The Baby Package

by Sarah J. Brooks

  I went over to Julia and squeezed my way in next to her. Her hands were resting on her chest and I grabbed one of them as I stared at the picture on the screen with her. We could hear the loud beating of two heart beats and I was overcome with emotions as I looked and saw Julia looking up at me.

  “I’m having twins,” she said with tears rolling down her face.

  “You sure like to do things big, don’t you?” I said and gave her a sweet peck on the forehead.

  “Congratulations, you two,” Bruce said as he stood at the end of the bed Julia was on.

  We continued staring at the ultra sound picture as the tech moved the device around and did all the things she needed to for her report. Julia looked really pale though and she wasn’t talking at all.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Girl, I can’t believe this. This is amazing. Twins is like the jackpot. Do you know what gender they are? Do you want to have one of those cool gender reveal parties? I could totally help throw you one of those.”

  “No, I don’t think she wants to know,” I said when I realized Julia wasn’t even listening to any of us. “Write it down and put it in an envelope for her for later though.” I asked the tech.

  Kendra and Sarah were still bouncing off the walls with excitement but I could tell something was wrong with Julia. She wasn’t happy or sad at the moment. Instead, she was blankly staring at the ultrasound screen even though the procedure was over.

  “Girls, I think she might need a minute. Maybe I could bring her home later?”

  “Sure, she’s at the new place now anyways. They just brought her boxes over the day before yesterday,” Kendra said.

  “Perfect. I’ll take care of her. Thanks, ladies.”

  “It’s going to be amazing,” Kendra said as she leaned down and hugged Julia.

  “We will help you whenever you need us to,” Sarah added. “It’s going to be fantastic. Think of all the adorable sweet pictures you’ll have and all the fun times at the park. It’s going to be so awesome,” Sarah added in an effort to get some sort of reaction from Julia, but there was nothing.

  Julia barely managed to hug her friends and after helping her sit up I was really worried about her. She was still staring off into space a little, very pale, and I thought for sure she was going to pass out at any moment.

  “Julia, I need to know if you’re feeling okay,” I said as I stood right in front of her.

  She shook her head yes, but I didn’t believe her at all. I had seen this reaction to multiples before. It was often what happened when a single woman decided to have a baby on her own and didn’t consider the natural ability of the body to make more than one baby. When couples were in my office for fertility issues and such, they were excited about multiples. Well except my favorite couple, Nathan and Mary. They had been trying to have a baby for ten years and used all their money for the process. So when they found out they were having triplets and were still living in a tiny one bedroom walk-up in Queens, it wasn’t the best news.

  “Sheryl, will you come stay with Julia for a second?” I hollered from the room.

  She was there in a second and stood in my spot as I hustled around the office to get what I needed for Julia. I made up a comfortable spot on the couch in my office. Grabbed some snacks from the fridge and some Gatorade for her to drink. I pulled a pamphlet that we had on multiples and being a single parent, since we had this happen every now and again with our fertility practices. Then I hurried back to Julia’s room and Sheryl helped me get her into my office.

  “Rest here. Eat some food. I have a few patients I need to see. Sheryl and I will be right out there if you need anything,” I said as I sat her down.

  Julia leaned back on the couch but still wasn’t exactly reacting to me. She was still staring off at the wall when I closed the door, leaving it open a crack so we could check on her.

  “She doesn’t look good,” Sheryl whispered.

  “Yeah, I don’t think she paid attention during the part of the insemination process where we talk about the possibility of multiples.

  “Did she do hormones?”

  “I think she was on a low level one from her primary before the insemination. But it looked like identical twins from what I saw of the ultra sound. Same amniotic sac.”

  “Boys or girls?” Sheryl asked.

  “I didn’t get a good look. But I think the surprise will be nice,” I said before hurrying back into the patients room that I had left earlier.

  I apologized profusely before getting back on track with the new couple. Luckily they were very understanding of the interruption and we were able to finish our appointment rather quickly. I had four other patients I saw throughout the rest of the afternoon and made sure to look through the crack in my door whenever I had a break to check on Julia.

  She had moved to lying down on the couch and at some point had eaten a few of the snacks I brought in there and sipped the drink. She looked like she was sleeping when I finally wrapped up my day and opened the door to come in. But when I sat next to her on the couch I realized she wasn’t sleeping at all. She was crying softly into the pillow that she was hugging tightly. Julia looked so sad, so utterly devastated.

  Chapter 17

  Julia

  I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know anyone in my family that had twins. It wasn’t even on my radar during the initial appointments. I had only taken a couple doses of the hormones my other doctor had prescribed and he said it wasn’t a strong one at all. He said the hormones would just ensure a viable egg was released each month.

  Being a single mom sounded so exciting when it was just one baby. I had wrapped my brain around all of that responsibility. I hadn’t considered the possibility that there would be more than one baby.

