A Mother's Sin

by Mia Henry

  A drive to look at the property with Richard the very next weekend was all it took for him to sign an offer to purchase. Amber was thrilled with the prospect of no longer being confined to Beline.

  Barely two months later, after acquiring the property, she had tired of going there every weekend.

  ‘This is getting ridiculous’ she moaned. ‘It will be so much better for the children if we could just live in River Bank, then they can go to a decent school there too’, argued a defiant Amber.

  Richard wanting to avoid another volatile confrontation, conceded. They could live away from Beline and he would visit weekends.

  Amber got more and more involved with horses. Many a weekend when Richard would come home, Amber would be away at horse shows. She started training Stella, at the tender age of five. By six, Stella was already developing a passion for horses and regularly winning her divisions in horse shows. All the winnings were evident in the rising accumulation of rosettes in Stella’s room.

  Amber had also befriended a horse trainer, Chad. He was tall, slim and muscular with broad shoulders. It was easy to feel attracted to him with his luminous blue eyes, tousled ash blond hair and a golden tan. There was a cowboy look about him with his days spent mainly outdoors on horseback. Initially the relationship was purely platonic. Soon though, the attraction became more alluring and intense, ring-fenced by their mutual love for horses.

  Amber, although pregnant again, found herself consumed with sadness and torn between a dysfunctional marriage and a man for whom she was developing deep feelings. Her inability to escape from her mundane existence, her stress and sadness would dissolve within a minute of her being in the saddle or watching her daughter outshine everyone in the ring.

  For Amber to continue with this very expensive hobby she needed her husband’s financial support. It didn’t matter how expensive it was to feed, care and maintain her horses. The vaccines, vet bills, farrier bills, horse show fees, tack, equipment and trailers, Richard would pay.

  Richard loved his wife unconditionally and wanted her to be happy. However to him love and relationships was a sort of an appendage to his life. Work and career was his mission. If work was his cake, love was just the frosting. Matters of the heart were not part of his core focus. Although Amber thrived on the financial benefits of their marriage she missed the emotional engagement that was nonexistent between them. She continued her involvement with horses and relished in the emotional safety Chad was able to give her. There was now little time for the marriage. Over most weekends when Richard returned home, Amber would be at another horse show.

  Despite being heavy with child she remained very involved in the equestrian world. During this turbulent time, when the marriage was already starting to crumble, Amber gave birth to another little girl, Gina.

  Contrary to the cliché, that ‘kids kill marriages’, the birth of another baby and the untimely death of Richard’s mother, Nancy, only six weeks after Gina’s birth, in fact solidified Amber and Richard’s marriage, albeit only for a short while.

  Amber’s equestrian life was put on the backburner. She kept her horse and Stella’s pony but would only ride alone or with Stella on their own smallholding or on leisure trails in the neighborhood. She cut contact with Chad. She was not ready to give up on her marriage just yet. Although, their life was not perfect, with no involvement in horse shows the family was able to spend most weekends together.

  Unfortunately this new honeymoon was short-lived. Their marriage started to once more, show signs of anemia. The rift was growing and common values were missing.

  Everyday Amber would cry to Frank and Betty, ‘he has become so tight-fisted’ or ‘he wants to know what I’m spending all the money on’.

  He grates my bloody nerves’, she would perpetually mutter.

  Getting back into the equestrian life helped her escape. With or without Richard’s blessing, she would start again even if it that meant more expenses, it was the least of her worries. Chad was there to catch her and fill her emotional tank. He made her feel alive and exhilarated. Richard was there to pay the bills.

  She began to resent Richard and reached the stage where she despised him. Her heart and mind finally settled on what she wanted. Would the lack of financial support hold her back?

  CHAPTER 7

  AMBER’S FIRST MARRIAGE

  Amber had spent two years in Europe. Although, now only eighteen years old, she returned, a grown, seasoned woman. She had experienced what most would have found morally objectionable.

  Betty and Frank could not believe the change.

  She had befriended someone on the plane en route from France who had invited her to a barbeque the following weekend.

  Amber having long since left school, no longer had any commonality with the friends she had left behind. Her transition into adulthood had been swift. Her pace was too fast, and she had moved on and grown beyond her years. However she desperately needed to make new friends. Hence why she decided to accept the invite to the barbeque, albeit with strangers.

  There she met Aldo. Although still young and yet completely comfortable in her sexual self, flirting came naturally. She knew how to turn a man on by just seductively observing the entire package and scanning him from head to toe. There was an immediate connection, a sexual magnetism that formed instantly.

  Amber, in a soft, beguiling voice quipped, ‘Love your shirt honey. I bet you look way better with it off.’

  Aldo was smitten, staring dreamily into her eyes. For the rest of the evening, like jealous lovers, they never left each other’s side.

  The guests were then ushered to the dining table to enjoy a plethora of barbequed meats with an array of perfect summer side dishes. At the table Amber slipped her sandal off and gently started rubbing her foot on Aldo’s calf. She could feel him yearning for more. He had barely finished his meal when Amber discreetly whispered across the table, ‘Pretty hot in here, shall we go outside?’

