Unbreakable (Unrestrained #4)

by S. E. Lund

  The scent as the stew heated in the microwave made my mouth water and I was eager to eat it, cutting myself a slice of French bread and slathering it with butter. I carried the dish into the living room and sat beside Kate, who was now seated more upright.

  “This looks and smells so good,” I said and stirred the stew, dipping the corner of my slice of bread into the gravy.

  Kate made a face and turned her head away. “Sorry,” she said, “but it turns my stomach.”

  “Too spicy?” I said and stood, not wanting to bother her with the aroma, which was making me really hungry.

  “Too savory,” she said and waved the air around her face. “I need bland.”

  I sat on the chair across from her and started to eat, the stew delicious, the flavors mingling to make it even better.

  “Excuse me,” Kate said and got up quickly, rushing out of the living room. I put my dishes down and followed her into the main bathroom where she stood over the toilet, holding her hair back. I went up behind her and held her hair for her while she retched. A small amount of food came up and she coughed and spit. When she was finished, I flushed the toilet for her and she turned to the sink and rinsed out her mouth.

  “Sorry,” she said, her eyes red and watery from throwing up. “Not very appetizing to have to look after a vomiting pregnant woman.”

  “Don’t even mention it,” I said and pulled her into my arms. I stroked her hair, my gaze moving over her face. “I used to dissect fetal pigs in the lab and then go out and eat a ham sandwich. Stomach made of cast iron.”

  She smiled. “Good to know.”

  I led her back to the living room and she lay back down on the sofa. I tucked the blankets around her and then picked up my plate of stew.

  “I’ll go eat in the kitchen at the island.”

  “Didn’t meant to run you off,” she said weakly.

  “Don’t say a word,” I said. “Tomorrow, we’re going to see McAllister and get you something for your nausea.” When I saw her face, saw her frown and knew she was going to argue with me, I stopped her, holding up a hand. “No argument.”

  She sighed and lay back on the couch.

  It alarmed me that she couldn’t keep anything down. Her nausea was getting worse, not better so I figured that she would have to go on medication to prevent her from losing weight and electrolytes. If she developed severe morning sickness, and kept throwing up, she’d get an imbalance and could suffer fainting and seizures, arrhythmias – the list went on. My training in obstetrics came back to me and I ate my meal with some trepidation.

  The last thing I wanted was for Kate to have to take medication but in some cases, it was necessary. I sat at the island and took out my cell, then searched through my contacts for one of the obstetricians I knew at NYP. Sharon McAllister was a colleague I’d met at functions and I’d thought of her when Kate and I decided to try to have a baby. She’d already agreed to be Kate’s obstetrician, so I sent her a text asking if we could get in to see her at some point the next day. Then, I put my cell away and ate my supper. My uncomfortable encounters with Lisa were just a bad memory.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kate

  I had never realized how sick I’d be when pregnant.

  Pregnancy was not something my friends and I discussed. We were focused on college and getting our degrees and making a life. Christie had talked about her pregnancy at times, but I never really listened to much or very closely. Elaine couldn’t have children so she merely nodded politely when Christie talked about things like her ankles swelling or her hips feeling loose, or her breasts aching.

  Having a baby had been something I wanted and looked forward to – in some far off time in my future, after I finished my Master’s and got a job, worked a few years and travelled. At least, that was the plan before I met Drake.

  Then he walked into my life and the only thing I knew was that I wanted him. I wanted to be his. If he felt a need to have a family sooner rather than later, I wanted that as well. I understood his fear of missing out on family life. He’d missed out on it his entire life and making a family with me was top on his agenda.

  Considering he thought he’d never marry again and never be a father before he met me, it touched my heart that he wanted all in. Marriage, children, family – the whole shebang. Still, the timing wasn’t exactly what I foresaw when we married. I thought I had a few years to get things finished with my Master’s and work. When I became pregnant so quickly, I was really excited, but not prepared for the morning sickness and intense fatigue I felt every day, day in and day out.

  I could do nothing but lie in bed with a bucket beside me, watching movies on television. No art, no research, and I never went out.

  It was like being a prisoner to my own body.

  “You better be easy as a baby,” I said to the tiny embryo inside of me while I lay on the bed and battled waves of nausea. I ran my hand over my belly, imagining the tiny being and wondering whether it was a boy or girl. We’d be going for our first ultrasound the following week when I was officially eight weeks pregnant. Then, we’d have another ultrasound at eighteen weeks and I hoped I was better by then. I had a few more weeks of nausea ahead of me if my pregnancy was normal, so I hope it lessened once I reached eleven or twelve weeks.

  I had lost five pounds and could only hold down some meals at night when I tried to make up for lost calories during the day. I knew it wasn’t enough. I’d have to go on some kind of medication to stop the vomiting because it wasn’t healthy, but I kept hoping it would pass any day and I could go back to eating my normal diet.

  Maybe even adding ice cream and pickles, if I felt like it.

  Drake took me to see Dr. McAllister and she’d written out a prescription for anti-nausea pills, but I avoided taking them, even though Drake looked at me with a frustrated expression.