  I had gotten myself into this situation and I had no way of getting out of it. Somehow I had to find the courage to figure this out and it was overwhelming me. The problem was that I could hardly breathe. The whole thing was going to be an absolute disaster and instead of having a wonderful time being a young mother I was going to hate it, I just knew it. I wasn’t going to sleep at all because I’d be up all night feeding them. How was I ever going to keep my career on track with twins at home? Somewhere down the line I would start gaining a ton of weight because I wasn’t taking good care of myself.

  I sobbed quietly in Mike’s office until he finished his work and came in to sit with me. I couldn’t stop crying when he got there and when he sat next to me and rubbed my leg, it just made me cry more.

  “Why are you crying? This is exciting. You’re going to have two beautiful babies,” he said delicately.

  “I know I should be happy. I know, but how am I going to take care of two babies? I was already going to be pretty bad at taking care of one of them,” I said through my tears.

  “It’s just the same as one baby, you just do everything twice.” Mike tried to be upbeat, but that just made me even more overwhelmed.

  “It’s not my plan,” I managed to get out.

  “Was it your plan to meet me?” Mike asked as he leaned down and put his face in front of me. “Sometimes plans don’t go the way you want them but they still turn out pretty damn good. I mean, I think it turned out good. And those babies of yours are going to be so adorable since they have my genes,” he continued on until he finally got me to crack a smile.

  “It’s not funny, Mike. How am I going to take care of two babies?”

  “You will figure it out. You’re one of the smartest women I know. I don’t think having two babies is going to bring you down. You’ll rise to the occasion. You’ll make the absolutely best out of it. And I have a feeling once you meet those two bundles, that you’ll be perfectly happy with having twins.”

  “Thanks,” I said and started to wipe my tears as I sat up on the couch. “It’s just hard to see past all the stress right now.” It was nearly impossible to see past the stress, actually. But having Mike there trying to cheer me up was really helpful.
He stayed there with me and we ate more of the snacks and talked for hours about my stress and worries over bringing two babies into this world.

  Some of the things I was worried about were logical. Like the logistics of paying for a nanny or getting two cribs into the small den of my new condo. Then there were other things that were less logical, like how big my boobs were going to get if I wanted to breast feed. Or what combination of foods I’d always have to keep in the house when they were teenagers and didn’t like the same things. My mind was all over the place with the idea of having two babies, which would turn into two kids and two teenagers and then two adults.

  “How about we concentrate on the here and now before we start worrying about the feeding habits of teenagers,” Mike said with a small smile. “One day at a time here. For right now, you should concentrate on relaxing. All this stress isn’t good for the babies or for you.”

  “Relaxing, I don’t even know what that is anymore. I just got over to the new condo and I can’t find anything in my boxes. I don’t even have my bed set up. I slept on the mattress on the floor last night,” I laughed.

  “Well, that’s something I can help you with. How about I stop by the fifteenth floor and help you get set up a little bit so you can get a good night sleep?”

  It was the sweetest thing Mike could have offered to do. I didn’t want to lift all the heavy wood pieces to my bed and hadn’t gotten around to having Kendra and Sarah over to help me yet.

  “Perfect. And let’s get some food on the way home, I’m starving,” I said as I looked at the pile of snacks we had just devoured.

  “Of course,” Mike agreed without making mention of the plethora of food I’d already devoured. “I’m starving too.”

  I didn’t think he was telling the truth about still being hungry, but it was really sweet that he was trying to make me not feel bad about it. Mike arranged a car for us and we swung past my favorite Indian joint to grab some take out before heading back to our condo building.

  The building didn’t feel like home to me yet, but it was so inviting to arrive in the front doors and have the smiling doorman greeting us. I was going to like it there; I knew it the moment I’d decided to buy my condo.

  The elevator had glass mirrors throughout the inside and as Mike and I got in I noticed my stomach was showing more than I thought it was. I turned and admired the growing bump in the mirror and Mike stood behind me and did the same.

  “You’ll start getting big faster now. Those two little ones are going to be growing a lot the next few weeks.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t realize I was having twins. Should I be bigger than this by now? Am I not eating enough?”

  “It’s your first pregnancy so a lot of times women don’t start showing until around now. I think you are right on track.”

  I lifted my shirt a little and looked at how round my stomach was from that angle. It was amazing how I was growing two human beings inside of me at that moment. I suddenly felt more at peace about everything. Of course, I was still really overwhelmed about how I would manage with two children. But nature was a powerful thing and I knew that I would be more excited after I got to meet my two little ones.

  “Did they say what the gender was?” I asked as I realized I hadn’t been fully paying attention during the ultra sound after I found out it was twins.

  “She wrote it down and I had her put it in this sealed envelope. Did you want to open it and see?”

  “Oh wow,” I grabbed the envelope from him and just held onto it. Now I really wanted to know what gender the babies were. “There’s going to be twice as much planning and decorating as before. Maybe I should look so I can get started on everything.”

  “Maybe,” he said going along with what I wanted.

