He turned into a monster. I had to beg him to stop for a second to put the Gideon Bible away that he had my face lying on. I’m a cold-blooded sister, but I have boundaries. There will be no fucking on the good Word.
The sex hadn’t changed since our last fuck. It was good, but it wasn’t great. I had to mentally make myself come and, as usual, the man thought he did something because I came while he was inside of me. I hadn’t been feeling like myself lately, so I let him believe whatever he wanted and promised to pretend to be sleepy as soon as he caught his next nut. Once he reached for another condom, I stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Marcus, baby, I can’t take no more. Let me get a breather.”
He smiled and walked toward the bathroom. “Okay, boo, I’m sorry—that’s just the beast in me.”
He closed the bathroom door behind him, and I bit my tongue to stop myself from hurting his feelings. Not like I cared, but I had already exchanged words with one man that night. I thought I’d take a break before my next confrontation.
Saturday was a much better day for me. I woke up with my period. Marcus might not have been a ten in my book, but his seven was enough to bring my period down. I was so happy I kissed his cheek on my way out the door.
* * *
The next three months had me so busy that I didn’t have time to do anything but work. I had convinced Mr. Nguyen from Strax Industries that I needed more time to decide and, since we had a year to prepare, I would have an answer about moving to California within the next six months, of which I still had three remaining.
I hadn’t had time to shop, have sex, or work out. I was horny, had gained at least twenty pounds that were visible in my butt and breasts, and I needed some clothes that fit. I had cancelled two gynecology appointments due to timing. Finally, I had time to go and get my STD scan. I was happy I didn’t have to get a pregnancy test followed by an abortion. My period was back on track and coming like clockwork again. I had some bleeding at least once a month.
When I walked into Dr. Davis’s office, I was surrounded by pregnant women. The women that weren’t pregnant that were my age or younger, I tried to guess what they could be visiting for. There were a few teenage girls with their mothers. The ones who were smiling, I assumed, were there to get on birth control, and the ones who looked on the verge of tears were either pregnant, had an STD, or were there to see if they had been sexually active.
One of the girls sitting next to me tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. “That lady over there wants you.”
I turned to face a fifty-year-old white woman who was sitting next to a twenty-something, visibly pregnant woman. She must have been due any day. The lady who wanted my attention looked of age and wisdom. On her face was a freshly baked, homemade apple pie smile. “How many months are you, sweetheart? This is my eighth grandchild. I still can’t believe the baby of my six children is about to be a mother.”
I wasn’t trying to be smart, but that was really rude of her to assume I was pregnant because I was a few pounds heavy. I rolled my eyes. “I’m not pregnant,” I replied, and turned my back to her.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to offend you. You’re glowing. I just thought it looked like a pregnancy glow.”
I cut her off. “Well, it’s not.”
Stephanie had told me the extra weight had me glowing the week before. Maybe the Shea butter was finally working.
When the nurse called me back, she asked me to pee in a cup and meet her in room seven when I was done. She took my weight, and I had gained twenty-five pounds in five months. I made a vow to work out as soon as I left.
“Ms. James, we have you scheduled for a full physical and STD screening, and a part of our screening is a questionnaire. You seem like you don’t need help with it, so I’ll leave you to complete it. I’ll return in five minutes.”
The questions on the form were so intimate. How many sex partners had you had in the last twelve months? I didn’t have to think to answer that question. Going backward, it was Marcus, Stephanie, Dre, Amir, Gina, and the one-night stand I had with whatever his name was in New Orleans. Compared to the prior year, I had been a saint when it came to being sexual. I did a lot of traveling that year, which led to a lot of one-night stands.
I had gotten to the last question when the nurse returned. “Change into this gown and leave the front open.” She scanned over my questionnaire, and I watched her eyes open wide, but she got herself together and played it off like it didn’t happen.
“The doctor asked me to draw a little blood from you and send it to the lab so you can get all your results today like you requested.” I extended my arm and turned my head. When she finished, she said, “I’ll be back once Dr. Davis is done. We should be able to get you into ultrasound today. They are not that busy.”
I guessed a full physical included an ultrasound of my uterus to check for cervical cancer. That was why I loved my GYN clinic. They were so thorough.
Dr. Davis was the sexiest female doctor I had ever seen. She was about forty years old, five foot eleven, about 155 pounds, and an ex-college basketball star with a gap between her two front teeth. But it was sexy on her oval face. She was a no-nonsense type of woman. She fussed me down the last time I got an abortion. She told me if I kept getting abortions that when I really wanted to have a baby, I wouldn’t be able to have one. Silently, I prayed that would be the case so I wouldn’t have to worry about taking care of anybody but me.
She walked in and greeted me with a smile. “How are you, Ms. James?” I greeted her back. “So, where do we begin? I made you my last patient for today since there is so much to do.” She grabbed my chart and sat down looking over my questionnaire. “Four men, two women. Those numbers are down from last year,” she said with a wink.
