"I just don't get it," Blaine said sadly as he sat next to Cassandra on her living room sofa. "I thought Reese broke up with me because I want to have kids someday and she doesn't, but when I went to her and I offered to compromise in any way that I could, she wouldn't even give me a chance. I don't get it. You're a woman, maybe you would know. What am I doing wrong?"
"Nothing. It sounds like you did everything you could. It must be her. Maybe she just doesn't feel the same way about you as you do about her."
Blaine frowned, that thought broke his heart. "She just said it wouldn't work because we want different things in life. I don't believe that. Not really. If that is all, couldn't we work something out if we really tried?"
"If she's not willing to try, then I don't think there is any way to work things out. Maybe it's for the best. It's easy to compromise now, when the actual decision is so far away, but I don't think I'd be able to give up on ever having children for the rest of my life even if it was for the guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It would have to cause problems eventually. Maybe it's better to just end it now and move on."
"You think so?"
Zara, who had been in the kitchen during Blaine and Cassie's entire conversation, had heard enough. She couldn't stand by and listen to it anymore. She dropped what she was doing and marched into the living room. "Cassie, Mom needs to see you upstairs, right now."
Cassie was about to object that she had company, but something in Zara's tone, something that she didn't completely trust, stopped her. Without looking at Blaine she said, "I'll be right back," and left the room.
As soon as her sister was out of earshot, Zara turned to Blaine. "I need to have a word with you."
Amanda tapped her foot, as a quick nervous twitch, while she waited in the examination room for the doctor to arrive and give her the news.
She and Andrew had both come in for a series of tests to find out why they were having so much trouble conceiving. When the doctor's office called and said the test results were in, Andrew seemed confident that the results would be good. So confident that he went to work instead of taking a few hours to come in with her. He said he had too much work to do, but Amanda knew better. If this had been as important to him as it was to her, he would have found a way to get away from the office.
At first she had been so angry with him that she didn't want him there at all. But now that she was waiting all by herself, she really wished he was here. She needed someone to lean on now more than ever, as the little glimmer of hope she was trying to hold on to was being snuffed out by her growing feeling of dread.
When the door finally opened and the doctor entered, Amanda jumped. She took a deep breath, hoping that the news would be good.
"Hello, Mrs. Martin. How are you today?"
"Nervous. What did you find out? You have good news for me I hope?"
"I'm sorry, I wish I did, but the tests we ran were inconclusive."
"Inconclusive? You mean you don't even know why we've been having trouble getting pregnant?"
"No, I wish I did, but none of the tests showed any specific reason why you haven't been able to get pregnant. It's what we call 'unexplained infertility' and it's fairly common. There could be a problem that we haven't been able to pinpoint or it could be that you've just been unlucky so far."
Amanda frowned. The doctor was supposed to be a professional. She was supposed to be able to tell her what was wrong and what they could do about it, not just sit there and say that she didn't know what was wrong either. She almost wished the doctor had said there was a major problem, then she would at least know where she stood.
"'Just been unlucky?' Are you telling me there's nothing we can do?"
"No, of course not. I'll give you some pamphlets about how to improve your fertility. If we give it some time there's a chance you could get pregnant on your own. If that doesn't happen, we can look at fertility drugs or artificial insemination. There are a lot of options. You shouldn't give up hope yet."
Amanda sighed. She wished she still felt hopeful.
Reese had been nervous when she walked into the clinic, not sure what to expect. When she found the waiting room empty, she was slightly relieved, but still hung her head low, wanting to be as conspicuous as possible. Nervously she looked over the informational pamphlets stacked on a table below a poster offering help for women with unplanned pregnancies like her own.
She had gone around and around with the different options before her in her mind. Just because she had spent her entire life in an orphanage, didn't mean her child would have the same life if she were to give it up. She had time to look for a loving adoptive family to give it a better life than she had and a better life than she could give. But to do that she would still have to go through the nine months of pregnancy. How could she continue to do her job while she was pregnant? What would she tell people when she started to show?
Everything about this situation terrified her and she wasn't sure if she could go through with it. When she thought about her biological mother and how she had given birth to her even though she was with a man that she despised, she felt terrible. Reese was with a man she cared about, a good man, but she didn't think she could go through with the pregnancy. She wasn't sure if that was right. She wasn't sure about anything anymore.
"Reese, is that you?"
Reese felt her heart leap to her throat. She couldn't believe someone that she knew had seen her here. She turned quickly to see who it was.
"I thought that was you," Amanda said cheerfully. "What are you doing here? Are you trying to get pregnant too?" The nervous expression on Reese's face and the pamphlets in her hands gave her the answer, even though Reese didn't speak.
Amanda gasped. "You are pregnant, aren't you? And you don't want to be?"
No comments:
Post a Comment