Life's Perfect Plan (The Life Series)
Copyright
©
2013 by Sarah Goodman
All right reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The following story contains strong language, sexual situations, mature themes and is intended to adult readers.
Cover Design by Book Designs by Dee
Edited by Book Peddlers Editing
Interior Design by Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats
Chapter 3: Third Time’s a Charm
Chapter 5: Jacob-Sleeping Beauty
Chapter 9: Jacob- Friend of Mine
Chapter 10: Start of Something Good
Chapter 13: Jacob- Help Me, Dad
Chapter 14: Confused and Scared
Chapter 16: Something is Wrong
Chapter 22: Jacob- Falling to Pieces
Chapter 24: Surprise … Surprise
To my handsome little men …
This book is dedicated to my three sons. You three are proof that you can’t plan out life. Life gives you the ultimate plan, and boy did it ever for me! My wish for you is to live each day to the fullest and enjoy every moment life hands you. Find the positive in every negative situation. You are my sunshine and I love you to the moon and back.
“Beth, I don’t think we should do another round.” I am sitting at our kitchen table going over work when my husband just blurts this out. A ghostly look crosses my face, and my jaw hits the floor. “Seriously Beth, with the last two failing it’s a sign.”
“What is a sign, Grant?” I reply in a vulgar tone.
“The signs that we are going broke, that we had to sell my car for the last go around. This is not conventional. I am so tired of everything being planned out by dates, time, and temperatures. I am so God Damn tired of that plastic cup! This is not what I signed up for!” He says with such anger and frustration. His fists are on his hips and his head is hung low. I don’t need to listen to the rage he is spewing. I see defeat and aggravation all over his face.
He’s never once implied that he didn’t want this. Now all of a sudden he doesn’t think we should. Grant and I have been married for four years. We did all the things married couples do when you are first married; we built our dream home, we traveled to many different locations, including our most recent Hawaii trip over Labor Day weekend. His father made him a partner in his firm, so now the practice is called “Thomas and Thomas Law Associates.”
For our first anniversary I bought him a Harley motorcycle. He loved to ride his Ducati speed bike, and it scared me with how fast he could go on that, so I bought him a V-Rod Muscle Harley, encouraging him that I wanted to go on more trips with him. Even though, that is the last thing I want to ride on. Those things scare me. I’ve dealt with too many cases involving motorcycles. Grant reassures me that he takes all the precautions necessary to ride the thing.
Two years ago I approached him saying I think it was time to start a family. My best friend since childhood, Kate, was pregnant with her first pregnancy. My other best friend Ella and her husband were trying for their second. I wanted to get on the band wagon with my BFF’s, and experience and enjoy this time with them. Well, I missed the wagon when it came to getting pregnant. I couldn’t get pregnant without help outside the bedroom. We tried artificial insemination six times, and that failed. We tried IVF twice, and that failed. Now here we are two years later sitting in our kitchen nook discussing how I might never be a mom.
Just then Grant slams the refrigerator door and brings me back to the present. “Beth, I want us to go back to how things were before all this madness. I can’t handle how excited you get to just get knocked back down again. The procedures are painful, the medicine makes you become a raging lunatic, and normal sex has gone out the window. I can’t remember the last time we just made love. I am so tired of the planning. Maybe if we let it go, it will happen naturally?”
“Do you think for one second this is what I signed up for? You think I like taking drugs that make my skin crawl, where I feel I am going to jump out of my body because I have so many hormones going through me? You think I signed up for the painful retrievals of eggs? Where in your right mind do you think I want this? I wanted to make babies the normal way just like everyone else, but for some reason that isn’t our plan.”
I sit in the kitchen chair, as I place my head in my hands, and try to take in deep breaths. I look up to watch him pull his hands through his hair. “Grant are you serious, you just want to stop? You don’t see a future with a child? I want a baby, Grant. I want to be a mother. It kills me to see pregnant women. It tore my heart out to plan both of my friend’s baby showers when I couldn’t get pregnant. It shredded my dreams when I held their babies. I grieved when Kate had two babies, I couldn’t get one. Now you come home from work and somewhere between us leaving the office and coming home you have an epiphany that we shouldn’t be parents. “
He pulls the other kitchen chair out and sits next to me. He grabs my hands and pulls them into his lap. “Sweetheart, I never said we should never be parents. I said we should give IVF a break. I want to be a dad, but maybe this way of doing it isn’t what nature intended us to do. Maybe … let’s … look into adoption? You know we have handled many cases that the families were in our shoes. They get their baby, and go on to live a normal life. All I am saying is let’s take a break at least till the New Year, and look into other options. That’s all.”
I pull my hands out of his, push the chair back to where it slams into the bay window behind me. I grab my pen and throw it across the room. “Grant, I want a baby that grows inside of me! Part you and part me. I have done those cases, and it is just as God damn hard as what we are going through now. I don’t want to wait months upon years for a baby that might be ours or might not! A baby that enters our lives that can easily be taken from us. You and I know the laws. I refuse to go that route.” I’m shaking. I have never gotten so angry with Grant in all the years we’ve been together. I don’t understand why this is happening.
I go into the family room, and sit on the cream linen love seat. I grab the denim blue pillow, hold it to my chest. I feel that at any second my chest is going to open, and my heart is going to fall out. I am so desperate for a baby! I see that it’s changing our marriage. It’s changing us, not only as a couple, but as individuals.
“I’m scared Grant, I don’t want us to be alone forever. I’m approaching thirty. I know my window for babies is only open for a little longer. I want us to have children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I envision us sitting in that formal living room with our children opening Christmas presents. We even built this huge house for a future family. It scares me that it will be just you and me in this house. It scares me even more that you will get bored with just me, and leave me for someone who can give you a child.”
Grant walks over and scoops me into his lap. I rest my head on his firm chest. I breathe him in. I wrap my arms around him brushing his long dark brown hair off his shoulders. I kiss his neck, I dart my tongue out and lick the sensitive spot on his neck. He tastes salty, and starts to shiver.
“Beth, look at me sweetheart.” I push my arms out and grab his shoulder as I look into his deep brown eyes. He uses his thumb to wipe away the tears on my cheek. “Sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere. Whether we have a baby or not I will be by your side till the day I die. I can’t fathom a life without you. We’ve been together since we were twenty one, and we will be together till we are one hundred and one.”
I give him a smile and a little chuckle. “That’s a long time with me, you sure about that?” I snicker.
“It’s not long enough, I will need longer with you.”
I wrap myself back into him and grab his face and kiss him with everything I have. He tells me to hold onto him. He stands up, and carries me into our room. He gently places me in the center of the bed. He lies to my side, grabs a hold of my chin with his thumb and forefinger. He stares at me as if he is remembering every detail of my face. “Sweetheart, I love you so damn much. We will have a family one way or another. Just take a break for a while, for me. Please.”