A/n: Thank you all so much for the encouraging feedback. I really didn't plan to continue with this story, but this plot bunny burrowed into my brain and wouldn't shut up. I've been thinking for awhile about the incredible difference between the episodes right after Jack was born and now the ones with Jennifer and this was the result. Somehow it fit well with the first chapter. There will most likely be a third installment sometime in the future.
Even before the miscarriage, she and Perry had never planned on having children, so she pushed away any misgivings she had about her ability to carry a pregnancy to term and let the fear dissolve alongside her marriage. Once it was over with Perry, she really didn't expect to ever think about it again.
The problem with that logic, of course, was that she never quite managed to cut Perry out of her life.
She had found out she was pregnant with Jack about two weeks after she ran out on Perry at Kelso's award dinner. She'd taken the test in Danni's latest boyfriend's bathroom, watched it turn out positive and then proceeded to lie in bed for three days. She didn't know what to do about it. The first time she had been pregnant she'd been nineteen and scared out of her mind, so she'd gotten rid of it. The second time she had been pregnant, she'd lost the baby before she even worked up the courage to tell her husband. So now what?
Abortion just didn't seem to be the answer, even though she was once again alone and scared and completely unsure that she had any skill as a mother. She'd basically blown the only chance she'd had to get back with the only man she'd ever loved. But somehow the thought that this could be a new direction in her life seemed appealing. Maybe she needed something more than sex and alcohol and board meetings at a hospital she loathed.
And maybe the idea of seeing the product of something she and Perry did turn out okay was incredibly appealing.
But deciding to keep the baby meant risking another miscarriage, and that did terrify her. That woke her up at night. That forced her to go to the doctor much more regularly. That caused her to say prayers that she hadn't uttered since she can't remember when.
So she got through it. Jack was fine. She'd brought him into the world and nothing had gone wrong.
Jennifer was another story.
Yeah, her third pregnancy had been fine. Something had finally gone right. But her fourth pregnancy...
The complete unexpected nature of the entire thing threw her off. Sure, she hadn't expected the other three, but at least they had seemed possible. After the vasectomy, she thought that was it. She thought that the fear was gone for good. She could focus on protecting Jack until the day she died and not worry about anything else. So there was that aspect of it.
And then there was the surgery. The damn surgery. And the bed rest. Ah, yes, that had been the worst. Alone all day, stuck in bed, trying to distract herself from the blinding, terrifying thoughts that ran through her head. And nothing worked. Not the TV, the crossword puzzles, the books, the music, sewing buttons (the only sewing skill her mother had managed to teach her) back onto damaged shirts. Nothing worked.
When the baby was born Perry said she was fine. But Jordan just couldn't let go of that fear. It gripped her completely.
Here she was, nearly forty years old, and she was frightened of a newborn baby.
And because she was who she was, she didn't know how to tell anyone. She didn't know how to tell the one person who mattered.
So she started acting out more than usual and fucking around in ways she didn't know she was capable of in reality and wondering just when she'd be able to cut the fear out of her heart and become a mother again.
Because this, whatever it was, just wasn't working.