The Best Laid Plans

by Lauren Gallagher

  One look at her, and my heart fluttered. “Hey, you.”

  “Hey.” She smiled and hugged me. Just a hug, since we were at school, but enough to let me catch a whiff of her light shampoo. Something I’d smelled millions of times in the past but which had a whole new context these days.

  Suppressing a shiver, I sat back in my chair. “So how was Christmas?”

  She hesitated. “It was all right.”

  I cocked my head. “That sounds like the kind of all right that isn’t really all right.”

  Her shoulders drooped a little. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She sat on one of the desks we all used for stacking tests and worksheets. “I guess it got me thinking about how Christmas might be next year. And the years after. Because of the…well, assuming it happens, the baby.”

  It took me a second, but I put the pieces together. “Since the baby would be spending the holidays with us. Well, with me, since Shahid…” I waved my hand. “Anyway. You know, there’s nothing that says we can’t alternate years, or—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That would only complicate things, I think.”

  “How so?”

  She hesitated, shifting her weight a little. “My parents are already pushing me pretty hard to get remarried, and my mom doesn’t waste many opportunities to remind me that I’m only going to be fertile for so long.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.” She rolled her eyes. “She’s going to lose her mind when I get pregnant.”

  I laughed cautiously. “I don’t suppose telling her it’s a trial run would help?”

  “Probably not, no.”

  More seriously, I said, “You can always tell her you’ll still be a part of the baby’s life. It isn’t like we’re going to shake hands at the hospital and ride off into the sunset.”

  “I know. And I feel stupid for even…” She sighed. “I guess it’s kind of strange to think about sometimes. I’m still on board, and haven’t had any second thoughts, but I have to admit, there’s a part of me that is still getting my head around the idea of having a baby and then not.”

  “Kendra.” I rose and came closer. Grasping her shoulders gently, I said, “That’s not how it’s going to be.”

  “It kind of is, though.”

  I shook my head. “We’re not going to take the baby and be done with you. That was one of the reasons we weren’t interested in a surrogate—all the medical shit aside, it seemed kind of cold to expect a woman to go through all of that and then disappear into the woodwork. We want you to be a part of the baby’s life.”

  She held my gaze and slowly, her shoulder relaxed beneath my hand. “I know. And I guess I do understand that. But…”

  “I get it, don’t worry. And when you’re in a non-traditional arrangement of any kind, the holidays don’t help. Believe me, I know.”

  “Yeah, I guess you know all about that, don’t you?” She laughed softly. “Why do I get the feeling your mom isn’t going to be happy when she finds out about this?”

  “Don’t worry about her. As long as the three of us are happy about it, then it’s all good.” I paused. “Are you still—”

  “Absolutely.” She gestured dismissively. “I guess Christmas got me a little down, and I question everything even when I am sure of it. I’m not backing out, though.”

  I nodded. “I get it. I do the same thing.” I chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I tried to talk myself out of marrying Shahid.”

  Kendra blinked. “What? Oh honey.” She tapped the middle of my chest with one finger. “If you’d gotten cold feet, I would’ve dragged you up that aisle by your ear.”

  Laughing, I said, “Trust me, I was still going through with it. I think I was just nervous, you know? It was such a big commitment. As if owning a house together and trying to adopt a baby together weren’t already huge, something about getting married made me stop and think. And I did the same thing when we bought the house and decided to adopt too.” I shrugged. “I’d be worried if you didn’t question this.”

  Kendra smiled. “Thanks for understanding.”

  “Don’t mention it.” I glanced around, making doubly sure there was no one else in here, and then kissed her forehead. “There isn’t much I can do about the holidays, though. Believe me, they suck for me too. I’d stay home every year, but then I’m basically spending it alone because Shahid’s working.” I paused and nearly made a suggestion, but bit it back. Spending Christmas at home with her and the eventual baby sounded amazing, but that might cross some of Shahid’s lines. One thing at a time.

  “Well.” She looked at her watch. “We should get to class.”

  “Already?” I groaned. “Ugh.”

  She laughed, and we both topped off our coffee before we headed toward the science department.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said as we walked through the crowded hall, “I have to take off right after school today. I’ve got an appointment at three thirty.”

  “Okay. You’re welcome to come by later. Shahid will be home this evening, so maybe we can all do dinner.”

  “Sure.” She smiled. “You want me to pick anything up?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll find something. What time do you think you’ll be by?”

  “Don’t know. The doctor didn’t say how long this would take.” She paused. “Actually, now that I think about it…” She paused at the door to her classroom, opened it and waited for me to go inside. Once we were in the mostly empty back room, she said, “My appointment is with my OB/Gyn. It’s a follow-up for that ultrasound they did before break. Since you’re going to be involved in all this too, you’re welcome to come with me. In case you want to ask my doctor any questions.” She grinned playfully. “You won’t have to sit through an exam or anything.”

  “Well, that’s good.” I grimaced. “Those stirrups are murder on my hips.”

  She snorted. “Idiot.”

  We both laughed.

