I turn to him. “I can’t. Like seriously, my brain just won’t shut off.”
His gaze meets mine. “Talk to me. Tell me all your thoughts.”
I fan my face. “Jesus, it’s hot in here. Are you hot?”
He squeezes my thigh before reaching for my bottle of water. “Have a drink. It’s not hot; you’re panicking.”
He’s right. I am. After I drink some water, I say, “I feel sick. Like, I could throw up thinking about all the possibilities of what our life will look like after this test today. I just want to have a child and love that child.” My voice wobbles as I add, “It’s not too much to ask, is it? We’ll be good parents.”
“It’s not too much to ask. Let’s just get through this morning before worrying about the next step.”
“Why do you have to be so bloody practical all the time?”
He looks at me again, his amusement clear in his eyes. “One of us has to be.”
“Ugh.”
After he pulls into the clinic’s car park and parks the car, he curls his hand around my neck and pulls me close. “Whatever happens today, we’re going to be okay, angel.”
“I hope so,” I say softly.
“We’ve pulled through some rough shit, and if we have to do that again, we will. Together. Always fucking together.”
The fierceness in his words hits me in the chest. He’s right; we have pulled through some awful stuff in the past. I just need to cling to him if we get the worst news today.
Pressing my lips to his, I kiss him, showing him how much I love and appreciate him. Even if he is too damn practical for me sometimes. Smiling, I say, “Love, fight, battle, protect.” The Morrison way.
He returns my smile and nods. “Yeah.”
I take a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go do this.”
The room spins as I fight for oxygen. Drawing breath in, though, is hard to do when you can’t focus enough on the process because every ounce of your being is completely focussed on processing news you never wanted to hear.
I’m not pregnant.
We failed IVF.
Oh my God, I’m going to pass out.
I can’t breathe.
I stare at the doctor. She’s speaking to Winter and me. I see her mouth moving, but I no longer hear anything coming out of it.
Winter’s hand crushes mine as he listens intently to what she says. He hasn’t let go of me since the moment we sat down across from her. At first, I welcomed the physical contact, but now I need to extricate myself from him.
I. Can’t. Breathe.
I need to get out of here.
When I try to pull my hand from his, Winter resists. Meeting my gaze, he frowns.
“I need to go,” I choke out, pleading with my eyes for him to let me go.
“Birdie,” Dr. McLeod says, her voice so warm and caring that I want to scream at her to stop being so fucking delicate. I just want her to stop fucking talking. We didn’t get pregnant; what else is there to say about that? We. Failed.
Yanking my hand from Winter’s, I stand. “You two finish going over everything. I can’t do this.” I’ve done every fucking thing I’ve had to up to this point; this, I can’t fucking do.
With that, I’m out the door, down the hallway, and exiting the clinic before Winter can stop me.
The cold air stings my face, a welcome sensation. It doesn’t take the ache from my chest, but it shifts my attention for a moment.
I tried to prepare myself for this outcome, but just like nothing could fully prepare me for an IVF cycle, nothing could ready me for what this news feels like.
I believed my baby was growing in my stomach.
I believed I had her for one week.
I believed too many lies I told myself.
Hope is just a bunch of fucking lies we weave into a story we tell ourselves.
And this feeling I’m left with now? It feels like a death I have to find a way to recover from. Another one. After two ectopic pregnancies and the loss of both my fallopian tubes, I know all about this kind of death, but fuck me, it only gets harder each time. It slices deeper. Carves its wound more cruelly. Bleeds more profusely.
An icy gush of wind slaps me in the face, and as I turn my head to flick my hair out of my eyes, I spot Winter coming my way. The strain he carries is too much for me to bear. This is all my fault. He may never be a father because of me. I’m damaged goods and he’s the one suffering the consequences.
Turning away from him, because I can’t cope with his pain as well as my own, I walk towards the car. I’ve taken two steps when Winter’s strong arm wraps around me from behind, settles across my chest and pulls me against his body. He doesn’t speak a word; he doesn’t need to. He simply holds me until finally, I slowly curve around to bury my face in his chest. With my arms tightly around him, I let my tears fall.
He smooths my hair while I cry, still not uttering a word. How he knows what I need is beyond me. For once, I have no words. All I have is a broken heart and nowhere to take it to be fixed.
I have no idea how long I cry, but as my tears subside, Winter presses a kiss to my forehead and says, “You ready to go home?”
Looking up into his eyes, I nod.
He takes hold of my hand and walks me to the car. Once he’s got me bundled in, we make the drive home in silence. I stare out the window, tracking the rain that’s started falling. The raindrops drizzling down the window are like the sad soundtrack to my pain. Winter’s hand squeezing mine the entire trip home is the thing that keeps me from disconnecting completely. Because that’s what I want to do. I want to sever my connection to the world. I want to shut down and forget everything I know and feel.
When we arrive home, I somehow make my way into our bedroom. Winter is behind me every step of the way. I sit on the edge of the bed and he crouches in front of me. He removes my boots and crawls onto the bed behind me when I lie down. Spooning me, his arms around me like he’s never letting me go again, he lies with me in silence.
More tears come as I lie and think about the child we’re not having. Quiet tears that just keep falling. This may be harder than when I suffered my last ectopic pregnancy. At least then, I wiped all hope from my mind. I told myself I would never have a child. I refused to entertain my options. This time, I opened myself fully to my options. I allowed myself to believe in and imagine the family Winter and I would have. I made plans. I started thinking about how I would set the nursery up. Hell, I even started thinking about whether we’d send our child to public or private school.
“This isn’t the end of the road, angel,” Winter says. “This was just the first cycle.”
My tears don’t stop. I know he’s trying to be positive, but fuck positivity right now. I don’t fucking feel positive.
When I don’t respond, he says, “Birdie. Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“I know, but shutting down on me isn’t going to help you and it’s sure as fuck not going to help us.”
I push his arms off me and leave the bed to go into the en suite. Closing the door, I sit on the toilet and suck deep breaths in. I don’t bother to wipe my tears; they’re not going to stop any time soon, so there’s no point.
The crushing pain is strangling me. I don’t want to shut down on Winter, but I have nothing left to give. I’ve given all I have.