  He immediately obliged.

  ‘How about a cocktail at my place?’ teased Aldo, with a furtive glance.

  A quick nod yes, and quietly and unobtrusively they sneaked out without any goodbyes.

  Aldo was a jockey. And so began Amber’s love for horses. Their fast-track love affair remained steamy and lustful. Within a few weeks, they had moved in together.

  One morning, not too long into their new blooming romance, while Aldo lay half asleep, Amber blurted out, ‘I’m pregnant’.

  ‘Am I the father?’ was the response from between the sheets.

  ‘I guess so’ squealed Amber. ‘I have only missed one period!’

  Without too much fanfare and a restricted budget, a wedding was planned and they were soon married.

  Sadly as quickly as the relationship and marriage had begun, it ended.

  ‘Sorry, but I hate having to always beg for money and you always moaning that there is no money! I have to move on’, shouted Amber.

  Gaining attention was never in short supply for Amber. Marriage was restricting her. Aldo was conservative and was not about to give in to her whims and fancies. Not getting her way stoked the flames of her anger. She would yell, scream and swear. She would threaten.

  ‘You bastard! You will never set your eyes on your boy again’, she yelled.

  Amber loved risks and would try whatever came her way. She was out to please and to be pleased. It was impossible to set boundaries for Amber.

  Feeling harangued and emotionally exhausted, Aldo was quite happy to surrender that marriage.

  CHAPTER 8

  MORE WOES

  Five months after burying their first born, Ella is pregnant. During this time of deep hurt, Ella is very grateful that her new home with all the alterations and additions had kept her busy.

  A mere two weeks after a very thrilled gynecologist called with the good news, Ella started bleeding. A scan quickly reve
aled that she had miscarried.

  Three weeks later, Ella and Rob were pruning trees in their garden, when suddenly Ella bends over in acute pain.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Rob.

  ‘Maybe just a wind’, Ella replied.

  Despite the pain, she continued pottering about in the garden.

  The thought of an ectopic pregnancy had crossed Rob’s mind but Ella had had a scan when she had the miscarriage. An unviable sac was clearly visible in the uterus. So he discarded the thought. He trusted the gynecologist but deep inside he feared the worst – he was growing accustomed to it.

  Early the next morning, as soon as Rob awoke, Ella groaned, ‘This pain just doesn’t want to go away’.

  Before Rob left for work he called the gynecologist.

  ‘She must come and see me straight away,’ insisted the gynae.

  The discomfort of the examination was enough to indicate that there was a problem. An ectopic pregnancy had to be excluded. Ella was admitted to hospital and a laparoscopy was performed as an emergency procedure.

  ‘Should it be an ectopic pregnancy I will need to operate immediately,’ stressed the gynae.

  So Ella signed the operation consent form, allowing the surgeons to remove the Fallopian tube and ovary should it be necessary. When she awakened in the ward with the burning pain of a cut, she knew there must have been a problem. The dressing right across her lower tummy told her all she needed to know.

  Ella had fallen pregnant with twins.

  ‘One of the embryo’s had implanted in the uterus and the other one in the left Fallopian tube,’ the gynecologist told her.

  Although he was able to save the Fallopian tube and ovary, he still had to cut through the tube to remove the embryo, which was still growing. There was a high probability that the left Fallopian tube would become dysfunctional due to the scar tissue.

  Over a year went by, and Ella had not fallen pregnant again. After a visit to her gynecologist, it was decided to start Ella on fertility treatment. There was still a healthy intact Fallopian tube so there should be no reason why Ella could not fall pregnant.

  Even after a year on fertility treatment there was still no pregnancy. Ella would however, continuously relay to both her husband and gynecologist that soon after ovulation, every time, she felt very pregnant but then would lose all the symptoms after a few days.

  Further tests were then eventually conducted, and it was discovered that Ella’s levels of prolactin were too high, inhibiting the production of progesterone. She was more than likely falling pregnant every time but the lack of progesterone could not sustain the pregnancy, so treatment was started using a dopamine agent to suppress the prolactin. Ella having access to a library of medical books belonging to Rob did some reading on the dopamine agent that she had been prescribed. She was surprised to read that studies on the safety of dopamine in pregnancy had not been established and no conclusive studies had been done to exclude dopamine from being teratogenic, with the cautionary to preferably stop the use of the drug as soon as pregnancy is suspected.

  Not long after starting the treatment, Ella felt decidedly pregnant.

  She called her gynae.

  ‘I think I may be pregnant, any chance I could go for a pregnancy test?’ asked Ella.

  ‘Pregnancy tests are only accurate from day twenty-eight and you’re only day twenty-five but you’re welcome to go. Take a chance!’ replied her gynae.

  Within two hours of having the test done, Ella received the telephone call.

  ‘Well, well, congratulations! But I must warn, your pregnancy hormone levels are extremely high. I suspect that you’re carrying a multiple pregnancy’, says a very elated gynecologist.

  The prospect of a multiple pregnancy did not faze her. She was over the moon with the news. However before hanging up the phone, Ella enquired, ‘Should I not stop the dopamine agent?’