  “If you really are okay with me being there,” I said, “I’d be happy to come along. I’m not sure if I have any questions yet, but it’d be good to meet your doctor in case I do.”

  “Sure. And I suppose Shahid doesn’t need to go. He probably knows all this better than either of us ever will.”

  “Probably, yeah. Especially since he did a rotation on a Labor and Delivery floor in nursing school.”

  She shot me a pointed look. “You’d better warn him against telling me any horror stories.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. He already learned the hard way that horror stories are not wise when someone’s going into the hospital.” I clicked my tongue and muttered, “Teach him to tell me all the side effects of painkillers when my back’s fucked up.”

  Kendra smothered a giggle. “Oh God. He didn’t?”

  “He did. And I told him if he kept it up, he’d learn the side effects of being strangled with an IV tube.”

  “Did he stop?”

  “You’d better believe it.” I paused. “He is good to have along, though. You want a patient advocate? Somebody who will call out nurses and doctors who are doing the wrong thing? Shahid is your man.”

  “That’s good to know. He’d better be there when I’m in labor.” She paused, and her lips quirked. “This will be perfect, actually.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah! I can have him there to make sure I’m getting the proper treatment, and you there to curse out for doing this to me.”

  I laughed. “Great.”

  “Hey. Fair’s fair.”

  “Just promise me you don’t scratch my face off or something.”

  She shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  I blinked. Knowing her, she wasn’t entirely joking.

  * * * * *

  After school, I followed
Kendra over to her doctor’s office, which was about fifteen minutes away. We walked in together, and I took a seat while she checked in. We didn’t have to wait long, though—I’d barely had a chance to text Shahid before the nurse called Kendra’s name.

  “They’re on time today,” Kendra said as we got up. “What a concept.”

  “Wonders never cease, right?”

  We both laughed quietly and followed the nurse into the back.

  I thought she’d take us back to an exam room, but instead, she led us into an office. Standing in the doorway, she waved us in and gestured at a pair of chairs in front of an enormous desk. “Have a seat, and Dr. Robbins will be with you in just a moment.” Then she left.

  We exchanged glances and both shrugged.

  “Beats the hell out of an exam room,” Kendra said as she sat down. “At least her office doesn’t have posters in it.”

  “Posters?” I raised an eyebrow. “Of what?”

  “It’s an OB/Gyn office, Gabe.” She eyed me. “What do you think they’re posters of?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “When I was here last time, I spent the entire time eyeballing a childbirth diagram.” She grimaced. “That was almost enough to talk me out of this whole arrangement, let me tell you.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I believe it. But they can’t be any worse than the posters we have up at work, right? You look at those every day.”

  “A poster of a half-dissected frog doesn’t bother me. A graphic representation of how all my organs are going to get rearranged for a baby that’s going to have to come out through an exit that was, at that exact moment, having trouble accommodating a well-lubricated speculum? Uh. No.”

  I shuddered. “Okay, point taken.” I nodded toward the framed degrees on the wall. “We’ll just look at those instead.”

  “We could probably ask her for a tour after we’re done. I mean in case you want to see the—”

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Weakling.” She winked at me. “You know, this would all be so much easier if we were more like seahorses. Then we—”

  The door opened before she could go much further down that rabbit hole. Thank God.

  The doctor was a tall woman with graying brown hair that brushed the shoulders of her white coat. “Good afternoon, Kendra.” She shook Kendra’s hand, and her eyes flicked toward me. “And you are…?”

  “This is Gabe,” Kendra said. “My partner.”

  Close enough.

  “Oh. I see.” The doctor shook my hand and smiled tightly. “Well, I’m Dr. Robbins. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  She went around to the overstuffed leather chair, and sat down opposite us. “So, I’ve been over your tests.” Dr. Robbins took off her glasses and folded her hands on the blotter. The sympathy in her eyes turned my lungs to lead, and I took Kendra’s hand as the doctor continued, “I’m afraid the news is not what you were hoping to hear.”

  Kendra’s fingers closed around mine so tight, the bones in my hand ground together, but I didn’t say a word. I was gripping hers just as tightly.

  Kendra moistened her lips. “What do you mean?”

  The doctor took a breath. “It would seem that the reason for your menstrual pain is a combination of fibroids and severe endometriosis.” She took some black-and-white images from a folder and slid them across the desk.

  Kendra kept a firm grip on my hand as she looked through the images. They didn’t make much sense to me—Shahid could read an ultrasound or an X-ray, but they’d never made much sense to me unless it was something obvious like a broken bone.

  “What am I looking at?” Kendra asked after a moment.

  The doctor leaned forward and tapped a couple of cloudy spots with her nail. “These are the two largest fibroids.” She pointed to a few more spots on the other images. “And here, large areas of scar tissue concentrated near both fallopian tubes. Honestly, more than I’ve ever seen show up on an ultrasound.” She paused. “Normally, we’d need to do surgery to really see the extent of the scarring, but even on the ultrasound, it’s clear that there is significant damage.”

  “Oh my God,” Kendra breathed.

