A/N: Hi! Sorry this chapter took awhile, I'm kind of a procrastinator lol. I'm not super thrilled with the ending, but I hope you still like it! Also, this was written pre-Secret Santa, so 3 isn't exactly accurate anymore, because it was just kind of speculation.
5 Times Pam is Scared (And 1 Time She Isn't)
1.
They manage to hold off telling everyone in the office for 3 months after they find out. It's 2 months and 3 weeks longer than Pam expected they'd last, but that doesn't make the fact that everyone now knows any easier to deal with.
For the most part everyone has been nice about it; almost all of them have offered congratulations of some sort. Pam knows that they whisper behind her and Jim's backs, but she pretends not to notice. She is happy, thrilled really, at the prospect of having her own child to love and care for. The mere thought of being a mother brings a grin to her face, stretching her cheeks so they hurt. Nothing, she thinks, can get her down.
A few days after Pam's pregnancy is revealed to the office, Jim gets called away on a client meeting over lunch. Pam is planning on eating at her desk, but when she enters the break room to use the microwave Kelly begs her to join her and Erin for lunch, and Pam can't refuse. She sits across from the two women and Kelly instantly scoots her chair closer, talking quickly about how exciting it is that Pam is pregnant and how the baby is going to be so cute and offering suggestions for names. Pam simply smiles and pretends to seriously consider the names that she knows she will never use for her child. Jim has always marveled at her ability to put up with Kelly, but Pam finds her amusing from time to time, and listening to her rant is better than eating at her desk and having to deal with the stench of Dwight's hard boiled eggs. So she sits and listens and lets her mind wander until the subject turns to when the baby will be born and Erin meekly offers,
"I hear that labor is really painful."
Pam pauses eating for a moment, her stomach suddenly clenching. She frowns, but Kelly and Erin don't seem to notice, because Kelly picks up talking immediately,
"Ohmigod, I know. That's why when I get pregnant and have my baby, I'm getting an epidural. You're getting an epidural, right Pam?"
Pam blushes, looking down at her hands,
"I was actually thinking of having a natural birth."
Kelly's eyes get huge, but before she can speak there is a laugh from the vending machines and the trio of women looks over to find Meredith standing there, shaking her head,
"Natural birth? You should take all the drugs they'll give you." She says, waving her candy bar in Pam's direction. Pam subconsciously moves a hand to her stomach, but doesn't answer.
"Didn't you have a natural birth?" Kelly asks, and Meredith nods.
"Worst mistake of my life."
"Was it really that painful?" Erin asks, wide-eyed.
"Look at it this way, it's like trying to push a football through a hole the size of a quarter."
"Eww," Kelly whines, "How does that even work? A football is like huge next to a quarter."
"Lot's of stretching mostly."
Pam stands up abruptly, cleaning up her things before running off muttering about needing to get back to work.
The next time Jim has a lunch meeting, Pam eats at her desk.
2.
Dunder Mifflin has never been the greatest company. They've gone through their ups and downs, and with the economy the way it is, Pam has known for awhile that they've been having some money issues. Still, she never expected for them to go bankrupt. She relates it to cancer: You know it exists and is happening all over the place, but you never expect it to happen to you. She never expected them to go bankrupt, not Dunder Mifflin, not her company.
Michael responds to the news with a game, which is not an entirely bad idea. It distracts everyone, Pam included, for most of the work day. They have fun, smile and joke with each other. They forget for a little while that they may be looking for new jobs soon. But the game ends, and in the car on the way home, Pam is overcome with the same dread she felt earlier in the day while talking to Jim in his office. She looks out the window, afraid to look at Jim as she speaks,
"Jim, what if Dunder Mifflin closes?"
There is a long silence, before a quiet reply of, "I don't know."
Pam shuts her eyes, resting her forehead against the cool glass of the window. Her hands are interlaced on her stomach, catching an occasional kick from the baby. She tries to imagine what will happen if Dunder Mifflin goes under, how they will be able to support their son or daughter. They have some money in savings, but babies are expensive, and they've got a mortgage to pay too. She wonders if they will have to sell their house, and suddenly tears fill her eyes. Jim loves that house, he grew up there and he plans for them to raise their children there. Suddenly Pam finds herself sobbing at the thought of not being able to afford to take care of their child, and at the thought of losing their house. She sobs at the idea of having to find a new job and at the fact that she and Jim will most likely not end up working together. She even sobs at the idea of losing all of the crazy people who make up their office.
