Chapter 9 To Be A Mom
After weeks of constant puking and generally feeling miserable, Eden plucked up the nerve to make a doctor’s appointment.
The receptionist was super nice, and she pencilled her in for 12:30 PM.
Eden was happy with her time slot and even more grateful that the doctor was on the 4th floor of Van Holt Industries, her new place of employment, where she’s been working as a junior personal assistant to the marketing director for almost three months.
There was nothing wrong with being an assistant, to be fair, but it wasn’t a job Eden saw herself doing for the rest of her life.
The constant running of errands, typing up of minutes and reports, and setting up meeting rooms Killed her a little every day. It was a skivvy role, as her friends had rightfully pointed out when she first told them, but it paid the bills.
Eden figured that while she waited for some miracle to happen with her illustrations, she had to eat. Now that things were so strained with her parents, she would die first before she asked them for help.
They hadn’t talked much since Simon. When she went home for the mandatory dinners and lunches, she never stayed longer than two hours. Sometimes three was her maximum. Anything beyond that was World War III waiting to happen.
At 12:25 PM, Eden set off for her appointment.
The receptionist was a cute, chubby woman, as friendly in person as she was on the phone. She handed Eden a file to complete before a nurse ushered her inside the examination room to take all her vitals
Eden cringed, her cheeks burning with mortification, when she jumped on the scale, and it cranked out a number she didn’t like but wasn’t unexpected considering the insane calories she’d been consuming
after Simon.
1356 Mon, 27 Jan
Chapter 9 To Be A Mom
Her life was now permanently divided into two parts, before and after the breakup.
4.,63%–
It’s the ‘before the breakup‘ timeline she was struggling with. All those happy memories shattered dreams, and missed opportunities made her reach for the cookies and potato chips without feeling any shame. Until now, of course. Until the numbers on the scale.
“The doctor will see you now.” Nurse Rhodes smiled and showed her to the doctor’s office after she confirmed her vitals were okay.
Dr. Waylon was an elderly gentleman with the warmest brown eyes Eden had ever seen. He insisted she should call him by his first name, which happened to be Simon.
Eden laughed, shaking her head incredulously.
“Did I say something funny?” The doctor asked with a befuddled frown on his face.
Eden explained about Simon, the ex who dumped her one month before their wedding.
“He’s giving all of us a bad name,” Dr. Waylon said. “What a dirtbag!”
Eden couldn’t agree more. She’d even said as much on Simon’s lifestyle blog, anonymously, of course.
It was bad enough she was stalking all his pages; the last thing she wanted was to get a restraining order from him and add crazy to the long list of adjectives to describe her actions over the past several weeks.
“What can I do for you?” Dr. Waylon kicked off their consultation with the standard opening line.
Eden was hoping he could help her out with the constant fatigue and nausea. She knew she’d have to do all the work to lose the extra weight, but she’d appreciate something to control her appetite too.
63%
Chapter 9 To Be A Mom
To Be A
Dr. Waylon listened and took notes the whole time, his gaze constantly shifting between her and the notepad
“When did it start?” He asked after her impassioned plea for help. “The fatigue and nausea?”
Eden explained that it’s been weeks now. She thought it was the stress of the failed engagement, her new job, and the change of season too, that’s why she didn’t seek help much sooner.
Dr. Waylon nodded again and scribbled in her file as he asked her a series of questions she was starting to feel uncomfortable with. But it wasn’t until he gave her a small plastic cup and showed her to the bathroom to collect a urine sample that she began to panic.
Eden’s never given urine samples in her life. But she knew this wasn’t going anywhere good. Anything that involved bodily fluids almost always had a happy ending.
Within minutes of returning to the doctor’s room, her suspicions were confirmed.
“Congratulations! You are pregnant!” Dr. Waylon smiled brightly, and Eden stared at him dumbfounded, unable to process his announcement.
She sat in numb disbelief, focusing all her attention on the loud hum of the air conditioner mounted on the wall above the window.
Any moment now, she thought, the doctor would turn to her with his warm brown eyes and tell her he’d made a mistake and used a test long past its sell–by date. Yes, she thought, that’s what it was–an old pregnancy test that went wrong. In a few minutes, she’ll go back to her desk and reach for her secret stash of cookies, and her life will be back to normal. Dr. Waylon’s words will be nothing but a possible malpractice lawsuit waiting to happen.
“You are going to be a mom,” he explained when it became clear she was a little slow on the upta
“No,” Eden said, shaking her head.
13/07 Mon, 27 Jan
Chapter 9 To Be A Mom
63%
What the hell is this? she thought manically. Is she Mary, Baby Jesus‘ mother, or something? There’s no way she’s pregnant. It’s impossible; she only had sex once in her life, and they used protection She tidn’t make up the foil wrappers she saw on Liam’s bedroom floor when she ran from his house.
Dr. Waylon showed her the pregnancy test and explained what the two lines meant. “We can also do a scan to be doubly sure.”
Ten minutes later, as she lay on the examination table, she saw her baby for the first time on the screen and heard his determined heartbeat.
“Congratulations; you’re twelve weeks along,” Dr. Waylon said. “The baby’s growing nicely, and the heartbeat is strong.”
Eden laughed tearfully. “I’m going to be a mom!”
“Yes, you are!”
“But I don’t know how to be a mom,” she bawled, a thin stream of snot pooling on her upper lip. She wiped it off with the back of her hand. “I share an apartment with my three friends. I hate my job; what do I know about being a mom?”
“You’ll be amazing; the fact that you’re already questioning yourself means you want what’s best for your baby.“Dr. Waylon said.
13:07 Mon, 27 Jan
Chapter 10 Broke Him
