Chasing Someday

by Lindzee Armstrong

  Gary’s jaw muscles neared spasm status. “I thought you set a reminder in your phone for that.”

  Christina knelt on the bed, desperation making her hands shake. “I did. I was going to get it on the way home from school, but a parent showed up, and by the time I was done, the doctor’s office was closed.” All true. “That night we found out our offer was approved. With closing and moving, I forgot.”

  Gary continued to shift from foot to foot. “Why didn’t you tell me when you remembered? Or go get the shot?”

  Because they’d already waited four years to start trying.

  Christina hung her head, tears gathering in her eyes. She blinked furiously. Now was not the time for a waterfall. “Since we agreed to start trying soon, I didn’t think it was a big deal. The nurse told me it would take a few months for the effects of the shot to wear off. I wasn’t trying to go behind your back. I was planning for summer.” She reached for his arm, but he backed away. “After our anniversary, I didn’t see the point in telling you.”

  “And what if I changed my mind? How long would you have kept it a secret—until you brought the baby home from the hospital? I thought we made major decisions together.”

  Christina shrank away. “We did make the decision together. We decided on summer.”

  “I can’t talk about this right now. I need to think.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes raised to the ceiling.

  “We need to—”

  “I’m going for a drive. I can’t be around you right now.” He grabbed his keys off the dresser and headed out the door.

  She lurched off the bed. Her foot caught in the sheet, and she stumbled, then raced after him. “Let’s talk about this. Garrison!”

  “We’ll talk when I get home.” A door slammed shut.

  Christina held a hand to her chest, squeezing her eyes closed. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why hadn’t she told him?

  She hadn’t tried to deceive him. Withhold information, maybe. But not trick him.

  Christina cried and prayed and paced. It was nearly two a.m. before Gary came home. He dropped his keys and wallet on the dresser, not meeting her gaze.

  “You left,” she accused.

  “I was upset. Still am.”

  “And you have every right to be. But that doesn’t mean you can run away.”

  “You kept a secret from me. I left in the middle of an argument. Let’s call it even.”

  Christina raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean—”

  “I did a lot of thinking while I was out.”

  “Me too.”

  “And I know you weren’t trying to trick me. I was angry and stupid and surprised.”

  Her heart leapt. “You believe me?”

  He gently grasped her hand and led her to the bed. “Yes. You caught me off guard. The idea that we could have gotten pregnant when we weren’t planning on it terrifies me.”

  “But we were planning on it. We always planned for summer.”

  “I only told you we could start trying because I ran out of excuses.”

  Her stomach dropped as though she’d plunged over a fifty-foot waterfall. “I don’t understand. You seemed so excited.”

  The muscles in his forearm bunched and relaxed as he ran a hand through his hair. “I pretended to be excited. But I’m scared of being a father. I kept making up reasons we should wait, and every time you agreed, I felt relieved. But then we had the degrees and the careers and the house, and I ran out of reasons to put it off. So I gave in.”

  Their five-year plan was a product of fear. Unbelievable. “Having a baby is giving in?”

  “You know my father was never really there for me. I’m scared of being like that with our baby. I’m scared one day our kid will tell his wife how much he resents me.”

  Christina knew Gary was desperate for Alexander’s approval, that it was a big reason behind his sixty-hour work weeks. But this went much deeper than that.

  She leaned into Gary, holding his hand tight and resting her head on his shoulder. “You will be a great father. I know it.” Her voice caught, and she swallowed. “I want a baby so badly. Every month when my period comes, my heart breaks. I love my career, and I love you. But something’s missing. Don’t you feel it?”

  “All I feel every month is relief.”

  She flinched. “Why didn’t you tell me that, instead of agreeing? I feel horrible. Horrible I didn’t tell you about the birth control, and horrible I never knew how you really felt about this.” Horrible that he didn’t want a baby and she did.

  “I thought you’d think less of me if you knew.”

  How had their marriage arrived here? “If you’d told me, we could’ve worked on it together.”