Jim is silent as he pulls into their driveway and parks the car. He gets out of the car and walks around to Pam's side, opening her door and pulling her into his arms. She falls gratefully against him and buries her face in his shoulder.
"We're going to be okay." Jim whispers into her hair, "No matter what, we're going to be okay."
Pam sniffles muttering, "I know", and she feels bad for lying, but she hopes that if Jim holds her long enough then maybe she will start to believe it.
3.
The day of the Christmas party is going surprisingly well. There was some tension earlier in the day with Michael and Phyllis both being Santa, but the Christmas spirit must be heavy in the air, because Michael has given in and is enjoying being an elf with Dwight now while Phyllis fills the role of Santa Claus.
It is nearing the end of the day and everyone is starting to get their things together to leave. Pam sits at her desk, sending out a quick e-mail while Jim handles a phone call with David Wallace. She glances at the clock and sighs, hoping he will be off the phone soon. Her feet are sore and she is exhausted. But three rousing games of solitaire later Jim is still shut up in his office. Most everyone is gone, but as Pam is about to start another game of solitaire, she feels a tap on her shoulder and turns around.
"Hi Phyllis." She says, offering a tired smile at the older woman, who grins back.
"That's Santa to you! And I think I've got something here with your name on it!"
Phyllis begins to reach into the bag slung over her shoulder, but Pam shakes her head,
"I actually already got my Dunder Mifflin mouse pad from corporate." She says, gesturing to her desk.
"Well, I've got something else here," Phyllis pulls out a small wrapped gift and makes a big show of checking the name tag and frowning, "Oh, wait, this isn't for you, but I think you had better open it, since the intended recipient isn't here today."
She holds out the gift and Pam eagerly takes it, intrigued. She checks the name tag and a smile breaks out onto her face as she reads the two words, "Baby Halpert". Her fingers rip at the wrapping paper and pull out a tiny white sweater, red around the collar and cuffs. She stares at it in amazement, it's so small.
"I knit it myself," Phyllis offers, "The baby will probably have to grow into it; the smallest pattern I could find was for a six month old."
Pam feels her eyes fill with tears and before she knows what she is doing, she stands and wraps her arms around Phyllis in a hug. Phyllis hugs her back and when they pull apart she is grinning.
"You really like it?"
Pam chuckles slightly, remembering the oven mitt incident a few years before.
"I love it."
The two chat a little before Phyllis leaves, and Pam sits back at her desk, holding the sweater. She tries to imagine her baby wearing it, but it is so tiny, she can't imagine her baby being so tiny. Actually, she's never really thought about it before, but now that she's holding the tiny sweater she realizes just how small this baby will be. She closes her eyes and tries to shake the thought from her mind. How is she supposed to take care of something so small? Something so tiny and helpless?
Pam opens her eyes as she hears the door to Jim's office open. She stands up and forces a smile,
"Hey, look what Phyllis made for the baby!"
4.
The stark white walls of the hospital room are only adding to the anxiety Pam is feeling as she and Jim wait for her doctor to return. Next to her bed, the fetal heart rate monitor hooked up to her stomach is beeping a steady rhythm, but she is sure that if there were a monitor hooked up to measure her heart rate right now it would be horribly fast and irregular.
Jim holds her hand, running his fingers along her knuckles. When she looks up at him he tries to smile reassuringly, but he is at a loss for words. Pam doesn't even try to speak, she feels so stupid. She had been walking into the building with Phyllis when she stepped on a patch of black ice. She barely slipped. Barely. Normally, she would have been able to catch her balance and keep walking, but instead of catching her balance, she had toppled over, managing only to turn herself at the very last second and land on her side. She doesn't even want to imagine the results if she had landed directly on her stomach. Still, she is terrified that the fall has hurt the baby. All she can think about is the time her sister hit her head on some ice when she was three and Pam was five. She sees all the blood and hears Penny shrieking as her father threw Pam over his shoulder and carried her inside so she wouldn't have to see Penny hurt like that. She imagines her baby bleeding in her stomach, but they can't see it. They can't hear it shrieking.
