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Pippa
Pippa rubbed the gel left on her forehead from the electrodes. She’d have to try and scrub it out with her shampoo later. She tugged her hat lower and sat in the doctor’s office, glancing around at the framed certificates on the wall. Her eyes dropped to the pictures of the doctor with her happy family, smiling with life vests and helmets by a raft.
The door opened and in walked Dr. Krans. The fair-skinned, redheaded woman offered her a warm smile. “Sorry to keep you. I was just waiting on one last test to come through.” She sat across from Pippa, shuffling a stack of paperwork in front of her before she slipped on a pair of reading glasses. Her pale green eyes narrowed on what Pippa assumed were her test results.
“Your EEG didn’t really give me an explanation as to what is going on and why you are having more frequent episodes. But I’m glad we ran the battery of blood tests. I had a hunch, because the same thing happened to one of my other patients.”
Pippa leaned in. “Do I need to up my medication dose?”
Dr. Krans folded her hands in front of her and looked at Pippa. “We will actually have to tweak your medication, depending on what you choose to do.”
“What I choose? What are the options?”
“I believe the reason you’re having more frequent tonic-clonics, as well as smaller events, is because of the hormone changes going on in your body.”
Pippa nodded and pulled out her phone, then opened her period-tracking app. “Yeah, I usually get clusters around my period, but never this much.” She brought her phone closer and narrowed her eyes. She was late . . . really late. Almost two weeks.
“I had them run a pregnancy test with your lab work.”
Pippa’s gaze snapped to the doctor’s. The blood drained from her face. Her heart raced.
“You’re pregnant, Pippa.”
“But . . . how? I take birth control, and my mother struggled with infertility.”
“Anti-seizure meds can lower the effectiveness of birth control. And just because your mother struggled conceiving doesn’t mean you would necessarily.”
Pippa’s head spun. She was pregnant with Mason’s child. “Is it safe? I mean . . . I’ve been taking my meds, and—”
“The medication shouldn’t affect the fetus this early. We can adjust your meds to ones that are safer to carry a pregnancy to term if you want to go ahead with this.”
Go ahead with the pregnancy? A baby? Ay puñeta. Why was the room spinning all of a sudden?
“Won’t my epilepsy hurt the baby? What if I pass it on?”
Dr. Krans stood and walked over to Pippa, sitting in the chair next to her and placing her hand on her shoulder. “There are many people with uteruses and epilepsy who have perfectly healthy pregnancies. Yours was from the tumors as a child, so there is no reason to believe you will pass on anything like that.”
Pippa’s chest heaved up and down. She was going to have a baby. Did she want a baby? Hadn’t she and Mason just talked about this? Oh, God. What if he didn’t want to raise another child? Her chest tightened.
“Just breathe. I know it’s a lot to take in. You do not have to make any rash decisions. I will adjust your meds, and you need to be aware that the hormones might increase events, and that you will also possibly experience the typical early pregnancy symptoms like fatigue, morning sickness, and so on.”
Pippa placed her hand on her belly. I’m going to be a mother.
“I’ll give you a few minutes and go get those prescriptions called in for you to pick up on your way home.” Dr. Krans got to her feet and exited the room.
Pippa pulled out her phone and stared at it. Can I do this? Never in a million years had she envisioned herself responsible for a child when struggling to attain her own independence had always been the priority. But I’m going to have a baby now. What would Mason think?
I can’t imagine starting all over. He’d said those exact words.Would he be mad at her? She was the one who’d insisted they didn’t need condoms because she was on birth control.
As if thinking of him had conjured him up, her phone chirped. She jumped. His name flashed on the screen.
Mason: Hey, baby. How did the doctor appointment go?
She lifted her trembling hands and typed out a response.
Pippa: She’s gonna change my meds and hope that helps.
She didn’t want to tell him over text. No, something this big deserved a face-to-face conversation. She needed to read his reaction. She also needed time to process this herself. But she had to talk to someone.