Thank God for the doctor/patient confidentiality. I could tell her anything, and if she exposed it without my consent, she could lose her license. She turned the page, read for a little bit, and stepped out of the room. She returned with the nurse. “I’m going to send you to get your ultrasound before I continue. That will allow time for your blood test to return. Daisy will take you to have it done, and I’ll see you when you make it back.”
That is why I would never get pregnant. The ultrasound technician put some kind of gooey, cold gel stuff on my stomach and pressed down on my stomach with her ultrasound instrument. To make matters worse, she stuck a probe into my vagina while I sat on my balled up fists. I love the word pussy, but the way that exam made me feel, “vagina” would be more suitable.
“Does everything look okay?” It was like I was talking to myself. The technician didn’t respond. “Can you hear? I said, does everything look okay?”
She pulled the iPod headphone out of her ears. “I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to say. The doctor will go over the results with you.”
Daisy took me back upstairs to my room. I sat there for thirty minutes before Dr. Davis came back in with my labs and ultrasound results.
“Savannah, did you have a normal period last month?”
I nodded my head yes. “Why do you ask? Is something wrong?”
She asked the nurse to give us a minute. “I have not done your pelvic exam yet, but there are some things we need to talk about.”
She moved closer to me. “Your urine test came back with high hCG levels, so I ordered the bloodwork, which confirmed my suspicions.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but my heart started beating fast. “What is hCG? Does it have anything to do with HIV or AIDS?”
She shook her head. “Your AIDS and HIV test came back negative, and you will be tested again in six months.”
I felt the beating in my chest slow down.
“hCG is a hormone found in pregnant women. The blood test has confirmed your pregnancy.”
She was wrong. “I’ve had a period for the last three months. They weren’t normal periods, but I’ve been bleeding, and the last time I was sexual was over three months ago
, with protection.”
She held my hands. “You can still experience some bleeding early in a pregnancy. I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you.”
She didn’t have to be sorry. I had a fix for it. “So, can you perform the abortion today?”
She looked at the ceiling, and then got out of her chair and walked to the desk where she set all of the papers. “You don’t qualify for an abortion this time. By the results of the ultrasound, you are a week from six months pregnant. We have already determined the sex of the child.”
It was a nightmare. Yes, I was awake, but I was in the middle of the worst nightmare I had ever had. Six months pregnant with Dre’s baby, and I couldn’t abort it. I felt my body hit the ground. When I woke up, I was in the maternity wing of the hospital all alone. I took all the monitors off my body. My door flew open, and Daisy came running in.
“Please put the monitors back on your stomach. We need to make sure your daughter is okay. You’ll be released in the morning.”
Her words meant shit to me so I continued to get up and get dressed.
“Ms. James, I cannot let you go until we are sure you and the baby will be okay.”
That bitch must have thought it was negotiable. I walked past her like she was invisible. I made it all the way to my car without being stopped.
When I reached in my purse for my keys, they weren’t there. I had emptied my purse on the back of the car when I was met by Dr. Davis.
“I have your keys and will give you time to get yourself together, but promise me you will not cause harm to you or the baby and that you will call me, because there are other options still out there for you.” She handed me her cell phone number. “Call me when you’re ready to talk. I don’t care what hour of the night it is.”
I snatched my keys and drove off.
Two weeks went by before I picked up the phone and called Dr. Davis. She scheduled an in-home visit with a planned pregnancy coordinator and me for that night at seven. When they arrived, I was eating a family-sized bag of Oreos with Doritos in the middle where the cream filling would be if I hadn’t already eaten that part.
“Healthy snacks, Ms. James.”
That was my first time meeting the woman and I already didn’t like her. I rolled my eyes to express it.
Dr. Davis handed me the results from my STD screening that she had performed after I blacked out in her office. Everything looked good. Not even a yeast infection. My ultrasound results showed I had a few small cysts, which Dr. Davis told me was common in African American women my age and that we would check on them after I had my baby.
“Savannah, this is Margie Wright. She is our planned parenting coordinator, and I brought her along to give you some other options. I’m going to give you a checkup; then we all will talk. Lie back on your couch, please.”
She pulled my shirt up to my breasts, and then tucked it under them. I watched her measure my belly with a tape measure, from my lower stomach to right below my heart. She requested I take my pants and panties off. She went deep inside of me with two fingers. That was the most penetration I had in months. I couldn’t call anyone I knew for sex or that would make my pregnancy no longer a secret.
I wouldn’t feel right going out trying to meet somebody new with a big-ass belly. I decided I would have to do my best with one of my sex toys.
She removed her gloves. “Margie, can you hand me the Doppler and the gel out of the warmer, please?” She covered my stomach in the gooey stuff again, but this time, it was warm. I heard static, and then a fast, swooshing sound. “That’s the baby’s heartbeat, and it sounds perfect.”
The baby’s heartbeat caught me off guard. It sounded so cute. I had started feeling the baby move a few days earlier. I could feel the baby go and rest on my bladder, which caused a lot of near accidents. I had to change underwear twice the day before.
