Milestones: Commitment

Waking up, Michelle turned on her side and saw she was alone. She stretched her body, sitting up and looking down at her protruding belly. Placing a hand on her stomach, she smiled. She was just but five months along, and today was very important day - she and Brian had taken the day off so they could go to her appointment and find out the gender of their unborn child. And finally, Michelle was excited to be having a baby. Her doctor had been right; her motherly instincts had finally kicked in, and she couldn't wait to be a mother, especially with Brian by her side. They had their little spats every now and then when the tensions and stress became too much, but at the end of the day they were still in love with each other, in ways that neither of them knew was possible.

Michelle blamed the hormones for making her feel so emotional about Brian, because lately the hormones were the cause of everything - even the intense love-making sessions they had. Michelle had never had better sex with Brian, and sometimes wished that she could have those hormones permanently - not that Brian wasn't a great lover between the sheets anyway.

Getting up on her feet, Michelle stretched once more and padded out of the room, instantly smelling breakfast once at the top of the stairs. Smiling at the idea of Brian making breakfast when he had claimed not too long ago that he didn't cook, Michelle turned away and stood in the doorway of the opposite bedroom. They had slowly been adding more and more so he now-declared nursery, including a rocking chair in one corner (which was currently Michelle's favorite). But then her smile faded slightly and she remembered something she had been meaning to bring up but had never found the right time to say. And she realized that if she waited any longer to bring up he subject with Brian, it might end up being too late.

Turning away from the baby's room Michelle headed down the stairs, going to the left on the landing and into the kitchen, where Brian was indeed in the process of making breakfast.

"I thought you once told me that you don't cook," she said with a sly smirk and Brian looked over his shoulder at her with a smile.

"Breakfast is an entirely different thing than dinner. I don't cook dinner," he answered, flipping one of the pancakes on the stove. Michelle could hear the sizzling bacon and smell fried eggs mixed in with the scent of batter, and her stomach growled.

"Of course not, because that's my job," she said playfully, going up next to Brian and kissing him on the cheek. Stopping everything he was doing, Brian pulled her back in when she began to move away, placing his lips on hers in one smooth motion and holding her there for a moment. Finally he pulled away with one more small kiss, smiling down at Michelle.

"How did you sleep?" Brian asked s she headed to the table to sit.

"Pretty good. Took me awhile to finally fall asleep, though. I was too excited for today."

"So was I. I can't wait to find out what we're having," Brian said, shutting off the stovetop and filling two plates with food, bringing tm the table so they could eat.

"We've gotta start thinking of names," Michelle said, biting into her fried egg and looking up at Brian, who bit off a piece of bacon.

"I hate having to choose things," he said, his lips parted in the smallest of grins.

"Well, we've gotta. I really like the name...Bailey, if it's a girl."

Pausing for a moment to rattle off the name 'Bailey Haner' in his head a few times, Brian nodded. It had a ring to it. "Oh...um, is this kid going to have your last name, or mine?" he quickly asked, not wanting to be presumptuous.

"Yours. Bailey Haner sounds better than Bailey DiBenedetto, hands down," Michelle said with a smile as she poured syrup over her pancakes. "There, we have a girl name picked. You pick a boy name."

Groaning lightly, Brian sat back in his air and thought for a moment. He knew if he brought up the idea of Brian Haner, the Third, that it would be a definite no. "Do you really have to let me pick this one? You did so good with the girl name, I think you should do both," he said with a wink, and Michelle rolled her eyes.

"If you don't pick a boy name, I'll pick one and you won't like it..." Michelle warned.

"Like what?"

"Dana."

"...What?" Brian asked, completely dumbfounded. "You're kidding. That's a girl's name."

"No, it's a unisex name that not many boys have. I knew a guy named Dana at college."

"Yeah, and he was probably gay," Brian snorted.

"No, he wasn't, because I dated him for awhile," Michelle shot back smartly. "So, either pick a name, or your possible son will be Dana Haner. It actually has a nice ring if he has 'Brian' as his middle name..." she said with a grin.

"Fine," Brian huffed, thinking once more until something better than Dana came to him. "How about Joey?" he asked. Joey Haner sounded alright. A least better than Dana. Though it did sound good for a girl...

"Joseph Haner..." Michelle said to herself. "Good. That was painless, wasn't it?" she said with a smile, and Brian smirked back at her before they continued to eat. Michelle finally had a chance to bring it up.

"So, since we're on the topic of the baby...," she said quietly, and Brian looked up at her expectantly. "I was just thinking that...the room upstairs is pretty small. We're going to need more room, because the baby will get bigger, and...if we have more.... We don't have the room for it here. It's just too small for anything more than just us two, really," she sad and Brian sighed.

"Well, if I had a bit more money, which I don't, we could think about getting a bigger place. But I can't afford it right now, so this'll have to do."

"It's...not really an open option to the situation, Brian. We need a bigger place," Michelle said, looking at him pointedly.

