Something Had to Give (41 page)

There wasn’t much time for me to grieve as my family was arriving and I was expected to be in a great mood for graduation. It all was a blur for me. I gave hugs and fake smiles trying so hard to hide my sadness. Either I put on a good act or no one cared enough to ask if something was bothering me. Luckily for me, most of my parents’ attention was on Shanna, who was nearly 6 months pregnant with a baby girl, who she had decided to name Ingrid. Jason on the other hand was so preoccupied with the plans he had for us in Tennessee that he probably wouldn’t have noticed that I was sad even if I was crying. It wasn’t until the night of graduation that I broke the news to him that I was pregnant. There was no fancy announcement like on TV, I just blurted it out and immediately began to cry. He comforted me obviously thinking that I was nervous about handling a baby and grad school. How could I tell him that my tears were due to the fact that it was the child of the other man I loved who was now dead? It was a terrible feeling and one I was going to have to live with forever.

With graduation over and done, a new chapter began. The day after graduation, I hugged my parents and Shanna goodbye and made my trip to Tennessee following behind Jason. I fought back tears as I hugged my parents, wishing that they could see that I needed them to ask me if I was OK. I wanted to tell them about my pregnancy, but I knew it wouldn’t be as exciting as Shanna’s pregnancy. I didn’t want to see the look of disappointment or disapproval on their faces. Leaving Wilmington was so much harder than I expected. I had been looking forward to leaving and starting my new life in Tennessee, but with Eric’s death and learning of my pregnancy, I wanted desperately to go back in time and do so many things over. As soon as I made the turn to get on the highway, the tears started and they didn’t stop. We stopped twice for bathroom breaks and both times, I had to lie and tell Jason that my hormones were making me sad about leaving Wilmington. Each time, I wanted to turn around in my car and race back to Wilmington. I thought getting to Tennessee would make things better, but I was wrong. It felt so wrong to be there with Jason. I felt like I would burst if I didn’t tell him the truth; that I was carrying someone else’s baby. Jason was so excited that I was there though. He was trying so hard to cheer me up and make me smile that I couldn’t tell him. I had to keep telling myself that things were going to get better. At that moment I didn’t believe it for a second, but I had to give myself some type of hope. Breathe Cheryl. Breathe.

Jason and I decided not to tell anyone about the baby until I was able to go to the doctor. The process of going through Social Services to get health coverage was draining and frustrating, but after waiting three weeks for everything to go through, I was able to get into a doctor. I desperately wanted to go to the first appointment alone so that I could talk to the doctor about my situation privately and hopefully get an idea of who’s baby I was carrying. I even went as far as to schedule the appointment during a time that Jason was scheduled to work. He would hear nothing of missing the appointment though and immediately switched days with Felicity. There were no excuses I could give for wanting to go to the appointment alone that wouldn’t raise his suspicions, so I had no choice but to let that idea go.

The day of my appointment Jason was excited to the max. He was up and ready an hour before we even had to leave the house. I tried my best to pretend to be just as excited, but in reality, I was sick to my stomach and wanted desperately to get out of going to the appointment. As we sat and waited for the nurse to call us back, I sat irritated beyond my own comprehension at Jason, who sat rubbing my back. I wanted to yell at him to stop and let me breathe. I wanted to run out the office. I wanted to pinch myself and wake up from this dream, but I couldn’t do any of those things. I was trapped. As I looked around the room, I realized I was the only one there who wasn’t there by myself and it hit me that I should be grateful to have a supportive man by my side. I was able to relax until it was time to go back and have my ultrasound. I was beyond nervous with the thought that the image of a baby would pop up and everyone would automatically know that it wasn’t Jason’s baby. Back in the room, I didn’t even want to look at the screen and only did after Jason insisted. What I saw was the outline of what looked like an alien, but I was amazed nonetheless. It was a beautiful alien. Jason was smiling so hard that it was impossible to not feel his happiness. Yet, all I could think about was how much I wished Eric were there to see it.

We left that appointment with a due date of early January. It was all surreal to me that I was actually carrying another life inside of me. The ultrasound didn’t make it seem any more real, but telling my parents certainly did. I called home only half expecting for anyone to answer my call, but Daddy answered on the second ring. After some small talk, I casually asked how Shanna was doing which of course led to him talking about her baby being due soon. I used his comments as a way for me to break the news to him.

