“Okay, but you let me know what they say because I’ll bet my ass that you’re pregnant, with a Winters’ child no less. The damn baby will be in Bears’ gear before it’s even born.” He chuckles before leaning over and kissing my temple. “Get checked and page me. I’ll only be in the OR for an hour or so. I’ll see you afterwards, okay?” he asks with a quirked brow. Noah is like a dog with a bone on this, and I know he won’t let it go until I tell him yes.
“Yes, I’ll page you. Now go. Be a doctor. Save a life and all that.” I shoo him away and walk towards the ladies room to freshen up.
Two hours later I’m planted on the couch at home, staring at the blank television screen in shock.
Pregnant. I’m f**king pregnant. Again. Four and a half years after the guilt of losing my first baby consumed me, I’m facing the same predicament again.
Alone, pregnant, and scared shitless.
The difference this time is that there is no way I’m not having this baby. Daniel isn’t Beau. He is as far from Beau as anyone can be. Picture Mother Theresa and the Devil, that is the wide expanse that is the difference between Daniel Winters and Beau Gregory.
I know that whatever happens, or doesn’t happen between the two of us, Daniel will always be there for his child.
But I can’t tell him. Not yet.
He’ll want me back, but it will just be for the baby, and we both deserve more than that. Having paged Noah as promised after my appointment, we found a spare on call room, and he held me while I cried my eyes out. I didn’t tell him that I wasn’t with Daniel anymore. I just said I was in shock. Who would think that I would be in the 1% of people who actually get pregnant with an IUD on board.
Not me!
After peeing on the stick, the lines came up pretty much straight away, confirming that I was indeed very pregnant. Then the clinic nurse came in and drew some blood before the doctor instructed me to change into a gown and lay down on the bed. I put my feet into the stirrups on the bed and the doctor explained that she needed to perform an ultrasound to check on the position of my IUD to determine whether it was safe to remove it. When she located the IUD and the amniotic sac containing my baby, she safely removed the offending, and total failure of a contraception device from inside of me and instructed me to get dressed again. Once she’d given me instructions to get some prenatal vitamins and enough information pamphlets to inform a third world country, I was told to make an appointment in six weeks’ time for a scan at the end of my first trimester.
Me, Makenna Lewis. Age 24. From Chicago, Illinois.
Pregnant.
Again.
I left work after my appointment, somehow making it home on the L and walking the few blocks to our place before setting myself down on the couch and staring at the blank television. I’ve been sitting here for the past twenty minutes reevaluating the current state of my life.
This was the last thing I thought I’d have thrown at me. But what’s the saying, when life gives you lemons, mix with tequila and salt and have a f**king good time? Well since I can’t partake in my friend Jose for the next nine months, I might as well make lemonade.
And then there’s Daniel.
a.k.a. My Baby Daddy.
How am I supposed to tell him? I don’t want him to take me back because of some obligation to his child. It would always be at the back of my mind. I would always think that he is with me because I’m carrying his baby.
People successfully raise children apart all the time these days, it can be done, but I do want him back. Every step I’ve taken in the past three weeks has been towards making myself worthy for him, becoming the woman he deserves me to be. Not a scared hollow shell of a woman who holds men at length to protect herself.
It’s in that moment that I know what I have to do. I grab the phone and dial the number that I long ago committed to memory. It rings a few times in my ear before it’s picked up. My heart is beating out of my chest. This is like history repeating itself.
“Mom, I’m coming home.”
Chapter 23 – “Daughters”
I rent a car and start the two hour drive out to my parents’ house. It’s been a while since I’ve been out to see my folks, but we constantly call each other and since moving back from Ohio four years ago, things have been great.
They always accepted my relationship with Beau, but I knew they didn’t like it. They’ve always wanted me to be happy, and as Dad always told me, “as long as you’re happy, Kenny, we’re happy.”
And I thought I was happy. I truly did.
I’m a bundle of nerves now. Noah knows I’m pregnant, I know I’m pregnant, and soon Kate will know I’m pregnant too. I left Kate a note asking if she could come visit me this weekend. I’ll know when she reads the note because she’ll start blowing up my phone.
The last time I ran back home like this was when I left Beau. Kate picked me up from the airport and drove me straight out there. I stayed with my parents for two weeks while I tried to piece myself back together. Kate staged an intervention and kidnapped me after that, moving me into her townhouse and telling me I had to start living or else life would leave me behind. So that’s what I did. I went back to school, finished my training and got a job at Northwestern. And the rest, they say, is history.
Before I left, I called my boss and explained the situation. She wrote me off for the week, telling me to take care of myself and always make sure I had saltine crackers and ginger ale nearby to help combat the morning sickness.
Here’s the thing I’ve found with being pregnant. Everyone wants to give you advice. When I went to the pharmacy to get my prenatal vitamins, the middle-aged shop assistant took great pleasure in patting my non-existent baby bump and asking me all the important details.
How far along are you?
When are you due?
Is your husband over the moon?
I got my own back, though. The look on her face when I explained how lucky I was not to be an elephant with a two year gestation period was priceless. As was my parting comment about not knowing who the father is “Because I went through a particularly slutty phase four weeks ago,” definitely didn’t slip by unnoticed. I had a huge smile on my face when I walked out of the store with a bag of pills and a brochure she’d slipped in the bag about STDs. Fucking hilarious!
I pull into my parent’s driveway and feel a wash of calm instantly come over me. This is home. This is where I feel centered, where I feel anchored. It doesn’t matter what is going on, or the confusing situation I now find myself in with the baby, and Daniel, and not knowing how to go about getting him back.