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“Here you go, sweetie,” she said and put the toast and tea on a tray on the coffee table. I sat up and dangled my legs over the side of the sofa and took the plate with a slice of white toast, lightly buttered and with a thin sheen of honey on it. It looked appetizing. I wanted to eat it.
“I’ll try,” I said and took a bite, hopeful that this would stay down. I chewed and felt fine so I had a sip of tea and signed in contentment. “I’m doing fine so far.”
Elaine sat on the sofa beside me and watched while I demolished the toast.
“That’s not enough to live on,” she said and eyed my plate. There was another slice but I didn’t want to push things.
“You never had children?” I asked as I sipped the hot sweet tea.
Elaine shook her head and adjusted her sweater. “I had pelvic inflammatory disease as a young woman and it burned out my fallopian tubes so I couldn’t get pregnant if I tried,” she said and smiled sadly. “I envy you, even though you’re so sick. With my first husband, we tried so hard to get pregnant and then I found out I wasn’t able. It tore us apart because he really wanted a family.”
Her voice broke and I realized how hard it was for her to discuss even now.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Elaine and took her hand, squeezing it. She squeezed back and it was a nice moment between us. I always liked Elaine, even when it was hard for me to accept that my father had found another woman so quickly, and one so young, but he wasn’t a man to be single. He loved having a partner and family was everything to him – besides the law.
“It’s okay,” she said wistfully. “I was planning on adopting all by
myself, and even did research on the easiest country to adopt an orphan, but then I met Ethan and, well, we focused on getting him elected instead of me finding a baby to adopt. Now, Ethan doesn’t feel he can because of his disability. So I have to dote on my grandchildren.” She smiled at me, but I could tell she still regretted it. “That’s why I’m so excited about your baby. It will be the first one I’ll be present the whole way through.”
She smiled at me and I smiled back, realizing that she would have to live vicariously through my pregnancy. That made me feel so much more thankful that I had become pregnant so easily – almost too easily.
I could handle some nausea and vomiting if it meant I would have a baby in the end. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I took in a deep breath and rubbed my tummy, imagining a little Drake or maybe a girl like me.
We spoke for a while about my father and how he was progressing with his rehab, and then talked about having to delay our trip to Africa to visit Liam’s grave. Drake didn’t want to go until I was much better, and so we decided to cancel the reservations and reschedule once I was feeling better. I felt bad, but it had to be that way. As we talked, the queasy feeling returned and before Elaine left, I had to run to the bathroom and throw up what I had eaten.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she said as she stood outside the bathroom and waited for me to come out. “I’m so sorry it didn’t stay down. Maybe you should take that medicine.”
“I usually get a full meal or two in after eight,” I said and forced a smile I didn’t feel.
She hugged me. “I have to go, but let me get you settled before I do.”
“I was going to try to do some research for my thesis,” I said and went to my bedroom. “But I think I’ll just go to bed and watch television.”
Elaine tucked me into my bed and kissed my forehead and it made me sad that my own mother wasn’t alive to see me and be the one to kiss my forehead like that, but I was happy to have Elaine.
When she was gone, I switched the television on, deciding to watch a movie if I couldn’t get up and do any work. There was nothing on but some old movie and the news, so I put CNN on and lay back down. Then I remembered what Drake had told me about Lisa, and my heart sank. It wasn’t just the idea that he had sex with her before. I knew he had many partners, but I never thought I’d have to know about them or they’d be in our lives.
It was the fact she seemed unwilling to just let him go. He was married and not interested. She should have understood and backed off but if she had threatened him, things were not good.
I hated the thought Drake would have to quit his fellowship over her. It was completely unfair. I knew I’d have to encourage him to stay and just placate the woman. Perhaps if he paid her a little attention, she’d be happy and wouldn’t do anything rash.
With thoughts of her in my mind instead of happy things, I struggled to fall asleep, waking on and off with a bad feeling in my chest that had nothing to do with morning sickness.
The only bright spot during those days was the ultrasound. Drake and I would get to see our baby for the first time and it would be real. The day of our ultrasound, I got up after Drake left, tried to get my day going, tried to eat and drink a little something, and tried to keep it down but to no avail.
That was my pattern – I inevitably threw up both my breakfast and lunch and anything else I ate until late in the evening. All I could keep down was chicken rice soup and a few crackers, so I ate that after eight o’clock and then again at ten. Sometimes, even that wouldn’t stay down. Even I was starting to become alarmed. I stared at my prescription and decided that I’d take Drake’s advice and start taking it if I couldn’t keep my dinner down one more night. I could eat at night, for some reason, and so when Drake arrived home, we would eat together, him watching me closely, urging me to try more.
“I have to eat only really bland things like chicken rice soup and tea with honey. Some grape Jell-O.”
“That’s not enough to keep you going,” Drake said, shaking his head when he arrived home in the afternoon to take me to the appointment. “You need protein and calories for your brain. Please take your prescription. You need to eat.”
I stared at the bottle on the kitchen island and nodded. “Okay.”
We drove to NYP to meet with Dr. McAllister and the technician who would do our ultrasound. I had to drink a huge amount of water an hour before and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep it down but I managed. We sat in the waiting room and I fought the urge to use the washroom, until finally, an agonizing forty minutes later, the technician came and called us into the ultrasound room. I went into a changing room and was instructed to take off everything and put on a gown and slippers, which I did, and then I lay on the bed, the room dark and cool, the soft hum of the machinery filling the room with a pleasant sound.
The technician walked us through the whole process, which involved a transvaginal wand that she had to insert into my vagina so she could image the fetus with a better resolution. I cringed at having it done, but Drake was there, his hand in mine, and so I gritted my teeth and waited to see my baby.
The technician had the screen turned so we could see. Drake sat beside me and we both watched the image on the screen resolve into fuzzy gray and black blobs. The technician typed something into her station computer and then she smiled and turned to us. She rolled a mouse around and took some measurements.