“Well, Shanna isn’t the only one giving you a grandchild.” As the words left my mouth, I sat there holding my breath with my eyes closed waiting for the response.

“What are you telling me?” His response came after several seconds of awkward silence.

“Jason and I went to the doctor today to confirm my pregnancy. We got to see it on the ultrasound.” I tried to sound excited hoping it would invoke a positive response from him. I really needed it.

“Wow! I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear this news. That’s great though.”

I could tell he was trying his best to sound happy for me, but I knew him and I knew it was a forced response that he was only giving because it was the right thing to do. The whole dynamic of the conversation changed and only got worse when he put Mommy on the phone. She sounded just as disappointed as he did. Before I called them, I had tried to prepare myself for the possibility of them responding like they did. It still hit hard though to know that they were not happy for me like they were for Shanna. Jason’s parents were much more receptive to the news. His dad was his usual calm self but still seemed genuinely happy for us. His mom on the other hand, hollered for a good five minutes before giving us the third degree. Ordinarily her behavior would have been annoying to me, but I was grateful at that moment to have someone offer some positive support for us. It was a special moment for me. It was the first time since taking the pregnancy test that I felt like everything was going to be okay.

Despite Jason’s protest I began to volunteer at the hospital as I had done before. He worried constantly that I was doing too much physically and protested heavily against it when I told him my plans. It led to an unnecessary argument that I knew wasn’t really worth it, but I couldn’t take sitting in the house until August when classes started. I was bored out of my mind and it allowed for too much time to just sit around and think. The more I sat and thought, the more I missed Eric and it made me sad. The more I felt sad, the more guilt I felt and it became a cycle that made me feel like I was going to go crazy. I didn’t want to stress because I knew it was bad for the baby. I had to do something quick to keep myself busy. I couldn’t explain all this to Jason, which made things that much harder since he didn’t understand. It frustrated me. Everything just seemed like such a big mess and I found myself wanting to escape from it all.

Volunteering at the hospital helped a lot. There was a new person over all the volunteers and she had revamped the whole process so that volunteers had a cap on the number of hours they could volunteer weekly. The new policy was explained to me through an email, but once I started I figured I could fly under the radar and volunteer for full days as I had done before. I was only able to get away with it for two days before Barbara pulled me aside.

“So we all love the work you do here with the kids, but I do have to remind you that we no longer allow volunteers to be here for longer than 4 hours a day.”

“I don’t see why it’s a problem. We’re all having a good time and it does not seem to bother the staff.” I was annoyed instantly with her. Why was she so by the book? And why did she come up with such a stupid rule anyway?

“Yes, while that is correct, we want to prevent burn out with the volunteers, especially since you are working with the oncology patients. We figure half days gives you a chance to go home early and refresh for the next day.”

She was talking with a stupid fake grin on her face, which was making it hard to restrain from wailing on her to knock the grin off. Her reasoning was the dumbest thing I had heard of in a long time and it pissed me off. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I knew it would be a huge mistake to say them. I was able to hold my tongue and turn around and leave with the same phony smile she gave me. I stormed all the way to my car and once I got inside I slammed the door so hard I was afraid I had broken it. It had made such a loud noise that two people in the parking deck turned around to look at me. It made me even more upset, to the point that I got out the car to ask them what they were looking at. I had to remember that I was pregnant and couldn’t risk a physical altercation. Back in the car the tears instantly formed in my eyes. It hit me that I was angry over something that was pretty trivial. As I began to laugh at myself, I blamed it on the pregnancy for making me so emotional. “Lord,” I thought to myself, “am I really going to have to deal with this for nine whole months?”

I was too embarrassed to go back to the hospital. I tried my hand at applying for part time jobs. No one wanted to hire me since I was only available until school started. Panera Bread was the only place to call me back when I wised up and didn’t tell them that I was only looking for temporary work. I knew I didn’t want to work around food so I didn’t return their calls. I went back to couch potato status for two weeks until I couldn’t handle watching talk shows and soap operas anymore. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I swallowed my pride and decided to go back to volunteering. I was relieved when I got there to see that Barbara was not there. It wasn’t until my second day back that I ran into her as I was leaving. I fully expected her to tell me not to come back, but instead she smiled and kept on going without saying a word. It wasn’t the same fake smile she had given before. It was a smirk that said, “Yeah, I knew you would be back.”

