#SoCS – Astronomical

From the handwritten notes of Lisa Robinson

15 May

The nausea is on-going and I vomit most early mornings. Fortunately, the actual vomiting does pass and I am able to manage it during the working day.

I managed to get an appointment with a gynaecologist at the local hospital for 8A.M this morning. His rooms were neat and clean and the couches were his patients waited for their appointments were comfortable and covered with a soft material in a soothing dark green.

When I finally saw the doctor after a three hour wait he said that everything is fine with both the baby and me. Hearing the baby’s strong heartbeat was exiting and I almost regretted not asking David to come with me, but he would have hated the wait and would have made an embarrassing scene about it.

I haven’t decided what I am going to do about my relationship with David anyway, so my desire to have him share in my excitement is a bit silly. After the evening when I told him about my pregnancy and our resultant altercation, he had made a huge effort to pull himself together. He laid off the booze and spent time updating his CV and sending it out to perspective employers. He even pounded the streets and managed to ferret out a few day and half-day jobs doing menial tasks like packing fruit in the supermarket. It isn’t much, but the money does help.

He hasn’t, however, given up his meetings with the Modern Luddites. I know this is true because of his furtive behaviour when he receives the odd phone call. He squirrels himself away in our bedroom with the door closed and speaks in hushed tones for lengthily periods. I’ve seen him smiling a strange, bitter smile when he receives text messages on his mobile phone and I know he’s lying to me when he claims to be meeting the boys for drinks at the local pub once a week. David doesn’t have the money to meet his friends at the pub and I know he would never take charity. He’s too proud for that.

I can’t trust him anymore. Can’t trust him to do right by me and the baby I’m expecting. I think I fell out of love with him that night in our apartment when he had tried to force me into agreeing to have an abortion. I don’t want an abortion. I don’t want to terminate the life of the baby growing inside me. I also didn’t want to give him or her away to one of the wealthy and spoiled wives of the big corporate earners. I want to keep the baby.

What to do about David is not an easy decision for me to make. Raising a baby on my own while having to work full time seems like an astronomical undertaking, but I am not sure I can count on much support from David regardless of whether I chose to divorce him or not. I am worried his association with the Modern Luddites is going to cause problems for me down the line with my work and bosses. What to do? I wish I could know for sure what the best choice is for me and my unborn child.

At the end of the appointment I told the doctor that I was feeling nauseas and ill. He wouldn’t give me any traditional medications for the nausea, but he did recommend some natural remedies like eating ginger, taking slow and deep breaths and scratching the skin of a lemon to release its essential oils into the air. He said he only prescribes traditional medications when a patient is experiencing abnormal levels of vomiting and it is affecting her health. “The anti-nausea medications have their own negative side effects, including drowsiness. The nausea should pass when you are approximately fourteen weeks pregnant,” he said. He also confirmed that I am nine weeks pregnant so only five more weeks to go until it should subside. It feels like a life time.

After my appointment, I made another for my check-up at sixteen weeks. His secretary, Mrs Kowalczyk, told me that they will do blood tests at that appointment to test for foetal abnormalities like Down syndrome, trisomy 18 syndrome, and spina bifida. She also gave me a small container that I must wee in, next time I come, so that she can test my urine for protein. “Protein in your urine can be an indicator of preeclampsia or high blood pressure,” she said.

“I suggest you go to the pharmacy and buy a pregnancy multivitamin which contains folic acid, she said, her kind smile lighting up her lined face, framed by cropped, white hair. “It helps prevent birth defects of the baby’s brain and spinal cord.” I smiled at her to convey that I appreciated her suggestion. I am pleased to have the support following David decidedly negative reaction to the news of my unplanned pregnancy.

I bought the multivitamin pills from the pharmacy at the hospital. It cost a little more than it would have if I’d waited and purchased them from the bulk discount pharmacy, but I just don’t have the energy, or the enthusiasm, to go to the shopping mall after work today. I am already behind with my work because of the appointment with Dr Robinski and I don’t want to have to leave early on top of only arriving at 12P.M today. By the end of the working day my nausea returns with a vengeance and I feel horribly sick and tired so having to stop on my way home is not an enticing prospect.

Now that the pregnancy has been confirmed by the doctor, I need to start making appropriate plans for caring for the baby after my maternity leave. I will only get four months fully paid leave and I can’t afford to take a salary reduction, so my options are limited.  I am worried about how I am going to manage after the baby is born in early December. Even with the child grant, I are going to struggle financially if David is not working and can’t contribute anything to his or her care. I’m going to have to find someone to look after the baby while I am at work and that is expensive. I know that David won’t do it, even if I decide to stay with him and try to make our marriage work. We also will have to move again as our current apartment does not allow pets or children. The thought of all the packing is exhausting to me.

I also have to go and have a microchip inserted into my hand if I want to make use of the new Free Zone 1 hospital for the baby’s birth. Dr Robinski said that he has already been allocated rooms there and that his patients will follow him and have access to its state-of-the-art equipment. His words were a huge relief to me.

David is anti the microchips as he says the World Government will use them to control the masses. He is going to put up a fight about my getting one, but I don’t care. I am going to get my microchip inserted as soon as possible. The lady at the pharmacy also said that I can also use it to get any pregnancy related medications from the hospital going forward. If I’d known that I would have had it done before I went to the hospital today.

This post is for Linda G Hill’s SoCS post, Astronomical. You can join in here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-3-19/