because she actually liked it.

“Does it say how fat I should be at four months? Look at my stomach. I don’t know whether it’s gas or the baby.”

She laughed. “It was a good thing you finally had the first sonogram. Can you imagine if it was twins? I know you were freaking out for a while.”

I shot her a dirty look and went back to admiring my little bump. We’d made a pact not to bring up the word twins anymore. That word only brought me memories of a something that I’d never have again. My whole childhood was like I lived it in another life.

I kept running my hands over my belly. It wasn’t like I was worrying about getting fat. I had no one to impress.

It had taken me a while to accept that I was going to be a mother, and even longer to be okay with raising the child by myself. In a couple of days I’d be far enough along to find out what I was having. All I could hope for was to look at that screen and see ten fingers and ten toes. The sex didn’t matter to me. I wanted my baby to be healthy since my first trimester had been so filled with stress.

I’d had a sonogram a few weeks earlier that verified my conception date and that I was only carrying one fetus.

For a while I had nightmares that the baby was Branch’s. Knowing that I hadn’t been intimate with him since before my period, and even then we used condoms, put my mind at ease.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate Branch. I knew I’d hurt him and he’d never forgive me, but somehow, knowing that this baby was Brooks’ and mine, helped me cope with losing him. I knew that a piece of him was growing inside of me and that we’d made it out of a life-long love for one another.

I also was aware that my baby would always signify that love, even if we’d only had one real night together.

I’d finally stopped puking every day and my face was beginning to fill out. My friends, Sarah, Dave and Bobby were so supportive, and between the three of them and the kids, they never let me out of their sight for long. Sarah took me to my doctor appointments and basically shoved my vitamins down my throat every day.

My boss at the restaurant, Sherry, was even getting excited, claiming she was dying to hold a baby again now that her three kids were teenagers.

I felt supported, and I needed it more than ever before. Without parents, or even family to have my back, I depended on my friends and was thankful they didn’t mind being my shoulder to cry on.

And boy did I cry.

My emotions weren’t just heightened from being pregnant. I was always on high alert, and something as silly as a commercial could have me sobbing.

I tried to be strong and focus on the good in my life. I had my health and nice place. My job was flexible and I’d been welcomed into a town that I was happy to call home.

But I still cried.

On the day of my sonogram to find out what I was having, Sarah’s youngest Maddy came down with a fever. It was rainy and cold outside, and I knew she couldn’t go with me. I’d stopped on my way because I needed gas, and when Bobby saw my car, he came running out and insisted on pumping it while I stayed warm and dry. I rolled down my window to pay him and say thanks for him helping. “Hey, here’s a twenty.”