I formed bonds with so many of the children that I volunteered with that summer. With Barbara’s stupid rules, I could only come three days a week for 4 hours max. Each day I had to make myself leave. I watched the children fight such courageous battles and still manage to find so much joy in life. During my short time there, I watched two little boys take their last breath within a week of each other. It brought back memories of Derrick’s passing that had been buried years ago. Yet I still felt relieved for them that they would finally be free of pain. Everything that was going on with me at that moment seemed so insignificant when I watched the parents cry, pray, and put on brave faces for their sick children. I didn’t want to leave on my last day. I wanted to stay and be there to encourage those children to keep fighting and to stay positive. I began volunteering thinking it would get my mind off my own problems and help the children at the same time, but it became so much more. It truly helped to put a lot in perspective. I was able to hold it together on my last day until I got to the car where I sobbed like a baby. “Darn hormones” I mumbled to myself as I drove off.

After the last day of volunteering, I had the weekend before starting classes. Sunday night before classes, I began to feel nauseous for the first time during my pregnancy. I chalked it up to nerves associated with starting classes. Even the next morning when I woke up and immediately threw up, I blamed it on nerves and tried my best to focus on school. I had to stop twice on the way to school to throw up. By the time I finally made it to campus, I felt too dehydrated and weak to walk to my class. By that time I knew it wasn’t nerves, it was the pregnancy, which was crazy to me since I was at the end of my first trimester. How could I be getting sick at this point and why did it have to hit me on the same day classes started. The whole day was a blur for me. Somehow I was able to make it through my three classes but by the end of my last class, I was contemplating going to the emergency room. I had only had water and saltine crackers all day. Both immediately came back up. I dreaded a trip to the emergency room and tried to make it home to lie down. When I got to the car, I bent over to put my book bag in the back seat and saw stars when I stood back up straight. It was at that point that I knew I had to go to the hospital.

Jason left work immediately and met me at the hospital where I sat in the waiting room for an hour before the triage nurse saw me dry heaving and got me back to a room. It didn’t take long to figure out that I was severely dehydrated. The doctor wanted to keep me overnight, but after much protesting, I was released after being there 6 hours to get IV fluids. When we got home, I still felt pretty lousy but finally managed to keep some food down. It wasn’t until I got into bed that night that I realized that I hadn’t checked my phone all day. I wasn’t really expecting to have missed anything, but knew I needed to charge it. Much to my surprise, I missed two calls from Daddy. The first voicemail he left around 2pm said that Shanna was in labor. The second message was Daddy telling me that my niece, Ingrid was born later that evening. I had not talked to Shanna since my graduation, but she had emailed me one time once Daddy told her I was also pregnant to ask me if I was going to keep the baby. I didn’t bother to respond and didn’t hear from her anymore. I called and got all the details from Daddy and sent my congratulations to her through him. I knew it was an exciting moment for them, but I wanted him to ask where I had been all day that I missed his calls and for him to ask how classes went. I wanted him to show some concern for me and when that didn’t happen, I got off the phone feeling sad and defeated.

I thought for sure getting sick on the first day of classes was a one-time thing, but I was wrong. I was sick daily. If I were lucky, it would only last for part of the morning. I learned to manage as best as possible by keeping Gatorade with me to keep from getting dehydrated. It was difficult to keep up in classes since I always had to leave out to go to the bathroom. The other students quickly picked up on my pregnancy and began to pity me. It’s definitely not what I wanted, since I knew there would be a lot of questions. I didn’t want to answer questions because questions would mean I would have to think about Eric. Thinking about Eric was the last thing I wanted to do. One of my classmates, Nicole, went as far as to offer her notes for me to copy at home. She had her daughter in undergrad and was genuinely sympathetic to my situation. Seeing that she had accomplished so much with a child motivated me. If she could do it, I knew I could also. It was tough though. At home in the evenings all I wanted to do was sleep. I didn’t have energy for much else and fell behind on my studying quickly. Jason did his best to motivate me. It bothered me to think that I was disappointing him.