  “I’m telling you now.” They were both quiet for a moment, and then he spoke again. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me about the birth control. I don’t care what I’m doing or how busy and stressed I am, you can always come to me.”

  Christina nodded, holding him tight. “No more running away. For either of us.”

  “Agreed. How long did you say it’s been?”

  “Thirteen months. I was supposed to get another shot last February.”

  “Thirteen months.” He fiddled with her wedding ring, looking at their clasped hands. “You think there might be a problem?”

  “I think we should see a doctor to rule out the possibility.”

  “I hate doctors.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know if I can deal with all this right now—if I’m ready to have a baby.”

  “Are you saying you want me to go back on birth control?” The thought made her sick.

  He smoothed hair away from her face. “Let’s sleep on it. We can talk about this more tomorrow.”

  As they crawled into bed, Christina felt the gulf between them widen. It filled with water, and the water crashed over her in waves, making it hard to breathe.

  One thousand dollars for a twenty percent chance at pregnancy. Those were the odds Dr. Mendoza had given Kyra and David. That one thousand dollars might as well have been ten thousand, as hard as it had been to come up with the cash. But they wanted a baby badly enough to take the gamble.

  And it had paid off. Kyra was six weeks pregnant, and today they would see their baby for the first time. She couldn’t tell if the butterflies in her stomach were from nervous excitement or a sign of morning sickness. That one thousand dollars was worth every penny.

  The waiting room at the Center for Infertility and Reproductive Medicine was all warm browns and soothing oceanscape paintings. David and Kyra sat on the earth-toned couch, their three-year-old daughter, Sophie, between them. David’s glasses had slid to the end of his nose as he focused on the flat-screened TV playing the latest Disney movie. Kyra shook her head at the choice. Disney, when most of the patients were childless.

  Sophie tugged on Kyra’s hand. “When do we get to see my baby, Mommy?”

  Kyra smiled, brushing a lock of Sophie’s honey-brown hair behind her ear. “Soon, baby girl. Try and watch the movie.”

  David nestled Sophie against his side. “Your favorite part is coming up, Soph.”

  Kyra pulled out her cell phone and snapped a picture, her heart nearly exploding with happiness. She’d spent more time in this office over the last few months than she cared to remember. But at least now they were here for a happy reason.

  Unexplained secondary infertility. After months of tests, that had been Dr. Mendoza’s official diagnosis. There had been no medical reason why David and Kyra couldn’t get pregnant. And yet somehow, after a year and a half of trying, they hadn’t.

  “I think your best bet is intrauterine insemination, or IUI,” Dr. Mendoza had said.

  “Is that the same thing as artificial insemination?” David asked.

  Dr. Mendoza nodded and pointed to a chart on her desk. “We directly inject the sperm into Kyra’s uterus, bypassing the cervix, to give you the best chance at pregnancy.”

  Kyra cou
ld still remember the way she’d wound her purse strap around and around her finger. “What happens if we decide to move forward?”

  “You take Clomid on days three through seven of your cycle,” Dr. Mendoza said. “It’s a pill that should make you ovulate two or three eggs instead of one, further increasing your chances of getting pregnant. We do an ultrasound right before ovulation to ensure conditions are optimal for fertilization and implantation, and then you give yourself an HCG trigger shot. On the day of ovulation, we collect David’s sperm sample and wash and concentrate it so only the healthiest sperm are used. You come in that same day, Kyra, and I insert a catheter into your uterus and inject the sperm. You wouldn’t even have to both be here.”

  Kyra remembered thinking how strange it was that she could conceive a baby without her husband present.

  They took a few weeks to pray about the decision, and decided to give IUI a try. Kyra had taken the Clomid, a drug that made her totally unbalanced, as evidenced by her three-hour sob session when David forgot to bring home a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. David gave her the HCG injection to trigger ovulation. They’d done the IUI.

  And it had worked. Kyra still couldn’t believe they were in the twenty percent.