  Definitely not’, replied the gynae, ‘stay on it for at least another week, then come see me for a scan’.

  A week later, excited, yet nervous and apprehensive, Ella along with Rob, went off to the gynae for the ultrasound. They were elated to see two sacs each with a beating heart. The gynae thought that there possibly had been a third, looking at something that appeared to have been a sac. One sac was noticeably bigger than the other.

  ‘The bigger one was obviously conceived a good few days before the smaller one’, explained the gynae.

  All looked good but as Ella was a fertility patient, the gynae suggested she have another scan two weeks later.

  After two weeks, Ella went back to her gynae. Nancy accompanied her, as Rob was not able to get off medical duty that day. Sadly, the scan showed no heart beat in one of the embryos, the larger sac. The smaller one was still beating in perfect rhythm. Then two weeks later, with a sigh of relief, another ultrasound showed that the smaller embryo had increased in size and was going strong. Besides having to be admitted for early labor towards the end, the rest of the pregnancy was uneventful and all appeared well. In the excitement of it all, Ella kept a diary of the progress throughout her pregnancy.

  A Caesarian section was booked for the fourteenth of August. With lots of excitement, Eduardo, Nancy, Linda and Rob mom’s, Mary-Anne waited in the small waiting area just outside the operating room, whilst Rob assisted with the operation. The wait was long so they became a little anxious.

  Tammy was born but immediately there were concerns. Rob was called across from his surgical assistant’s post to gaze at his second born. He could not believe what he saw. The right side of his daughter’s mouth was seemingly split open and her ear appeared deformed. A sickening feeling of apprehension about her future took root, one that would not disappear from his mind and heart for the foreseeable future. He was beginning to fear the unforeseen twists in the road that kept arising in their life together as husband and wife.

  Something had gone wrong in Tammy’s early development, so she was born with a few defects involving the face. She was soon diagnosed as having Goldenhar Syndrome. Fortunately it didn’t appear to be too severe, although she would require plastic surgery as she got older. A heart murmur was also detected, which the cardiologist wanted to reassess at the age of three months. The pediatrician was not able to determine at such an early stage whether there was deafness or any mental disabilities. He suggested taking her to the Red Cross Children’s hospital in Cape Town, to have her assessed audiologically and mentally at eight weeks.

  ‘As far as we understand, this condition is not congenital but appears to be caused by environmental factors,’ said the pediatrician to Rob and Ella.

  Although the doctors were not convinced, Ella couldn’t help wondering whether the medication she had been on to suppress the prolactin early in the pregnancy had been the cause of the problem. What else had she been exposed to, that had interfered with the early development of the baby? ‘Was that why the older embryo, possibly even a third, had not made it?’ she would keep wondering for years to come. This perpetually played in her mind, knowing that the older embryos would have had a lot more exposure to the dopamine agent.

  Tammy otherwise appeared healthy and so both Ella and Tammy were discharged from the hospital four days later. Ella was just grateful that her baby was alive and going home. The rest was for then insignificant.

  Back at home, amongst all the visiting family and friends, was a young girl Grace. She had fallen in love with Tammy. She loved playing with her and she would pop around regularly with her mum to help bath and dress Tammy. Grace would nag her mum without let-up to visit Tammy and insisted during one of their family photo shoots that Tammy be included in it. Tammy and Grace developed a very close and special bond and a lifelong friendship was formed. Tammy became the sister Grace never had.

  It did not take long for Ella to be convinced in her heart that her baby was neither deaf or mentally incapacitated, but as suggested,
Rob and Ella took Tammy to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, in Cape Town, at eight weeks. She passed the tests with flying colors. Hearing the words, ‘Your baby’s developmental assessment is above average’, was music to their ears.

  At three months of age, Tammy, was seen by the cardiologist.

  ‘Strange.’ he said, ‘her murmur is hardly audible, yet there are definite signs of cardiac compromise’.

  He chose not to investigate further at that point in time.

  ‘Let’s reassess her when she is nine months old’, he said.

  Ella and Rob were relieved that the cardiologist did not seem too anxious about Tammy’s heart condition. It was one less burden to worry about and Rob trusted the cardiologist. He worked with him in the pediatric cardiology outpatient department.

  However, Tammy tired quickly on the breast, therefore was not drinking adequately. So on the pediatrician’s recommendation the decision was made to bottle feed her instead.

  A couple weeks after stopping with the breastfeeding, Ella was still having trouble with engorged breasts so she called her gynae, requesting something to suppress the milk.

  ‘You must first have a pregnancy test, before starting with the medication’, the gynae insisted.

  ‘Are you kidding me’, laughed Ella.

  Not at all convinced, but following doctor’s orders she went and had a pregnancy test done. After dropping in to the lab to have blood drawn for the test, she and Tammy spent the rest of the day with Nancy.

  When Ella returned home, Patsy her domestic helper, greeted her with the words, ‘your doctor has phoned about five times looking for you.’

  At first Ella thought it was her husband looking for her, but then Patsy handed her a piece of paper with a number.