Chapter 3
Chapter Three
PAIGE
Two Weeks Later
Four weeks since my last period. Four years of trying, three of which have been spent struggling. I tap the wrapped test against my leg. “I need to leave in ten minutes. I have one test.” I hold it in the air so my audience—myself in the mirror—can see it clearly. “I already need to pee—”
“What’s that, Mom?” Jacob calls from the kitchen.
“Nothing!” I shout back before mumbling to myself, “But he can never hear me ask him to pick up his dirty socks.” I fist the test in my hand and knock it against my forehead twice. “Why not, Paige? What’s the worst that could happen?”
It’s negative again, and you have to start a whole new process for getting pregnant? The inner voice crowds my thoughts, but it’s true. What’s also true is that the sooner we figure out what we need, the better.
I pee on the stick, set the timer, and pull up the website my doctor recommended, where women of all ages, sizes, and races have come together to share their stories and information about their struggles with PMOS. On the first page is general information, and beyond that are the testimonials.
PMOS, Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome
Side effects may include
Irregular to no ovulation
Facial and body hair
Mood swings
Difficulty Losing Weight
Difficulty with fertility
My timer goes off, and I pick up the stick. Not ready … One line.
I watch as the test continues to absorb the pee. It creeps all the way to the end. One line. Dammit. Releasing my disappointment, I lock my phone and avoid the testimonies. I’d rather not read about excited mothers who beat the odds.
I didn’t even realize I had issues with this whole mess until well after I had Jacob. Trevor and I were struggling for over a year with conceiving baby number two. We went in to the family doctor, only to be met with this diagnosis I’d never heard of and one way to battle it.
“There’s a chance that you won’t be able to conceive naturally again,” the doctor told me, barely an ounce of sympathy in his voice.
“If you lose some weight, you could erase these issues completely. It’s likely your BMI is contributing to your irregular ovulation. You say you were slender when you were pregnant with your first?”
“Yes, but I was … not in a very secure environment.”
I was unhappy. I was scared. I was hungry.
“Well, if you want to have a baby, I suggest you figure out how to make it back to where you were with your first.”
“But I was eighteen?” He’s being willfully ignorant if he thinks that makes biological sense.
“Well, that’s all I can say to help you in your situation. You are obese. Your BMI is high. Get out and move some more, eat less.” Without anything further, he got up and left.
For more than two years, I was on all kinds of diets, trying to get my size fourteen to the four I was in high school. It was my birthday, a couple of years ago, when my husband finally put his foot down.
Our boy had saved up for weeks to buy me a special cupcake. I went to get the scale and weigh out a portion when Trevor stood up and pulled me into the other room.
“Paige, you know I love and support you, but I can not watch this anymore. You are starving yourself, and you still aren’t ovulating normally. Please, baby, please start eating again. There’s another way. I know there is. We will figure it out together.”
“Trevor, I’m so close. I can feel it.”
“Baby, I can barely feel you anymore. Please, I know this is so important to you, but look what you’re doing to this cupcake on your birthday.” He grabs my hands and squeezes them tightly.
“I love you. I love you exactly as you are now, exactly as you were at every point before now.” He leans forward.
“Paige, please, we’ll find another way. I hate that it feels like I’m losing pieces of you.
” Our foreheads press together as he slides his hands up my arms, to my shoulders, and around and down my back.
Where he squeezes my ass.
“Trevor!” I squeal at him, and he laughs.
“Still got that ass, though,” he says with another squeeze and a wink.
Honestly, it was exactly what I needed to hear. I was miserable. I felt like it was a valid sacrifice to make, and that I was being selfish by considering stopping.
We switched doctors and found someone a lot more friendly, with more specialized knowledge about my situation. “Oh, honey, there are so many women out there with PMOS who are obese and getting pregnant.” She puts finger quotes around obese, and I decide to ask her about it. She makes me feel brave.
“BMI is an outdated, racist, and sexist mode of figuring out someone’s health.” She scans my face and laughs. “Sorry. It annoys me. It was a calculation that came from studies on white men years and years ago. It is not a one-size-fits-all calculation.”
Her explanation rocked me. I’d always been a little round for my height, and BMI was an uncomfortable conversation my previous doctor regularly brought up.
Now, years after we first started trying, I truly expected a different outcome. After all of the prescriptions and marking days off the calendar, I felt sure.
Blinking away the useless tears of disappointment, I gather the test and the wrapper. Two lines.
“What?” I gasp quietly, afraid to break the spell I must be under.
I hold it up with shaking hands to see it more closely. To make sure my teary eyes didn’t blur my vision. That my yearning didn’t make me see things that aren’t truly there. Still two lines.
We did it.
My son starts knocking on the bathroom door, and I panic, nearly dropping the test onto the floor. “Mom, are you going to get that? Your phone is ringing again.”
Again? “Shit, uh—shoot.” Jacob laughs, delighted at my cursing. “Just a second, honey!”
My caller ID says Josh, so I answer it cautiously. “Josh, is everything okay?”
“Hey. Sorry, I know it’s early, but have you heard from Carri today?” His voice is frantic, and I can hear Cassian screaming in the background.
“Sorry, no. Not today.” Honestly, not ever. She is never the one who reaches out, except with our initial contact.
“Okay. Well, do you—shit, sorry. Do you have any clue where she might be? Shh. Shh,” He hushes his baby, but I don’t hear a discernible change in Cassian’s wails.