  A nurse walked into the waiting room, pulling Kyra back to the present. “We’re ready for you now,” she said. Sophie jumped up from the couch and impatiently waited for David and Kyra to do the same.

  “Hurry,” she said. “I want to see my baby brother.”

  The nurse laughed. “How do you know it’ll be a brother? Maybe you’ll get a sister.”

  Sophie shook her head vehemently. “No. A brother.”

  The nurse laughed again, directing them to an exam room. “Undress from the waist down, Kyra. Dr. Mendoza will be with you shortly.”

  Minutes later Kyra sat on the crinkly paper of the exam table, a thin paper sheet covering her lower half.

  “Can I name my baby brother?” Sophie asked.

  David chuckled. “Don’t you think your mother and I should do that?”

  “No,” Sophie said.

  Sophie wasn’t the only one who’d been dreaming about baby names. “I was thinking Hunter if it’s a boy,” Kyra said.

  Sophie wrinkled her nose. “Hunter like Grandma and Grandpa Hunter?”

  Kyra nodded. “And I think Theresa is pretty for a girl.”

  The door swung open, and Dr. Mendoza walked into the room. “Already picking out names I see.” She shook David’s hand, then Sophie’s. “Hello, Sophie. It’s nice to see you again.”

  “I get to see my baby brother.” Sophie wiggled in her chair, her face bright with excitement.

  “Maybe. We won’t know if it’s a boy or a girl for a while yet.” Dr. Mendoza squeezed clear goo onto the ultrasound wand. “Let’s see how baby is doing.”

  Kyra’s eyes eagerly scanned the ultrasound screen, trying to pick out a person from all the wavy lines and shadows. “Where’s the baby?”

  Dr. Mendoza pointed to a tiny white speck in the middle of all the squiggly lines. “Right there. Congratulations, you three.”

  Awe enveloped Kyra. Their baby. She stared at the white speck, her heart overflowing with love. Their miracle. Her eyes found and held David’s. He smiled and mouthed I love you.

  “That doesn’t look like a baby,” said a pouty voice.

  Kyra tore her eyes from David’s and focused on Sophie. Her lips were turned down in a frown, arms folded across her chest.

  “It won’t look like a baby for a long time.” Dr. Mendoza pointed. “Right there is how your baby gets food, Sophie. It’s called a placenta.”

  “Can we hear the heartbeat?” Kyra asked.

  Dr. Mendoza tore a photo from the printer and handed it to Kyra. “It’s still too early for that. At this point, all we can tell for sure is that there’s a baby, sack, and forming placenta. We’ll know a lot more at your nine-week appointment.”

  Kyra stared at the tiny jelly-bean in the photo. It was hard to believe this was real.

  Dr. Mendoza flipped open a chart. “Your HCG levels are continuing to double, which is good. Continue your progesterone suppositories each night, and we’ll see you in three weeks. Congratulations again.”

  As soon as the door shut, Kyra hopped up from the table, the paper sheet clutched around her waist. “We’re having a baby!” She threw her free arm around David. He leaned down, kissing her softly as he held her close.

  “When can I see my baby brother?” Sophie asked.

  Kyra released David and picked up her pants. “We just saw him, Soph.”

  “That wasn’t a baby.”

  “I promise, sweetie, it was. He still has to grow.”

  Sophie wrinkled her nose like she didn’t quite believe her mother, but nodded anyway.

  The green-and-rust color of their Honda Civic was easy to spot, even from across the parking lot. Sunlight reflected off the duct tape on the passenger side window. David struggled with the handle on the back door, but finally opened it with a screech and buckled Sophie into her carseat.

  “This calls for a celebration,” he said once they were all in the car.

  “McDonald’s!” Sophie exclaimed.

  “We don’t have money for that,” Kyra said quietly.

  “We’ll get something off the dollar menu.” David gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll keep it cheap.”

  Their budget didn’t even allow for that small splurge. “Another baby is going to be expensive.”

  David leaned over and kissed her. “We can afford to spend five dollars on a celebration.”

