My Number One Fan

I laughed as Jeff talked to Kylie through my stomach. I always thought this would be weird, but it was nice and comforting. I even picked up on saying a few words to our daughter.
“Don’t listen to him baby girl, he’s all talk right now.” I said to her.
“Obviously Mommy doesn’t know Daddy too well,” Jeff replied with a smirk.
“Obviously Daddy forgot that he doesn’t know how to clean a gun.”
“I can ask Grandpa Hardy to teach me.” he said with a shrug.
“How do we even know she can hear us?” I asked Jeff suddenly.
“She can hear us. Besides, from stuff I’ve read, the earlier we start talking to her, the easier it will be for her to recognize our voices when she’s born.”
“You’ve been reading up on this?” I asked, shocked. He nodded, looking a little bashful at it. “That’s so sweet, you really want to be ready don’t you?”
“She’s our daughter, I want to give her the best life possible. That’s why I talked to Vince while I was getting the pies yesterday. The job is basically for promotions, so I’ll have to create designs for pay-per-views, great promo videos.”
“Everything your extremely good at,” I finished for him. “You have the equipment here to do all of that.”
“I know, I took it. The pay isn’t what it was when I was a superstar, but it’s still pretty good.”
“We don’t really need a lot of money anyway.” I shrugged.
“I still get the same benefits though, and my job as a superstar is still open for whenever I’m ready to go back to that, which I highly doubt I’ll go back to it. I have to much going for me right here to let it go.”
“You don’t want to have to go through a Dear God scenario.” I realized. When he looked confused, I smiled. “’Dear God, the only thing I ask of you is to hold her when I’m not around, when I’m much to far away. We all need the person who can be true to you but I left her when I found her, but now I wish I’d stayed, cause I’m lonely and I’m tired, I’m missing you again, oh no. Once again.’”
“Oh, right, yeah I don’t want to do that. I want to be here for you and our daughter, and for any other baby we might have.” My heart wrenched at the thought of another baby. We both always aimed for two, and we probably would have had that by now if it wasn’t for the first time.
“Riley, you’re crying,” Jeff pointed out to me. I let my breath out in a sob that I couldn’t hold back no matter how hard I tried.
“Riley, what’s wrong?” he asked gently. He lifted my shoulders and sat down, letting me fall back against him.
“Kylie would have been our second one,” I muttered, wiping at my eyes. I felt him sigh as he rubbed his hands up and down my arms.
“Honey, we can’t go back to that.” he said gently. “If we go back to that, we’ll just lose our sight on here and now.”
“I know,” I muttered, wiping at the tears on my cheeks. I glanced at the clock on the cable box and sighed. “I think we should start heading out.” Jeff glanced at the clock as well, and nodded. We left the house and while I was locking the door, Matt’s car pulled up.
“Hey, where you two off to?” Matt asked.
“Grace’s office,” Jeff answered, leaning against his car. Matt’s face went completely somber. He turned to look at me with sad eyes and nodded.
“Matt, it might not be as serious as we originally thought,” Jeff muttered, his head looking down.
“What do you mean?”
“Dummy over here started getting worried her medications was having a bad affect on Kylie, so she stopped taking the pills.”
“Riley,” Matt said, looking over at me. “You mean we were freaking out over you, and it turns out you’ve just been skipping your meds? What were you thinking Riley?”
“I’ve already talked to her Matt,” Jeff said, walking from around car door and placing his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “We have appointments with both her OB/GYN, and her therapist. Rorwan is going to show Riley how on track the baby is, and Grace will probably switch her medicine again.”
“Hopefully, I don’t want to lose my sister or my niece.” Matt replied.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, feeling my throat clog with tears.
“Just keep yourself healthy Riley, please.” Matt said, wrapping his arms around me. He smiled and rubbed his hand over his niece.
“Let’s go Ri, I’ll call you later and tell you what’s going on,” Jeff told Matt. Matt nodded and walked back to his car.
“I’ll let Amanda know what’s going on, she’s freaking out right now.” Matt explained.
“I’m sorry I’m such a paranoid spaz,” I mumbled to him.
“Don’t worry about it Riley, just get yourself better.” Matt replied. He got in his car and drove off.
“Let’s go,” Jeff said, getting behind the wheel.

“We could do a CT Scan, but I doubt it will help with anything,” Dr. Grace explained to us as we sat in her office. A light came on above the door, so she went to go answer it. Dr. Rorwan came into the room, a video tape in hand.
“Hello, I’m Miranda Rorwan, Riley’s Obstetrician.”
“Amelia Grace, thank you for coming.”
“I brought this,” Miranda said, holding up the tape. “It’s the ultrasound that was done just yesterday afternoon. I personally looked over it countless times since this morning, and I found not a single thing wrong.”
“Please, play it for us,” Grace replied. Rorwan put the tape in a VCR player that was on a stand bolted to the wall. The black and white image of mine and Jeff’s daughter appeared on the screen. My eyes filled with tears as I watched the video. I felt Jeff’s hand grab mine as we stared at the baby on the screen, the same baby that’s inside of me at this moment.
“I’m convinced something is going wrong,” I spoke up. “I don’t know why I convinced myself of this, but I feel like there’s something going on inside me that can’t be detected right now, and it’s because of the medications I’m on.”
“Riley, those meds are made to work with your body, even during pregnancy.” Dr. Grace replied with a sigh.
“I know that, but I can’t help but feel this way, and as long as I feel like this, I’d rather risk my own life than my daughter’s life, which means I won’t be taking those pills.”
“We’ll change your prescription then,” Amelia replied. “And Jeff, make sure she takes them, because if she goes off of these ones, the affect will be more severe than they were this last time. They’re not as strong, but they affect the brain a lot more than the other ones did.”
“It won’t do to much though right?” Jeff asked, concern in his voice.
“I can’t promise anything, but it’s all I have left, at least until the baby is born, then we can gradually get her back on the meds she was on before the pregnancy.” I looked over at Jeff as he rubbed his hands up and down his face. His eyes were getting bags under them, meaning he wasn’t sleeping good.
“I just want my wife healthy, and for my daughter to come into the world healthy and whole.” He said finally. “If this is the only way, I’ll do what it takes to make that happen.”
“And with this new medications, we’ll increase your appointments to every week. I know, it’s soon and a hassle, but if the medication is as strong as Amelia is claiming they are, I don’t want to take chances.”
“Okay,” I muttered, collapsing into the chair more.
“While we still have you here, I want to do the CT Scan to check for Cancerous cells.” Amelia added. “If she’s acting the way you remember your mother acting, it would be best if we catch it early.”
“I don’t want to know,” I said, shaking my head. “I have enough going on right now, and I just can’t deal with that.”
“This isn’t up for discussion,” Grace said sharply. We’re testing you, we need to know.”