  “If my nausea doesn’t lessen by twelve weeks, I’ll start taking them,” I promised. So I lay on the sofa that day, after having thrown up my breakfast of toast, honey and weak peppermint tea, and felt miserable.

  Ever since I told my father and Elaine about my pregnancy, she’d been itching to mother me. So when I still wasn’t feeling well, Elaine came over and puttered around the apartment, tidying up and making me some more tea and toast when several hours had passed since breakfast and I decided to try to eat once more.

  “Here you go, sweetie,” she said and put the toast and tea on a tray on the coffee table. I sat up and dangled my legs over the side of the sofa and took the plate with a slice of white toast, lightly buttered and with a thin sheen of honey on it. It looked appetizing. I wanted to eat it.

  “I’ll try,” I said and took a bite, hopeful that this would stay down. I chewed and felt fine so I had a sip of tea and signed in contentment. “I’m doing fine so far.”

  Elaine sat on the sofa beside me and watched while I demolished the toast.

  “That’s not enough to live on,” she said and eyed my plate. There was another slice but I didn’t want to push things.

  “You never had children?” I asked as I sipped the hot sweet tea.

  Elaine shook her head and adjusted her sweater. “I had pelvic inflammatory disease as a young woman and it burned out my fallopian tubes so I couldn’t get pregnant if I tried,” she said and smiled sadly. “I envy you, even though you’re so sick. With my first husband, we tried so hard to get pregnant and then I found out I wasn’t able. It tore us apart because he really wanted a family.”

  Her voice broke and I realized how hard it was for her to discuss even now.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Elaine and took her hand, squeezing it. She squeezed back and it was a nice moment between us. I always liked Elaine, even when it was hard for me to accept that my father had found another woman so quickly, and one so young, but he wasn’t a man to be single. He loved having a partner and family was everything to him – besides the law.

  “It’s okay,” she said wistfully. “I was planning on adopting all by
myself, and even did research on the easiest country to adopt an orphan, but then I met Ethan and, well, we focused on getting him elected instead of me finding a baby to adopt. Now, Ethan doesn’t feel he can because of his disability. So I have to dote on my grandchildren.” She smiled at me, but I could tell she still regretted it. “That’s why I’m so excited about your baby. It will be the first one I’ll be present the whole way through.”

  She smiled at me and I smiled back, realizing that she would have to live vicariously through my pregnancy. That made me feel so much more thankful that I had become pregnant so easily – almost too easily.

  I could handle some nausea and vomiting if it meant I would have a baby in the end. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I took in a deep breath and rubbed my tummy, imagining a little Drake or maybe a girl like me.

  We spoke for a while about my father and how he was progressing with his rehab, and then talked about having to delay our trip to Africa to visit Liam’s grave. Drake didn’t want to go until I was much better, and so we decided to cancel the reservations and reschedule once I was feeling better. I felt bad, but it had to be that way. As we talked, the queasy feeling returned and before Elaine left, I had to run to the bathroom and throw up what I had eaten.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” she said as she stood outside the bathroom and waited for me to come out. “I’m so sorry it didn’t stay down. Maybe you should take that medicine.”

  “I usually get a full meal or two in after eight,” I said and forced a smile I didn’t feel.

  She hugged me. “I have to go, but let me get you settled before I do.”

  “I was going to try to do some research for my thesis,” I said and went to my bedroom. “But I think I’ll just go to bed and watch television.”

  Elaine tucked me into my bed and kissed my forehead and it made me sad that my own mother wasn’t alive to see me and be the one to kiss my forehead like that, but I was happy to have Elaine.

  When she was gone, I switched the television on, deciding to watch a movie if I couldn’t get up and do any work. There was nothing on but some old movie and the news, so I put CNN on and lay back down. Then I remembered what Drake had told me about Lisa, and my heart sank. It wasn’t just the idea that he had sex with her before. I knew he had many partners, but I never thought I’d have to know about them or they’d be in our lives.

  It was the fact she seemed unwilling to just let him go. He was married and not interested. She should have understood and backed off but if she had threatened him, things were not good.

  I hated the thought Drake would have to quit his fellowship over her. It was completely unfair. I knew I’d have to encourage him to stay and just placate the woman. Perhaps if he paid her a little attention, she’d be happy and wouldn’t do anything rash.

  With thoughts of her in my mind instead of happy things, I struggled to fall asleep, waking on and off with a bad feeling in my chest that had nothing to do with morning sickness.

  The only bright spot during those days was the ultrasound. Drake and I would get to see our baby for the first time and it would be real. The day of our ultrasound, I got up after Drake left, tried to get my day going, tried to eat and drink a little something, and tried to keep it down but to no avail.

  That was my pattern – I inevitably threw up both my breakfast and lunch and anything else I ate until late in the evening. All I could keep down was chicken rice soup and a few crackers, so I ate that after eight o’clock and then again at ten. Sometimes, even that wouldn’t stay down. Even I was starting to become alarmed. I stared at my prescription and decided that I’d take Drake’s advice and start taking it if I couldn’t keep my dinner down one more night. I could eat at night, for some reason, and so when Drake arrived home, we would eat together, him watching me closely, urging me to try more.