"And it really doesn't matter how many times you say it; it's not going to just magically put money that we don't have in our hands to get a new place. Maybe in a few years, if the album sells as much as we'd like it to...but right now, this is all I can afford. So I guess that you're just going to have to deal with it, and I guess we won't have a second kid till we get a bigger place," Brian said, his voice coming out harsh, though he didn't mean for it to. Looking down at her plate, Michelle shut her mouth, decided that if he was going to snap at her like that, she wasn't even going to talk to him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was silent between Michelle and Brian in the waiting room. Brian had tried to apologize numerous times in the car on the way to the OB/GYN clinic, but had given up when he realized that Michelle wasn't going to even acknowledge him. Michelle was intent on giving him the silent treatment for as long as she could stand to, and she was surprised at how well she was holding up. She was just so sick of Brian snapping at her for any little thing she said, and was sick of snapping back in retaliation. Her hormones were really screwing with the relationship she and Brian had rekindled, and Michelle thought the sooner she could get her baby out of her body and get back to normal so she could take care of her growing family, the better.

Feeling how tense Michelle was beside him as she flipped through the parenting magazine she'd picked up, Brian sighed, leaning closer to Michelle.

"Baby...please. I don't want to go into this appointment with you being mad at me. We were so excited all yesterday and this morning," he said, nearly on a whisper. Searching Michelle's eyes as best as he could, Brian could tell she was still doing her best to ignore what he was saying. "Michelle, please."

Sighing, Michelle glanced at Brian for only a moment, looking back at the magazine in hand shortly after. She wasn't mad at him, she was just upset at the fact that they had another fight, or argument, or whatever they wanted to classify it as. She didn't want their baby - something that was supposed to bring them even closer together - to only pull them farther in opposite directions. She wanted Brian to be the one. At that point, Michelle couldn't see herself being with anyone else, ever.

"Michelle DiBenedetto?" a nurse called out from the front of the waiting room. Looking up, Michelle put the magazine down and stood, not even waiting for Brian to trail behind her. She followed the nurse down a hallway to the right that then turned left before being led into a dimly lit room.

"Just have a seat up here and lie back," the technician instructed, and Michelle did as asked as she watched Brian take a seat on the side of her opposite the technician and machinery. Knowing what was expected of her, Michelle lifted the front of her shirt up until it was right under her bust, and then unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, putting some relief on her five-month-old belly.

"So," the technician said in a cheerful voice, grabbing the pre-warmed gel. "You're here for your five month checkup. Is this your first child?" she asked.

"Yeah," Michelle said with a nod, feeling the warm gel on her stomach. The technician grabbed the sonograph wand from its holder on the machine and gently used it to spread all the gel evenly over Michelle's stomach.

"You guys must be very excited," the slightly older woman said, taking a seat in front of the ultrasound machine while still rolling the wand around.

"We really are," Brian spoke up, reaching out to take Michelle's hand, his thumb running gently over her skin. Michelle looked over at him, away from the technician, and the excitement and love she saw in Brian's eyes was too much for her to not give a reaction. She smiled at him, causing Brian to grin back after she lightly squeezed his hand - almost in a silent apology for giving him the silent treatment ever since breakfast.

"Would you guys like to know the sex of your baby at the end of this appointment?"

Looking up at the technician, both Brian and Michelle nodded. The technician then set into checking the fetus's vitals, finding all of the possible angles so some good photos could be printed out for the young couple.

Holding her gaze with Brian's as she took a deep breath, her hand still held in his, Michelle mouthed the words "I love you" to him.

"I love you too, baby," Brian answered, but they were then disrupted when they heard the technician click her tongue and sigh. Looking over at her as her eyes looked at the monitor in slight confusion, Michelle had an unsettling feeling wash over her.

"What?" she asked, and the technician glanced at her quickly, eyebrows furrowing when she looked back at the screen.

"Um...I'm not really sure...," she said, trailing off, moving the ultrasound wand again.

"...Something's wrong. Tell me what's wrong," Michelle said, panicked, and the technician sighed again, setting the wand back in its holder after wiping off the end.

"I'm...I'm really, very sorry, but...," she said and then paused, looking between Brian and Michelle.

"But what?" Brian pressed, feeling Michelle's hand grip his a little tighter as he started to fill up with dread.

"I'm sorry, Michelle. You miscarried."

Michelle's heart sank into her stomach. Her mouth was suddenly very dry and she could feel the pounding beats of her heart in her chest, shuddering through her whole body.

"What--why?" she stuttered, feeling like she was going to be sick. She couldn't have possibly lost her baby. She and Brian had done everything by the book - everything was perfect.

"Well, I'm not really sure why, but it's pretty common to miscarry during the first pregnancy. Unfortunately, it can also make it harder to conceive again," the technician said, gently wiping the gel off Michelle's stomach.

Hand coming up to cover her mouth, Michelle pulled her shirt down over her stomach, glancing down at the belly that no longer carried a life inside, and she could feel the hot tears prickling the corners of her eyes. She didn't even try to stop them from falling. Brian didn't know what to say, but he was pretty sure he had just felt his heart shatter. They lost the baby; he wasn't going to be a father.

"Due to how far along you were and the size of the fetus, we'll have to go in and remove it or induce labor to expel it," the technician explained, but she could feel her words weren't even being comprehended by the young couple who had just received such crushing news. "I...really am sorry for your loss," she whispered, leaving the room to allow Brian and Michelle some time alone.

After so long of dreading starting a family so young, Michelle was finally excited that she was having a baby with Brian, that they had helped created something so special. And it was all ripped away, leaving both her and Brian feeling completely empty.