“Uh, no. I’m sorry. I really don’t have any idea.” I rack my brain for anything, but I have nothing to go off of.
“Okay. Alright. Okay.” He sighs, the sound out of place against Cassian’s screams. I have to drop Jacob off at camp, wait for him to finish, then go to work, but the sound is tugging at my heart. “Do you need me to come in early?”
“Yes! God, yes, please. That would be incredible.”
“I’ll have to leave either with Cass, or leave him with you to pick up Jacob—”
“Literally anything you need. Thank you so much.” Josh hangs up, and I’m already planning the rest of the day with these changes. It’ll mean a longer workday for me. He won’t need me to come in early all the time, will he?
I carefully place my positive test in my pocket and dispose of the rest of the garbage. Whatever else today brings, I know it is going to be a good day.
“Bethany, you’ll never guess what happened today.” The moment Jacob is sucked into some show about demons with catchy music, I call my sweet sister-in-law, Bethany Whitaker.
Bethany is my girl. She and her family have stilted relationships that nobody seems to be able to explain, but she’s always been a supporter of our relationship and our sweet baby boy.
“What happened?” Her voice sounds odd, but I have to spit this out before I explode.
“Carri left. She’s gone.”
“Who?”
“Caroline Bright? Josh’s wife and the mother of the tiny baby I watch?”
“Holy shit.”
“I know.”
“Holy shit!”
“I know!” I whisper-shout, unwilling to give Jacob any hint that my conversation is interesting.
“Does anyone else know?”
“Honestly, I have no idea.” I put my phone down and grab an earbud instead of trying to play this shoulder balance game.
I currently have someone else’s baby strapped to my chest, while mine is growing in my belly, and I’m doing someone else’s dishes as I dish out some juicy gossip with my sister-in-law.
I need two hands for this. “Can you still hear me?”
“Yep.” She pops the p, then remains quiet. Bethany is not a pushy person, but she loves gossip as much as the next person.
“What’s up, Beth?”
“Hmm? Oh. Um … nothing. No, I don’t know. I’m just … worried.”
She takes a deep breath, and then she lets it out in one fast confession. “IthinkBobbymightbecheatingonmewithaclient.” She gasps after finishing, then asks, “Did you get all that?”
Poor thing. “Oh, honey. I don’t know what to say.” I really don’t have an inkling of how to help her. Trevor’s never given me any sort of insecurity like that before. “How can I help you? What’s happening? Why would you think that?”
“Well, when we first met, when he first started working there? We used to go to lunch together all the time. Now, he’s always busy and cancelling on me.
I know he got a promotion, and he’s up for another one.
I thought I smelled perfume. Maybe vanilla and some flower?
I—I don’t wear …” She trails off, her breath hitching on a quiet sob.
“Oh, baby doll. Do you wanna come hang out with the kids and me? I’ll let Josh know you’re coming.”
“No, no. I’m—” A deep sigh fills the gap.
“Bethy.”
“Fine. I’m fine, seriously. I think I’m just being a little dramatic. You know how I can be.”
No, I know how her family makes her believe she’s being dramatic.
“Remember that I’m here if you ever need me.
I’m happy to have you over.” She says something noncommittal, and we start talking about a bunch of local gossip, like Frankie from Piggies having to quit school to take care of her dad and the store. “I like that girl.”
“Me too!”
A few minutes after hanging up, the kitchen is sparkling clean, the baby is falling fast asleep in my arms while I feed him, and I’m staring at my beautiful son. He’s so healthy and wonderful. “Stop staring at me, Mom. It’s giving creeper vibes.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to call me a creeper, you little turd.” He snorts, then checks the clock behind me. “Can we have lunch with Dad again sometime? I miss having him come hang out with us.”
“Oh, hun. Me too.” I ruffle his hair, making him scowl, and pick up my phone.
Paige
Your son is looking for a lunch date with his daddy. Any chance you’re free?
Hitting send, I watch the screen until sent appears, followed by the Received tag.
When he doesn’t answer right away, I put my phone down.
He’s been swamped at work. Our communication has suffered because of it.
I wonder if he’s using his glasses. I bump Jacob’s shoulder with mine.
“I’ll let you know as soon as Dad responds, okay, kid?
” A tiny burp punctuates my words, and we both giggle at the baby.
My phone beeps with a notification.
Trevor
Sorry, love. Lunches have been claimed for the foreseeable future. Tell him I love him and will see him when we all get home for the day.
Paige
Claimed, huh? :) Anyone I should worry about?
Trevor
As if. Love ya.
As if. The two words keep me warm, but then I feel bad when my boy looks at me expectantly. “Sorry, kid. Dad’s booked up. We can go somewhere fun when this one is a little older, and we get the green light to go out, alright?”
Jacob gives me a dramatic sigh and agrees with obvious reluctance.
“Yes, Mother.” I snap my hand out and snatch the wretch by the arm and pull him into me for a big, suffocation momma hug.
“I love you, Booger.”
“Gah! Mom, let me go. Did the baby really just spit up on you? Oh, God. I’m going to puke.” I burst into laughter at his dramatics.
“Just you wait. This is tame when it comes to the messes babies make.” I can’t stop the fond curl of my lips as I consider the fact that Jacob is going to be a big brother.
And I need to find a way to tell Trevor.
I can’t wait.