  Five dollars in treats was enough for an entire home-cooked meal complete with leftovers, if they didn’t have a meat.

  “I want chicken nuggets,” Sophie said from the back seat.

  Definitely not on the dollar menu. But Kyra gave herself over to the celebration. “Okay.”

  At McDonald’s, Sophie scarfed down her chicken nuggets and ran off to play. David and Kyra ate at a slower pace, watching from their table as Sophie bounded up the stairs and shot down the slide.

  David reached across the table and placed his hand on Kyra’s. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For giving us another child.” His eyes glistened. “I know how hard Clomid was on you. I know the IUI wasn’t fun. But it was all worth it, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  David pulled his hand from hers and returned to his cheeseburger. Kyra watched him eat, her fingernail finding its way between her teeth.

  “Are you still hungry?” David asked.

  Kyra shook her head. “How are we going to afford this baby? We had to save for the IUI for three months, and still ended up pulling a couple hundred from our emergency fund. A baby is going to cost a lot more than one thousand dollars.”

  “We prayed about this, Kyr.” He pointed to her stomach. “That child is meant to join our family. Everything else will work itself out.”

  Kyra rested her hand on her stomach. She wasn’t experiencing any pregnancy symptoms yet—if this pregnancy mirrored her first, she wouldn’t for another few weeks—and she definitely wasn’t showing. But she still felt the baby’s presence, small but reassuring. “You’re right. I just worry.”

  “I know, but enjoy the moment. We worked hard for this.”

  Sophie chattered the whole way home from McDonald’s. At their rented home in Riverton, Kyra got out of the car as the neighbors pulled into their driveway. The minivan door slid open, and four children piled out. Cassandra Everhart emerged from the driver’s side, her dark chocolate skin and corkscrew hair a faint outline against the night sky.

  “Malachi!” Sophie ran across their lawn toward Cassandra’s house while he raced to meet her.

  “Hi, Sophie.”

  “I’ve got it,” Kyra told David. “Meet you inside in a minute.”

  He nodded and headed inside, and Kyra went to meet Cassandra. The other three children had disappeared inside the house.

  �
�Hey,” Kyra said. “How are you?”

  “Great,” Cassandra said. “I’ve been meaning to come over for a few days now. I’ve got some books for the school drive. Aren’t you collecting them?”

  “Yes,” Kyra said. “Christina asked if I’d be willing since I’m home during the day.”

  “I think it’s great you’re helping out,” Cassandra said. “I have almost an entire box full of books we don’t read anymore. Let me go get them.”

  “We went to McDonald’s,” Sophie told Malachi.

  “Ah man.” He frowned. “We didn’t.”

  “We went cuz there’s a baby in my mommy’s tummy.”

  Cassandra froze, then took a few steps toward Kyra, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Are you pregnant?”

  Kyra couldn’t stop the silly grin from spreading across her face. “Six weeks today. We just got back from our first ultrasound.”

  “Congratulations!” Cassandra wrapped her in a tight hug. “Wait, six weeks? Why are they doing such an early ultrasound? Is something wrong?”

  “No, just standard procedure at my doctor’s office I guess.” Time to change the subject. For months, Kyra had been making up excuses to explain away the babysitting favors she’d asked of Cassandra. There was no reason anyone needed to know about their short and humiliating stint into the world of infertility treatments. “We’re not supposed to tell people about the baby yet, Sophie. Remember?”

  “My mom doesn’t have a baby in her tummy.” Malachi squinted up at Cassandra. “Do you?”

  “I certainly hope not. Four kids is plenty for me.”

  “Time for bed,” Kyra told Sophie. “Maybe you can play with Malachi tomorrow.”

  “Let me grab those books for you really quick,” Cassandra said. “Congratulations again, Kyra. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “Thanks.” And somehow, that made it real. Not the IUI, or the positive pregnancy test, or even the ultrasound. But the moment Kyra shared her news with a friend who was happy for her.