Indie Ink: Expecting

The two blue lines come up right away and my heart catches in my throat. I know I am long overdue, but I have been so sick, and that has been my reasoning for the lateness of my monthly visitor. I can’t wait to tell David, to share the news that once again, we have reason to be hopeful. Maybe this time we can stay pregnant and have the child we’ve been wanting together for so long.

We spend two weeks in blissful hope. Sure, I am still sick, throwing up and nauseous, dizzy at times, but I think this is a good thing, because it means I am growing a baby. I stay in bed a lot, trying to take it easy, give this pregnancy every opportunity to settle in and stay put. He is wonderful, insisting on fixing dinner for the girls whenever he is home, pouring drinks for me even though I am perfectly capable. He loves on me so well, curling around me and rubbing my belly while I nap in the middle of the day, exhausted even though I have done very little.

We walk through the baby store, pricing cribs and baby slings, imagining what it will be like to hold our baby. Will it be a boy or girl? What will the baby look like? How will the girls adjust? Can we afford this? We are confident that we will be fine, that we will work out whatever trials come our way, as we always have, as we always do. He stops suddenly, in the stroller aisle. He turns to me and says “we are having a baby, aren’t we?” and I grin. He hugs me, holds me tight and I feel safe. Things will be fine this time, I just know it.

Four days later, I wake up at 4am and realize that I am bleeding, just a little. I feel tears spring to my eyes, and I go back to bed, afraid to acknowledge the pink spotting for fear it will gain significance. The next morning, this morning, I am bleeding a little more. Still nothing conclusive, and he tries to convince both of us that our pregnancy will be fine.

I can’t find my hope today. I am sure that my body is failing us again. I feel like we are destined to keep reading the same pages in this storybook of our fertility, and never to find out how the story ends.

This post is for the Indie Ink writing challenge. This week I was challenged by The Drama Mama with “It was like a page from a story book… ” and had hoped to be able to write a much more optimistic post for this prompt. My challengee was Carrie. I challenged her with “Time makes fools of us all” and she did a wonderful job with the prompt.