Pieces of the Present - [Danona] Book Two ✓

04. you're not alone

Sometimes, when the silence is just quiet enough, you can hear your heartbeat thumping in your ears. At that moment, all three of them were able to relate. The doctor's office was just as bleak and bland as they could've imagined it to be. The sickly sterile scent in the air practically burned their noses off. The rubbing alcohol in the air could've practically gotten all three of them intoxicated.

Two weeks. Two weeks and the silence amongst the house had persisted. Small talk ensued as if they weren't a family, but just a bunch of strangers in an elevator. The snow had stuck around longer than anyone had expected it to. Just another oddity to their world. 

Across the room, Katie's eyes zeroed in on a motherhood magazine. The woman on the cover, clutching her baby at her hip while they both smiled like nothing was wrong in the world. She could only bet that the mother and baby on that cover didn't go through what she went through. What she was continuing to go through with every breath she took. The mother probably saw the pregnancy test and cried tears of joy. She probably couldn't wait to paint the nursery a pale pink or blue. Baby shower gifts and patterned burp clothes probably sat in the nursery closet until that mother on the cover happily brought her baby home to begin life. 

She was not that mother. She certainly didn't feel like a mother either. The logic of the universe would disagree. She had a positive pregnancy test. She had heard a heartbeat other than her own. There was a life growing inside of her that was currently the size of a strawberry. She had every reason to be labeled as a mother because when the technicalities were dumbed down, she was a mother. 

Yet, she still felt like a scared child. Cowering and crying, wishing only to cling to the leg of an adult for safety and comfort. 

Two weeks and she still wasn't any closer to her decisions. She was terrified to even begin considering what choices she had. The two choices, to be exact. Consideration meant commitment and she could barely accept the fact that she was pregnant, let along commit to a plan. 

She knew, deep down, she knew it went further. It had reached the point of fear. Fear of becoming attached. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of choosing to raise her child or place it up for adoption. The fear was consuming her, slowly eating away at everything she had left of herself. 

If she turned a page in that motherhood magazine, would she find a column explaining all of this to her? Would she see other mothers talking about the fears that had enveloped them from the start? Unlikely. Because those mothers, the ones whose lives are picturesque and perfect, they weren't living in her shoes. They had known right off the bat what their plan was. Hell, half of them probably had names picked out before the stick turned blue. 

Then with the fear, came the guilt. The guilt of not wanting to get attached; not yet at least. Or maybe not ever. Not if she was going to make the decision to place her child up for adoption. Getting attached meant getting hurt. More than anything, the aspect of love was what had stunned her. She was not attached to this baby, but she would be crushed if anything happened to it. She wasn't ready for this baby, but she understood now why a parent would jump in front of a moving bus for their kid.