"I'll do it," Arizona told Callie a month later. "If you want me to, I will."
It was December twenty-second and the two women were getting ready for Arizona's parents, who were coming to spend Christmas with them this year.
"What?" Callie asked. She hadn't been expecting her wife to blurt that out in the middle of decorating the apartment. Clearly, they had both been thinking about it, but still.
Callie hadn't gotten pregnant during their first IVF cycle and, at this point, she was so discouraged that she wasn't sure she could go through all that again. Sure, they already had the embryos frozen, so it would be less physically taxing if she did it again, but she couldn't handle it emotionally. Her body had let her down and she was sick of begging it to do something it clearly wasn't going to.
"I'll carry our baby," Arizona said. "It's such a short period of time for such a great thing. And maybe the IVF'll work for me."
"No," Callie told her.
"No?" she asked. "You're not giving up are you? Calliope, this is your dream. Our dream now. Which is crazy, but it is."
"I know. But do you honestly think you could go through that again?" Callie asked. "Get your hopes up and not even get pregnant? Plus, honestly, I can't see you being a happy pregnant person. I love that you would be willing to do it so that we could start our family, but hearing you complain about being pregnant when you're huge and swollen and waddling will not sit well with me. Because I'd give anything to be huge and swollen and waddling."
"So we're just not gonna have a baby?" Arizona questioned. "Callie, we can't just not have a baby."
"Who are you and what have you done to Arizona?" she asked.
"I decided I want a family with you," she replied. "Especially after it's been so hard. It's kinda like you can't really appreciate something until you can't have it anymore. Trying as hard as we have has made me want babies with you even more than I did the day I decided I did."
"I love you," Callie said. "But I can't do that again. And I love that you'd do it, but no."
"Because you'd be jealous?"
"It'd be hard not to be, honestly," Callie said. "Which just makes me a bad wife. But just –"
"Callie, you've been taking hormones and giving yourself shots until you're all bruised just trying to make us a baby. You're not a bad wife. Maybe I don't totally understand your feelings because I haven't wanted a kid ever since I can remember. But that does make sense."
"I don't know. Maybe in a couple years I'll come to terms with it and be okay with you carrying the baby. But it's just something I want so bad."
"I know," she said, pulling Callie into a hug. "So we'll just put this whole baby thing on hold. We can be happy just the two of us, right?"
A year ago, Arizona truly believed this statement. Now it just seemed like a great big lie.
"Right," Callie said, not feeling truthful either.
"I just feel so bad for her," Arizona told her mom during a late-night chat the first night they were in Seattle.
When Arizona and her brother were growing up, every time they had a problem, they could be assured that their mom would listen and say something comforting. Their father wasn't a bad listener or anything, but there was just something so special about cuddling up on the couch with a glass of milk and some cookies – or now a glass of wine – and talking it all out with Mom.
"I feel like I should be able to fix it."
"You'll get through this, Arizona," Barbara reassured her daughter.
"Calliope believes in fate," she said. "Well, she believes that God has all these plans. Which I didn't believe in because well really, really cruel things happen to good people. But what if she's right? What if I really wasn't ever supposed to have a kid? And now that I want it and I'm married to someone who's always wanted it, what I'm just trying to change something that's set in stone?"
"I don't think that's true at all," she said. "I don't think it's anybody's fault that you haven't had a baby yet."
"Logically, I know that. But it's so hard not to look for reasons."
"I know."
"You do?"
"It took your father and I almost three years to have you," she shared.
"And then you just stopped trying and it happened, right?" she asked. "We've only heard that one about a thousand times. If only that were a choice for us."
"My point was just that I do understand how frustrating it is," Barbara said. "And I get that you need to give up for now. That doesn't mean it has to be forever."
"We know."
"And it'll be more than worth all of it if you do decide to try again," she said. "Trust me."
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Why?"
"You fly out here for Christmas and we're all pathetic."
"That's okay," she said. "I understand. We'll make the best of it anyways."
"Yeah," she nodded.
"You're here too?" Arizona asked her wife when she saw her at work on Christmas Eve.
She had come in to treat a little boy who had taken a pretty nasty spill on a tobogganing hill, but she didn't realize her wife was at work now as well.
"People do dumb things and break bones," Callie said. "Merry Christmas to me. You should see the fibia I get to set over –"
"Calliope, we were supposed to be having dinner with my parents."
"They told me to go."
"Of course they did," she said. "That doesn't mean you do it. They're eating Christmas Eve dinner alone?"
"Not exactly."
"Who are they eating Christmas Eve dinner with?"
"Mark and Sloan."
"We have to get home as soon as possible."
"Clearly."
With that, Arizona walked back into the little boy's room, just to check on him one more time.
"Guess what, Jude?" the six-year-old's mom was asking him.
"What?"
"Guess who's at the house waiting for you to come home and open presents?"
"Santa?" he asked.
She laughed. "Not exactly. But Nadia is."
"Cool," he smiled.
"Who's Nadia?" Arizona asked, as she began looking over his chart to see if there were any notes from the nurses.
"My birth mom," he explained. "I grew in her tummy, then I got adopted."
"Well, Buddy," Arizona smiled. "You get to go home and visit with her. Everything looks good here."
"Okay."
"Just watch him for any signs of a concussion," Arizona told his mom. "But he seems good."
"I'm sorry you got called in," she said. "I probably shouldn't have even let him go tobogganing without me there. I mean, his friend's older sister was and I trust her, but still."
"It would've happened if you were there too," Arizona told her. "He's a little kid on Christmas break. It's not like he had no supervision. Like you said, you trust the sister. Don't beat yourself up about it. And I'm a doctor. We all get called in around Christmas. No need to be sorry."
"Okay," she smiled. "Do you have kids?"
"Nope," she said. "But I am about to head home and have dinner with my parents. And hopefully my wife."
"Have a good Christmas."
"You too," she said.
A/N: Please don't hate me for the IVF not working. I promise you that I'm not evil. Really. I know what I'm doing, and I love Calzona.
