Chapter 2 - The Word Probably
After our third son arrived, my OB asked Daniel to sit in on a follow-up appointment. She wanted him to hear it straight from her, she said. I thought that was odd. Then I saw her face.
She used one word: probably. Not "could." Not "there's a chance." Probably.
A fourth pregnancy would probably kill me. And if it somehow didn't, I'd spend most of nine months in a hospital bed, hours from the three kids I already had.
My last pregnancy had already come close to catastrophe. Blood pressure spiking. Bleeding. Monitors at three in the morning. A delivery that turned frantic in about ninety seconds. Dr. Ashworth never once dramatized any of it. Somehow that made it land harder.
I asked if there was any version of it that could be called safe. She said no. I asked again with different words. Same answer. I asked twice more over the next two years. Still no. Eventually Daniel stopped coming to those visits, because there was never anything new to hear.
We'd picked a name for a girl once. Or really, I had. I'd loved it since I was nineteen.
Nora.
Daniel always claimed he wasn't attached to it. But a few years back I found a hardware-store receipt on his dresser with "Nora" written on the back, three different middle names lined up beside it. He said he was testing a pen. Liar.
After Dr. Ashworth's warning, I boxed up the baby things. Most had been the boys', but there were a few neutral sleepers, some blankets, bottles, and a bassinet sheet my mother had embroidered by hand.
I said we should donate all of it. Daniel said next month.
Next month turned into six. Six turned into a year. The box stayed on a shelf in the garage. Every time I brought it up, he'd say, "Not today."
Eventually I quit asking. That's what a closed subject looks like when it isn't actually closed. You just stop saying it out loud.
The last time I let myself talk about another baby, I cried. Not because I didn't love our life. Because I loved it enough to know there was one shape of it I'd never get to hold.
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Daniel took my hand. "Our boys need their mother more than we need a daughter."
He meant it. I believed him. I thought that was the end of the dream.
