Whiskey River, Drown my Soul

Chapter Six

Three years ago...

Bre stared at the pediatrician's face.

"No. That's not possible", she said. "I'm still breastfeeding".

"It's a myth, hun. It is possible. I think we should check to rule it out. A quick blood test is very accurate".

Bre's mind was reeling. The doctor called a nurse in to draw her blood as she examined Ella and mapped her height and weight.

"I'll pop back in when we get the results", she said, walking out, smiling.

Bre wasn't smiling. In fact, she was feeling an extreme amount of anxiety, anxiety as she had never experienced before.

By the time Bre fed and burped Ella and she had fallen asleep in her arms, the doctor was back.

She sat and looked expectantly at Bre, beaming.

"Congratulations! Ella is going to be a big sister!"

Bre simply stared at her, dumbfounded and a little terrified.

The doctor's face fell. "I'm sorry, you weren't ready for this?", she guessed.

Bre shook her head no. This doctor was also Ava's pediatrician, so she had already known them for three years and knew they wanted a large family. She was probably confused as to why Bre wasn't jumping for joy. Ella was eight months old, after all.

"I wanted to breastfeed for twelve months and then start trying", Bre said. "Can you tell me how far along I am?"

"Not without an ultrasound", she said, "but let me see if I can pull some strings and squeeze you in the OB department before Ella wakes. I know how hard it is to get to appointments with two little ones".

Bre's sister, Bethany, currently had Ava.

After the pediatrician stepped out, Bre started brainstorming. She'd been feeling nauseous for maybe five or six weeks. Her milk supply had been inexplicably dwindling for about that long, also, which is why Bre was concerned that something was going wrong with her body. She would have never guessed pregnancy. She didn't think she could get pregnant if she was breastfeeding. She hadn't even had a normal period yet, only light spotting each month.

Bre got Ella situated in her carseat and looked up as the door opened. A perky nurse popped her head in.

"Breanna Larsen?"

"Yep".

"You can come with me".

After an ultrasound confirming pregnancy and taking measurements, the nurse who had done the ultrasound for her was able to tell her she was eight weeks along. After Bre snapped Ella's carseat into the base in her car and sat herself in the driver's seat, she pulled up the calendar on her phone and started counting backward.

She landed on eight weeks back, moved two weeks ahead of that, and grabbed her paper planner. She had a really bad feeling her nightmare was about to come true. With a shaking hand, she flipped the pages back to the week in question.

Her heart was pounding and she was sweating.

That week. It was THAT WEEK.

Bre and Brad's ongoing affair had started when she was pregnant with Ava. They had taken a break from the end of that pregnancy until she was pregnant with Ella because her and Steve had been actively trying, and she didn't want to accidentally end up with a Brad baby instead of a Steve baby. They did...other things, on occasion...but they did not have intercourse until she was confirmed pregnant.