𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙒𝙀 𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙎𝙃𝙀𝘿 ↣ 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝘿𝙄𝙍𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉

41. LEMONADE (added chapter!)

"No fucking way."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again.

Two little lines.

"...no way," I whispered.

I thought back, way back, to the doctor appointment I had when I was nineteen.

The ultrasound, hearing that little heartbeat.

I thought about what that doctor had said.

I wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant, my body just would never be healthy enough to carry a baby. The doctor had said so in more complicated terms, but that was the jist of it.

"Mama!"

Sophia pulled me out of my thoughts.

We adopted Sophia very soon after taking her in to foster her as a newborn. I thought often about that night. The trip to go get her, coming back home and realizing what we managed to set up was pretty much equivalent to nothing.

(Liam saved our asses.)

Sophia, our baby.

My daughter, my pumpkin.

She was 4 months away from being 2.

Mama was her favorite thing to say. Dada and doggie were right up there, too.

I stuck the test in my sweatshirt pocket and washed my hands quickly, before joining my small family in the living room.

"What's your face?" Louis asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, but faltered.

Louis stood, leaving Soph to stack and unstaxk her blocks by herself for a moment.

"Everything okay?"

"I..."

We looked at each other.

"What? Are you pregnant, summat?" He asked, raising one eyebrow skeptically.

He knew as well as I did that our chances at having a baby were pretty much 0.

We'd even tried IVF. It made me so sick, all the hormones, but it was our dream- a baby. We advised about doing a second round, and Louis put his foot down and said no to a third.

That argument stills bounced around in my head, sometimes.

-

"We're not doing it again," Louis said as we walked out of the doctors office.

It had been 8 months, 2 rounds of attempting InVitero Fertilization.

8 months of shots, pumping myself with hormones in the hopes that it could make my uterus just a little bit less hostile- just a bit more homey, to grow a life.

The treatment was making me sick. Brittle hair and nails. And don't get me started on the nausea. But, if we wanted a baby, it was my job to tough it out and just survive.

But then, there's Louis, holding our one year old adoptive daughter, and putting his foot down.

"Not going to watch you try to kill yourself over a baby when we've got this one here."

"It's not that bad."

"Love," he sighed, stopping in his tracks. We were still inside the building with the fertility experts- at least that's what they called themselves. "If it were me, would you want to keep doing all of this? If I was the one getting needles in my stomach and throwing up in the middle of the night?"