Chapter 16: We can agree to disagree.

Four weeks pregnant turns into 8 weeks. David and I still aren't talking face to face. He has left messages on my machine at least twice a day, if not three times. I'm not ready to break down and give into him. I was still mad for what he had said to me in the hospital. I, however find myself occasionally returning his call leaving messages that say that I am doing all right that I am just busy and since I don't see him when I leave the messages it's easy for me to lie. I just keep asking for more time to adjust to this.

Eight weeks is now twelve weeks and the pregnancy is flying along smoother than it had started. I'm not throwing up now but I have begun to be more careful what I do at work. Granted I am far from showing and few people know. I'm managing to keep it fairly hush; hush, as well as what is not going on between David and me. I feel right now the less people know the better off we will all be. The messages that he leaves me on my machine are now only one a day. Still the same one, but less frequent asking if the baby and I are all right and that he wants to talk about this still. In his soft gentle hushed tones telling me that he understands that I need time and there's always that hushed I love you and miss you.

Twelve weeks has now turned in sixteen weeks. The second trimester has started and I have stopped taking traumas now to reduce exposing the baby to anything. I still take cases I'm just more careful as to what I take and I make sure that I am not anywhere near, where they are taking x-rays. I'm doing everything in my power to make sure that the baby and I stay healthy. The phone calls from David are now maybe every couple of days. I will call him on my next day off I tell myself. I finally do manage to call David but all I get is the answering machine, I leave a short message telling him that I still love him but I need more time to get over this. That we need to get together and try to talk, I leave my schedule with him thinking that he'd call me back when he got it and we could get together my next day off. I'm not sure why I keep asking for more time at this point. I have come to terms with the baby and I have found myself actually somewhat excited about being a mother. I'm scared about it, but then this is new territory for me, and I'm not sure how I am going to balance a residency and a new baby at the same time.

Sixteen weeks are now twenty, and I am halfway thru the pregnancy. There is no more morning sickness but there is a small pouch forming on my stomach from where my child is growing inside. It's been a long day at work and I am leaning heavily on the lockers in the lounge. I'm tired again. I didn't sleep well last night from the barrage of butterfly kicks in my stomach all night long. Guess the baby is trying to prepare me for impending motherhood.

There had been no phone call back from David now in four weeks. I didn't know how to take that, I had made the effort to call him back waiting for him to make the next move and it didn't seem to be coming. I thought about calling him again. Maybe he hadn't gotten the message from the machine; the tape might have been eaten by the machine or something along those lines. You could never been to certain with answer machines. I almost wished that he had voicemail that way I would have known he had gotten it.

I'm getting a craving. I look at the clock and it's almost ten now. Great what a time to decide that I need or rather that the baby needs chocolate milk shake. I pull myself up off the bed where I had just managed to get comfortable from and try to find something to wear. My clothes are starting not to fit, so my choices are limited. Work is easy, scrubs for now can hide all, waists that cinch up are just my thing right now and my lab coat well it hides what the scrubs can't. I sign now as I pull on some old sweats and a baggy sweatshirt and pad out to find my shoes, at least I can put them on with little effort and not having to bend over.

I move to find my purse now when there's a knock at my door. Who would be coming by this late at night? I move carefully towards the door, "whose there?" I call out not wanting to open it being alone and not knowing who or what might be on the other side.

I let out a sigh of relieve as I move to unlock the door. There he is standing with roses in one hand and ice cream in the other. "I thought that you might like these." He said in a soft voice.

I couldn't help but smile at him, "yes, thank you come in." I move to make room for him to come in the door. I took the flowers and ice cream from him closing the door when he got inside the apartment. I walked towards the kitchen, "would you like one?" I asked him as I pulled the blender from the cupboard.

"No I'm okay thanks." He said.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee or something, all I have is instant right now." I said as I started to get a milkshake together for myself.

"No I'm fine really Erica." He said now, "I wanted to talk that's all."

"Yeah we can do that." I say now. "We really need to." I'm not sure how to start the conversation that we need to have, but I know that after all this time we need to have it and figure out where we are going to go from here. I turn the blender on making the milkshake before getting a glass. "Why don't we sit down, we don't have to stand and talk."

I looked over at him and he seemed almost nervous to be there alone with me. I'm just hoping that I can keep the hormones under control and not bite his head off. There's something about him a boyish charm that melts my heart every time that I look at him. He looks like his dad; David really looks like Doug and the more that I look at him the more that I can see that. I find my mind wandering a little now as I wonder if the baby will have that same charm that the other two Ross men possess.

"I don't know how to start this time Erica." I hear his soft voice say.

I looked at him with sincerity in my eyes now, "I honestly don't know either David." I say, "but we have to try and sort this out, if not for us, then for the baby. I'm not saying that we need to stay together because I don't know if that is possible."

"What do you want?" He asked me.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes, "we fight too much David." I find myself saying, "It's not that I don't have feelings, deep feelings for you, but we get along for a little bit and then everything seems to fall apart."

"I know it does."

I'm surprised that he's agreeing with me on that. That's at least a starting point that we can both share. "If I knew what I wanted I'd tell you. But I want you to know that I want you to be a part of the baby's life. I would never keep you from being a parent, no matter what I said or didn't say."

"I shouldn't have said that." I find myself saying, "and really I'm happy that we are having a baby. I just needed some time to adjust to all of it and now I am happy and scared at the same time. I have you to help out though right?"

"Of course Erica, of course you do." He said with a soft smile. "I'll be there, whatever you and the baby need."

I smile at him, we sit and talk for a little bit longer, we might give it another go, and we might not. Nothing was certain in life, nothing ever good or nothing ever bad was certain and we would just have to take it one day at a time now. But this was a start again and that was what we needed right now.