Even though it was the obvious elephant in the car with us.
Forty-five minutes later, I wasn’t not talking about the baby anymore.
Because what I was hearing was scaring the shit out of me.
“Your iron count is down,” the doctor said, moving his gaze from me to the stubborn woman and back.
“I have a feeling that’s probably going to be a normal thing,” Blaise said, seemingly unaffected by the doctor’s stern glare. “My mother has a disease. A clotting disorder. Any time she went on her monthly, or she had a wound, she bled for a long time. I don’t have that exact problem, but I’ve always struggled with my iron count. It’s always been low when I have a period or cut myself. I clot, but I don’t clot like I should.”
The doctor frowned. “There’s no note in your chart.”
“I think there probably is. That was one of the first things that we discussed—my regular doctor and I—about what one of my fears were for this pregnancy. She assured me that we would keep an eye on it. She’s waiting to move me to the high-risk category until or if I need it. Right now, all I did last night was cut myself. It happens,” she explained.
I frowned hard at her.
He looked at the paperwork in his hands again, then nodded. “I can see why she would say that. But I would feel better if we took a look at the baby via sonogram just to make sure.”
Blaise’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s so cool. Let’s do it.”
I had no clue what the big deal was until he was rubbing the wand thing on her belly, and I was seeing my child for the first time.
Though that child looked like an alien from another world.
But still, that little alien had the ability to make the beating heart inside of my chest take a stutter step.
“Growing great. Looks great for… eleven weeks. Is that the right gestation?” the doctor asked, looking at Blaise.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Eleven weeks and one day, I think.”
“Perfect then,” he said, going on to do a whole lot more things than just looking at the baby.
But I was frozen in my seat.
I looked at the grainy black and white screen and stared, in complete and utter shock, at the little person that Blaise and I had made.
In a prison.
My heart started to pound, and I couldn’t quite hear correctly any longer. There was a constant whooshing in my ears that was making it impossible to listen to the doctor and Blaise talk.
And as I stared at the screen, a few things really came into focus.
My friend’s words from last week did as well.
When I’d mentioned to a friend’s wife that I’d gotten a girl pregnant, she’d told me to stop being dumb and pull my head out of my ass. To do the right thing and stop avoiding her.
I hadn’t been avoiding her, but I sure hadn’t been trying to make time for her either.
And right then, looking at the baby that was growing inside Blaise, I realized why.
Because being a father terrified the absolute dog piss out of me.
Why?
Because my own parents hadn’t been all that great.
Being one of eight boys, we’d always had it rough in our house. Food was scarce at times, space was limited, and I couldn’t tell you whether or not I truly had a good childhood or not.
My dad was an asshole. My mom was a cowed woman who would never, not ever, speak out against her husband.
Which meant when our dad told us that we were going to bed without dinner, we went to bed without dinner.
It also meant that whether my mother knew the punishment that we were getting was justified or not, she helped administer it because my father, above all, was the supreme ruler of our house.
Needless to say, when my parents had died within a couple years of each other when I was in my teens, I hadn’t much cared.
I mean, it was sad that I no longer had a structured life, and that Coke had to figure out a way to watch all of us younger brothers when he’d been in the military. But we’d all survived. And when I’d turned eighteen a few months later, we’d made it work even better.
But, saying that, all the best times of my childhood didn’t happen when I was with my parents. They happened when I was with my brothers.
We might’ve had it rough. We might’ve been poor as fuck. But we had each other.
“I want more,” I blurted.
Blaise looked over at me.
“What?” she asked.
“I was kind of hoping for there to be two in there,” I continued talking crazy. “I want a lot of kids.”
Her eyes widened.
“You should probably just focus on the one right now,” she admitted. “Since that’s the one I’m currently working on.”