  “Quite frankly, I’m amazed your previous physician never thought to take a look when you reported the level of pain you experience.”

  Kendra scowled. “No, he just told me a lot of women have pain, and that the pill would solve the problem.”

  Dr. Robbins pushed out a long breath, and I had a feeling she was fighting hard to maintain a professional face. “Some pain is normal. Missing the amount of school or work that you described, that’s not normal.” She held Kendra’s gaze, and her voice was gentle as she added, “And I’m afraid, from what I can see, your odds of conceiving naturally are very, very slim.”

  Kendra’s lips parted. My heart stopped. We glanced at each other and then faced the doctor.

  “What about…” Kendra took a deep breath. “What about IVF?”

  “Well,” the doctor said. “It’s difficult to say. To begin with, in vitro doesn’t have the success rate we wish it did. In your case, it would depend very much on the actual extent of the scarring and damage. We would most likely need to do a laparoscopy to determine that, and fibroids of that extent would need to be removed before you’d be able to carry a pregnancy. It depends on how long they’ve been there, if the uterine wall has been damaged, and to what extent.”

  Kendra swallowed. “You don’t sound very optimistic.”

  Her doctor studied her for a moment. “I always try to be as positive as I can with my patients, but I want to be realistic too. I don’t want to raise your hopes unless I can do so honestly.”

  “So what you’re saying is, I can’t have children.”

  The grim expression answered succinctly enough, but the doctor quietly said, “I would recommend considering other alternatives. Adoption or a surrogate.”

  “That’s the problem.” Kendra avoided my gaze and the doctor’s. “I am the surrogate.”

  Dr. Robbins’s eyes flicked toward me. Back to Kendra. “I’m terribly sorry. For both of you.” She took a breath and kept her voice gentle as she went on. “I know this is very difficult, and we can talk more about it once you’ve had a chance to process the information. However, I do think we should discuss treatment.”

  Kendra gulped. “What kind of treatment?”

  “For a case as severe as yours…” Dr. Robbins glanced at the ultrasounds, and then met Kendra’s eyes. “In order to prevent further damage, especially to surrounding organs, my recommendation would be at least a partial hysterectomy.”

  I was pretty sure I felt Kendra’s heart fall into her stomach. I rubbed my thumb along hers to remind her I was here and she wasn’t alone.

  She glanced down at our hands. “Do you think that’s the only option?”

  “We can also perform a laparoscopy to more accurately assess the scarring, as well as the fibroids.” The doctor absently thumbed the corner of Kendra’s chart. “We can certainly look into options for possibly restoring your fertility, but I would be doing you a disservice if I told you there were any guarantees. And I think we also need to consider your quality of life, particularly given the pain you suffer every month. A partial hysterectomy is a significant operation, and it’s not without its risks and side effects, but it most likely would eliminate much of that pain.”

  Kendra and the doctor batted a few options back and forth, discussing possible risks, alternatives, experimental treatments…

  I couldn’t follow it. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand basic human biology—I taught the subject, for God’s sake—but my mind was too busy reeling from what the doctor had told us. I was heartbroken for Kendra, and also for myself. For us.

  Shahid. Oh God. Even though I knew he’d make peace with the news much faster than any of us,
it would still hurt. We’d both pinned so much hope on this. The subject of children had stopped making either of us flinch. We could stroll past store windows full of baby stuff and exchange knowing, excited smiles instead of walking faster.

  And hadn’t we agreed that if this didn’t work, then it wasn’t meant to be?

  My eyes stung and a lump started forming in my throat, but I swallowed hard and blinked away the threat of tears. Kendra didn’t need that. Not now. When Shahid came home tonight, we could lean on each other, but right now, Kendra was the one who needed to lean.

  The doctor asked if we had any more questions. We both shook our heads. There were millions of questions ping-ponging around in my brain, but I couldn’t even make sense of them. I distantly heard Dr. Robbins telling Kendra that she could call if she needed to, and that she might want to consider a laparoscopy to determine the extent of the problem, but that was as much as I could comprehend.

  After the appointment, we walked in silence, down the hall to the desk where Kendra checked out and paid her copay. There were three visibly pregnant women in the waiting room, and I couldn’t say which of us looked away faster as we hurried past them.

  We made it out into the parking lot before Kendra stopped. She stared blankly at the pavement, her eyes wide and her shoulders taut.

  There was no point in asking if she was all right—the answer was written all over her face—so I just wrapped my arms around her and drew her in.

  As soon as she was against my chest, she released her breath and held on. She didn’t cry. She didn’t make a sound.

  I kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, Kendra.”

  She held me tighter and still didn’t speak.

  For the longest time, we stood like that. Eventually, she drew back. Her eyes were dry. So were mine—the shock hadn’t worn off enough yet.

  “We should go.” She cleared her throat. “I’d kind of rather not be”—she nodded toward the building behind us—“here.”

  “Sure. Yeah. Are you okay to drive?”

  She brushed a few strands of hair out of her face and nodded. “Yeah. Kind of in shock, but I can drive.”