Pregnancy is an amazing thing. I’d gone online to see what stage the baby was going through, and it almost brought me to tears. She was a little person. I even put my blunt out and stopped smoking weed because I read her lungs were the last organ to grow. I had made my decision before the doctor had arrived.
“Dr. Davis, I decided to give the baby to a foster care agency. I went online and looked some things up. I also made confidentiality contracts, which I would like both of you to sign. No one knows I’m pregnant but you and your hospital staff, and I want to keep it that way. I took off work for a few months to help a friend move and to start house hunting for a position I’m taking out of state, or so everyone thinks. This will give me time to have the baby and send her off. I would like my entire chart and medical records once I am released from your care, and also any documentation that will link me to the child. I will also continue to be a patient of yours as long as you’re a practicing physician. We will start all new records on my postpartum visit for your files.
“As for you, Mrs. Wright, I will need your help with placing my child in foster care because I don’t want to meet with anyone face-to-face. I will set up video conferences so I can see the families and will supply you with a list of questions that I want asked. Dr. Davis, I am sure I’m making the right choice, but just in case I change my mind, I will have the foster care agency send updates to a PO Box every time my daughter is moved so if I ever want to regain custody, which I highly doubt, I will know where to start.”
The two ladies looked at each other, and then Dr. Davis asked, “And what about delivery?”
I had that planned out too. “If my water should break unexpectedly, I will contact you or come to your hospital; otherwise, I want a planned C-section. From this point on, I would like house visits. I don’t want to risk the chance of being seen.”
I advised Margie that I would be doing all the work when it came to the agencies. All she had to do was oversee it and allow the video conferences to be set up at her facility, which she agreed with. Before they left, I got the signed copies of my confidentiality notices back and gave them unsigned copies. Nothing was left to do then but have the baby.
The next morning, I had Stephanie bring me all my files from work. She had no idea I was pregnant, and that was just how I wanted it. When she arrived, I was under a blanket on the couch. I told her I had the flu and would be working from home until I felt better and that I needed her to be my legs. She offered to come by and take care of me, but I lied and told her one of the women I was seeing had me covered and thanked her for caring. She stormed out of my house like lightning.
* * *
I was enjoying working from home. I didn’t have to worry about how I looked, rush off to get my hair done, or have a set 8:00 to 5:00 to get the job done. I worked on my own schedule. I ordered everywhere that delivered for lunch, yet pizza seemed to be my favorite. I wondered if it was a food Dre liked because that was all I wanted. I’d call and order a vegetarian pizza, and then I’d say, add chicken. I could now eat two medium pizzas by myself.
I was getting big, but not just my waist and thighs. I could feel my breasts growing, and the implants were pushing more against my skin. My ass was huge, and no thanks to Amir’s caveman dick. That time it was due to my little girl.
I worked from home for one month before I took three months off. I told everyone I would be between California and New York house hunting and helping my girlfriend from college get adjusted to her new home in the Big Apple.
Since I agreed to move to California, my job gave me more decision-making privileges now that I had made partner. The company name wasn’t going to change, but everything else did. I also promoted Stephanie. She would be moving to California three months after me because of her graduation.
She would be my new lead accountant, grossing 70K in her first year out of college. Now that wasn’t bad at all. With Mr. Nguyen paying for my relocation, it freed my money to help Stephanie with her move. I would aim to keep her somewhere close by my new home as long as her money permitted.
The videoconferencing was going well. There were four couples
that caught my attention the most when it came to fostering my daughter. I had rules, strict rules, and most of the applicants didn’t meet my criteria. Some of the applicants shouldn’t be allowed to tend to children, in my opinion, like the Wests.
“We were really hoping to adopt a boy. We’re old and manual will get harder over the years. Tending to our farm will become undoable and paying for someone else to do it is out of the question. If we had a boy, I could teach him what to do and eventually my great-grandfather’s land would become his,” Mr. West said matter-of-factly like he didn’t just place a “help wanted ad” for child labor. I couldn’t decide which one of us was worse—me for giving up the child to be burden free or him wanting one for free labor. Mr. West was the reason I made rules, and although they were blunt, they were honest.
Rule one, I would name the child, and the name could not be changed.
Rule two, I wanted my child to know she was in foster care as soon as she reached the age to understand it.
Rule three, the fostering parents would have to send updates, including pictures of my daughter, to the PO Box I would set up.
The final rule was that if I ever decided to come for my child, there couldn’t be any hassle about me getting her back.
I reminded all the parents that I was a wealthy woman who was highly educated and stable. My only flaw was that I was missing the natural mothering gene. I knew I was no better than my mother was, but now I knew what my father meant when he quoted my mother: “Some things you will never understand.”
The only difference between what I was doing to my child compared to what my mother did to us was that I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. That would be the only child I ever gave up, and that was a promise.
Chapter 8
Baby No Name
Kismet Page 8