  “But wouldn’t it be exciting to find out when they are born? I mean you are right, that would be the best surprise ever. I do like that idea as well.”

  “You’ve got plenty of time to think about it. How about we put it in one of your kitchen drawers for now and you can decide another time. Tonight we should eat, get your bed up, and get you some relaxing sleep.”

  “Or other things to relax me,” I said playfully as we got off the elevator.

  Mike just smiled back at my flirting with him. The idea of having his hands on me did seem really relaxing though. I wasn’t going to say no if things heated up between us. In fact, I was hoping there would be a little heat when we got to working on my bed.

  Having all these hormones running through my body just had me wanting to have sex all the time. It didn’t seem like a logical thing for a woman’s body to still want to have so much sex after she was already pregnant, but maybe nature meant it that way since couples wouldn’t have to worry about contraception if the woman was already pregnant. But then again, contraception was more of a modern thing and nature just wanted women to have babies, so I had no idea.

  “Let’s eat,” I nearly growled as we entered my condo and went up to the counter where I had a couple cushioned chairs.

  “No table?” Mike asked as he looked around the mess I had there.

  “I don’t think I have room. Where would I put one?”

  “By the windows, of course,” he stood over by the window and looked out at my view. “I think you’d like waking up and eating your breakfast over here. But you also don’t have a couch or a television either. What is in all these boxes?”

  “I don’t have much of my own furniture. Kendra owned the living room set. I just have my bedroom stuff. All these boxes are the rest of random stuff I had around the apartment and in the kitchen. I should have tossed some of it away, but I didn’t know how much I wanted to worry about purchasing new things just yet.”

  The truth was that I hated most of the stuff I had but I thought my feelings might change once I got my stuff over to the new condo. I wasn’t a very sentimental type of person, but I didn’t want to throw items away that I might wish that I’d kept later down the road and I thought I should wait and go through my boxes slowly and plan out the condo better.

  I was hoping to buy some modern furniture for the living room and a trendy baby bed for the den. But now I’d be buying two baby beds and that was going to change everything. Surely I was going to have to save my money for baby stuff now and wasn’t going to want to spend it on furniture for the living room.

  “Your place looks really big for a one bedroom. I think you made a great choice,” Mike said as we sat at the counter eating our dinner.

  “I know. I was a steal,” I said between shoveling food into my mouth.

  Knowing that I was having twins, made my constant need to eat feel much more reasonable. I had been worrying that I was eating way too much over the last few weeks. The problem was that I was always hungry. I was constantly wanting food and sex. And now I had my food, next I wanted Mike in my bed.

  As much as I liked thinking about having Mike in my bed, I wasn’t going to push that plan too much. Things were really good between the two of us and there was too much room for error if I started pushing a relationship with him. I was going to take a back seat and just see how things turned out.

  Mike got a text message on his phone that seemed to distract him a lot. I just sat there waiting for him to tell me what was going on but he was so engrossed in a back and forth texting session that I didn’t want to interrupt him.

  Something was wrong. Whomever had texted him didn’t have anything good to tell him at all. I continued eating my dinner while he finished his conversation.

  “Sorry, just some work stuff. Some legal issues came up with the new expansion. That thing has been so stressful. And one of the people we interviewed ended up turning something into the medical board like a tattletale. Our lawyer has it handled because everything we do is legal; it’s just got me a little worried now.”

  “What did they turn in?”

  “Oh, Bruce made a crack about being a sperm donor on the side for cash. And the uppity guy we were interviewing di
dn’t think it was legal or ethical or something. I didn’t really think anything of it but our attorney just texted to tell me the board is doing an official review of both Bruce and I.”

  “It wasn’t legal what we did?”

  “It was legal. I’m one hundred percent sure of that. I think the questionable part is having a doctor from a fertility and obstetric clinic, donating to their patient. Bruce is probably in more trouble than I am ethically. He’s remained the doctor after donating. But you stayed with Bruce for your doctor so I don’t think I would be in trouble.”

  “But this could affect your whole practice, couldn’t it?” I said, a little worried for Mike and the new expansion he was planning.

  “I’m not sure the extent of the consequences just yet and I don’t think talking about it will help you relax at all. I’ll let you know if I hear of any news as this whole thing develops.”

  I was stressed out for Mike just thinking about having some sort of investigation like that going on. He looked like he had already forgotten about it though as he slipped his phone back into his pocket and finished eating his meal.

  Oh, how nice it would be to have the type of personality that could just let things roll off your back like that. One minute he looked extremely anxious and the very next he had totally forgotten about it and was enjoying his meal.

  We moved into the bedroom when he finished. I had boxes all over the room but I did have the bed pieces set up in the general area where it was supposed to be put together. I was also organized enough to have all the bolts and screws in a bag sitting next to the bed and the tools I needed to get it all put together.

  “This shouldn’t take long. I might need you to hold the headboard steady while I put the pieces on.”

  “I can handle that,” I said as I found a spot by the headboard and held onto it for him.