  “I have to eat only really bland things like chicken rice soup and tea with honey. Some grape Jell-O.”

  “That’s not enough to keep you going,” Drake said, shaking his head when he arrived home in the afternoon to take me to the appointment. “You need protein and calories for your brain. Please take your prescription. You need to eat.”

  I stared at the bottle on the kitchen island and nodded. “Okay.”

  We drove to NYP to meet with Dr. McAllister and the technician who would do our ultrasound. I had to drink a huge amount of water an hour before and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep it down but I managed. We sat in the waiting room and I fought the urge to use the washroom, until finally, an agonizing forty minutes later, the technician came and called us into the ultrasound room. I went into a changing room and was instructed to take off everything and put on a gown and slippers, which I did, and then I lay on the bed, the room dark and cool, the soft hum of the machinery filling the room with a pleasant sound.

  The technician walked us through the whole process, which involved a transvaginal wand that she had to insert into my vagina so she could image the fetus with a better resolution. I cringed at having it done, but Drake was there, his hand in mine, and so I gritted my teeth and waited to see my baby.

  The technician had the screen turned so we could see. Drake sat beside me and we both watched the image on the screen resolve into fuzzy gray and black blobs. The technician typed something into her station computer and then she smiled and turned to us. She rolled a mouse around and took some measurements.

  “Here’s your baby,” she said and we looked and there it was – a tiny blob inside a bigger blob. There wasn’t much to see, and the technician said the ultrasound was done at this stage to determine the baby’s gestational age and make sure everything was in working order. She measured the heart rate and head rump length, and we were finished.

  Drake stood up and leaned over me to get a better look and was smiling widely. He caught my eye and bent closer to kiss me.

  “There it is,” he said softly. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” the tech said with a laugh. The small image she gave us was barely recognizable as a human but it was our baby and we were pleased to have it.

  I was never so happy to go to the bathroom as I was when I left the ultrasound room and went to the toilet down the hall.

  Drake dropped me off at the apartment and went back to work, while I went right to the kitchen and tried to eat something. When I threw up everything, and then lay in agony on the couch for the rest of the day before Drake returned home for the night, I decided I’d take the medicine Dr. McAllister gave me. I didn’t want to have to take medicine while I was pregnant, but I also knew that I couldn’t keep throwing up everything.

  I took the first pill the next morning and was surprised that it seemed to work like a miracle. I was able to keep my morning crackers and cup of chicken and rice soup down. I felt better – good enough that I could have a shower and drink a cup of hot tea with cream and honey. It felt marvelous.

  I actually sat down at my desk for the first time in weeks and opened my laptop to check my email. There were three hundred and forty-five plus a few dozen in my spam and junk mail folders.

  My advisor had already granted me an extension so I could hand in my chapters a few weeks later, anticipating that I’d be sick and tired until the twelfth week of pregnancy and so I was right on time getting back into the swing of things. I was so happy as the day passed and I didn’t throw up once. I even added some toast and honey to my lunch and it stayed down as well.

  In an email to my thesis advisor, I wrote that I was back on track and that I’d have something for him in a week if all went well and he was only too happy to oblige me. It was such a relief. I could do this as long as the nausea abated and I could work each day.

  Drake texted me during the afternoon to see how I was.

  Did you take your meds?

  How are you feeling?

  I’m worried about you…

  I smiled and texted him back, glad to be able to give him good news.

  I did take my meds.


  I’m feeling much better and even ate both breakfast and lunch! They stayed down too!

  Don’t worry about me – I’m back on track! _

  That seemed to please him:

  YAY! * wipes brow *

  Love you. See you tonight.

  It was such a huge relief, being able to eat again. I sat at my desk, unable to keep a smile off my face.

  Things were looking up. Maybe Drake and I could take a trip to Africa sooner than I thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Drake

  The next few weeks passed with a speed that surprised me. I was busy with cases and despite taking her meds, Kate was still struggling with morning sickness. A week after she started taking it, her morning sickness returned, but it wasn’t as bad as before and that gave Kate hope. Lisa had backed off a bit and for a while, I thought she wouldn't be a problem after all. She’d been just as busy as me and hadn’t bothered me at all beyond being collegial, saying hello and often walking with me down the hallways, or sitting next to me in conferences, but there were no demands.

  I was beginning to think all would be well and Lisa had come to her senses.

  Sadly, Lisa’s threat became fresh again one day when I went to NYU for grand rounds and she was there, waiting for me outside the break room when I was on my way to my office before our weekly conference.

  “You look happy,” she said as we walked down the hallway together on the way to rounds.

  Lisa said nothing and waited while I popped inside my office to pick up a file. Then we walked in silence to the nursing station, tension between us. Lisa stood pouting, a frown on her face. The other residents gathered around and the head of the department put the residents through their paces, asking questions on each patient as we made our way around the ward. Lisa was smart, attractive – hell, she was beautiful in a cool hard way. There were a couple of male residents who I could tell were attracted to her but she didn’t seem to want to find someone else. Her attention was entirely on me, when she wasn’t focused on her work. It was truly sad that a woman as accomplished as her was becoming a stalker who threatened to hurt my career.