After Pam has been hooked up to the fetal heart rate monitor for an hour her doctor returns. He says that the heart rate is good, but he wants an ultrasound just to be safe. He leaves and a nurse comes in with a wheelchair. Pam must look completely petrified now, because as Jim is helping her into the wheelchair he leans into her ear, whispering,
"It's okay Pam, the baby's going to be okay."
And suddenly she feels like crying, her eyes filling with tears. Jim takes her hand and doesn't let go until they reach the ultrasound room and he helps her up onto the exam table. She lays back and waits until the ultrasound tech has smeared the cold goo onto her stomach before looking up at the screen hesitantly.
"Everything looks perfect." The ultrasound tech says when she notices the concerned expression on Pam's face. She points out a few things on the screen, but stands by her original judgment that the baby is fine.
Pam is relieved, but still scared. She knows that if she falls again the results may not be as good. Suddenly, she is starting to hate the winter snow and ice.
5.
Pam can't believe that this moment has finally arrived. For nine months she has been carrying around this tiny little creature in her stomach, feeling it grow and move inside of her, and now it has come down to this.
She is ten hours into labor, and feeling the most intense pain she has ever felt. It is indescribable, piercing her entire body, leaving her breathless and sobbing, but she is still bracing herself for what is yet to come. This whole ordeal is just building up to the actual birth, which, according to some of the friends Pam made in Lamaze class who already had their babies, is the most painful part.
Jim sits next to her, springing into action every time she is hit by another contraction, rubbing her back and whispering in her ear that she is doing so well, and he is so proud of her, but as much as she loves him his words mean nothing right now. All Pam can think about is what can go wrong. What if the baby gets stuck? What if she isn't strong enough to push it out? Or what if she does push it out, and it's stillborn?
Suddenly all those thoughts are gone from her mind as the pain is cranked up to an entirely new level, and Pam finds herself unable to even sit forward. She grabs Jim's wrist in desperation, but is too blinded by pain to see how concerned he is. All she can do is sob and squeeze his wrist until, finally, she is relieved of the pain.
At that exact moment the nurse enters, bringing a calming energy to the room. She talks softly, as if the baby has already been born and is asleep in the room, and with a few words manages to calm Pam, though only slightly, as the intense pain returns and does not go away.
Things get very fuzzy very fast, and Pam is hardly aware of what is happening. She hears her doctor enter the room and feels Jim helping her sit up, though she can not find any energy to help him in this task. Then, before she can comprehend what is going on, the doctor tells her to push.
Every second seems like a million years as Pam pushes, screaming as the air is shoved out of her lungs. She is exhausted and her fears replay themselves in her mind over and over and over and-
Its done.
The pain stops abruptly and Pam would be amazed by how quickly her body could relax, but she is too busy staring in awe at the tiny crying baby being held aloft by the doctor.
Her baby.
Her daughter.
1.
The sense of awe Pam felt at the sight of her daughter has not worn off as she holds the sleepy infant in her arms an hour later. Jim has gone off to call their parents, leaving Pam and the baby alone.
The little girl blinks up at Pam with still unfocused eyes and Pam's heart melts. She lifts the tiny baby and kisses her on the forehead, adoring the softness of her skin. The baby hiccups and Pam grins, tears coming to her eyes. She cannot believe that this is her daughter, her own flesh and blood.
And then for some reason, Pam thinks back to all the things she was afraid of when she was pregnant and laughs. It seems so strange to think of them while she holds her, now sleeping, daughter. They were all legitimate fears, but in the end they didn't make a difference. It doesn't matter now that she was afraid of labor, that she clung to Jim's arm every time they walked through the parking lot. She has a beautiful, healthy baby girl, and that is all that matters now. She knows that there will be times in the future when things will be bad or terrifying, but she isn't afraid. Not now.
Later, when he returns, Jim asks Pam if it was worth it. She smiles and kisses him, tears coming to her eyes,
"She was worth every second."