A Deceiving Passion

Blessing in Disguise

~ January 19, 1981 ~

The Tusk tour would have ended in September of 1980 and although Stevie wanted to start working on some other projects with her best friends; Robin, Lori and Sharon---she had other priorities and one of them had to be rehab.

When she found out she was pregnant, she was only about six weeks along and morning sickness caught up to her quickly considering the amount of substance in her body between pot, booze and cocaine. And although it was easy to give up drinking, to give up pot---the coke was giving her a hard time because she relied on it the most and that was why she made the decision to get help. She didn't want to be responsible for her own miscarriage and she felt the baby inside of her was the one who was giving her the strength and willpower to do it when before she felt like she couldn't.

For the first few weeks of her pregnancy, she was monitored daily and under very close watch because as she detoxed the heavy substance, it not only made her morning sickness worse, but it really made her feel ill that they had to make sure her mood swings wouldn't cause her blood pressure to spike, therefore making the baby in her womb uncomfortable. But every day, she was given nutrients through intravenous and for six weeks straight, she was flushing out everything in her body and everybody at the rehab center was so polite and kind to her that it made her feel better about her situation.

Once Stevie was just passed her second trimester and out of the woods, she was very comfortable to go back home with not only a clear head space, but a healthy conscious knowing her baby was safe, although she still took it easy.

When the singer had gotten home to her family, the kids were in school and when they were at school, she and Lindsey would do a lot of work in their home studio considering she was to be on bed rest despite being on the healthier side. 

Even though she had been able to finish her record, Bella Donna, her solo record with the help of Jimmy Iovine and her idol, Tom Petty---she had to wait to release her album considering she had to rest. Like every other time she had been pregnant, she knew when she needed to take it slow and or take a break and at that point in her life, post drugs, pregnancy in her thirties rather than her twenties, she had to be easy on herself and she was religiously following her doctor's orders. But later that year, she was hoping for her solo record to get released, she wanted a short tour and then to head back to Fleetwood Mac like planned since they were set to commence in the beginning of 1982.

~~

As Stevie was approaching her 35th week of pregnancy, she was beginning to feel very uncomfortable and she couldn't exactly tell if it was anxiety of giving birth again or something not feeling right and given the fact that she was ever so intuitive, she felt something was wrong and of course that made her nervous, considering her last birth was so scary---she and their baby almost died. 

Swiping the front layers of her grown out shag, she sighed---feeling very uneasy, but she knew Lindsey was busy considering it was Monday morning and he had just dropped the kids off at school.

Standing tall very carefully, she waddled over to the phone and she dialed her friend's number, Lori's to be exact considering Robin was in San Jose and Sharon had gone to Hawaii once they were finished with the record. 

"Hello?"

"Hey, Lori, it's me..." the blonde sighed. 

"Hey, what's wrong? You sound upset, what's going on?"

"I was wondering if you were around? I think I need to go to the hospital. Lindsey just left to take the kids to school and he had a few errands to run and I don't have the energy to track him down nor do I need an ambulance coming to get me..."