Chapter Summary: Lea reveals to Dr. Glassman a secret about her past that she has always kept to herself.

AN: Here is a warning. I do kind of get political near the end of this chapter, so if you consider yourself pro-life and anti-abortion, I really recommend you skip this chapter (and no hate for this, please).

So far, this pregnancy has not been a piece of cake for Lea. Instead, it was a whole cake.

They were hiring a different doula this time, Naomi, who was very nice, sweet, and accommodating. When they sadly lost the previous pregnancy, Theresa gave them a refund and told them she was very sorry for their loss.

Besides the frightening miscarriage scare she experienced the week prior (both she and Shaun became increasingly more paranoid ever since), the morning sickness has become much more than unbearable and intolerable for her.

Both times, it wasn't exclusively in the morning that it would happen (Shaun believed that the person who coined the term in the first place was lazy). It would strike up at any time at any place, such as in the middle of the day at the hospital or during a doctor's appointment.

Compared to her last pregnancy, her morning sickness subsided at 13 weeks. But right now, it was still here and so much worse than last time. She'd vomit to the point where it turned into dry heaving, leaving her with a sore throat, and she could barely keep her food down.

She was thankful that she was ordered to stay off of her feet for two weeks and work from home last week, so she didn't have to worry about puking right in the middle of the hospital halls or cafeteria in front of a bunch of people. Overall, she just wished that she could be granted one nausea-free day.

As for Shaun, he really wished that he could magically make it all go away for her and make things better. He would give her potato chips, fennel seeds, lemon juice with water, saltines, ginger, herbal tea, and pretty much anything recommended that could do the trick to ease morning sickness…but it was always still the same for Lea.

At this point, Lea was starting to get worried that this was more than just morning sickness…and so was Shaun. Being the doctor he was, his main concern was that his wife had hyperemesis gravidarum.

They had scheduled a doctor's appointment (which wasn't the already-scheduled normal prenatal check-up) for Saturday, but Shaun worried that Lea was close to the moment when she would need to be hospitalized due to dehydration because she informed him that her pee was a burnt orange color and that she thought she lost some weight.

As Shaun was leaving for the hospital after checking Lea's blood pressure and noticing that it was low, he gave Lea a warning of advice before he walked out the door to get to the bus stop.

"Try and drink lots of fluids and at least try to eat something, the fact that your urine is a dark color is an indicator that you're very dehydrated, and so do your headaches. And call 9-1-1 if you start to feel faint and lightheaded," he ordered, being the doctor and not the dad, which didn't bother Lea at all this time…because she knew that he was right.

"Yes, Dr. Dad," Lea chuckled lightly as she took a sip of her honey lemon tea, walking over towards her husband to hug him, not wanting to kiss him because she couldn't get the taste of vomit out of her mouth no matter how many times she brushed her teeth. "Have a great day."

Shaun didn't admit it just yet, but he also had been feeling a bit more melancholic since the miscarriage scare…and he hated feeling this way.

Dr. Glassman walked over towards Shaun and Lea's apartment door and knocked on it, waiting patiently for Lea to answer it. He was supposed to be at work right now, but he was quickly stopping by to drop off some puke-proof meals for Lea as she was obviously too nauseous and exhausted to make some herself.

He hoped she would like them because the recipes he cooked up did kind of help him with the nausea he encountered during chemotherapy. He figured that he kind of owed it to her and Shaun to help them out when they're having a baby, especially since they both helped him out when he battled cancer…and he regrettably wasn't very kind to Lea when she drove him to his imaging appointment while Shaun was stuck in quarantine.

In his arms was tupperware that contained the following meals - banana oat muffins, watermelon mojito salad (non-alcoholic), carrot and ginger soup, and spicy lentil soup (Shaun told him Lea was craving spicy lentils). He also stopped by the farmer's market to pick up some of those natural strawberry beet popsicles that Shaun said Lea liked.

However, when he gently knocked on the door, Lea didn't answer. He pounded his knuckle on the door so the sound would be louder for her to hear, but she still didn't answer.

"Lea? Are you home?" He asked loudly. "I brought food for you that your stomach might be able to tolerate."

The door was oddly unlocked, so he just decided to go in and leave it on the kitchen counter or dining room table. He assumed that Lea had fallen asleep or just had her earbuds in with the volume turned up to the max. Yet when he walked in, he came upon an alarming discovery.

Lea was passed out on her back right next to the table behind the couch where the fish bowl was perched on. She was surrounded by a dropped container of fish food that had spilled all over the floor as well as a puddle of her own vomit, which mostly contained water and bile, indicating that her stomach didn't have anything left to barf back up. She was looking very pale and clammy and she had dark circles under her eyes. In addition, she also had a small cut on the side of her forehead. He assumed that she must have hit her head on the table very hard when she fainted.

"Oh god, Lea!"

Without hesitating, Aaron quickly and carefully set the food down on the dining room table and then pulled out his phone to call 9-1-1, putting it on speaker so he could perform the necessary first aid while talking to the dispatcher.

He gently shifted his employee into the recovery position and then pressed his fingers against her neck, checking her pulse while also using a washcloth he grabbed from the kitchen cabinet to put pressure on the wound on her head.

Then, he heard the dispatcher pick up.

"9-1-1, where is your emergency?" The voice asked.

"I need an ambulance on 327 Deia Drive at Apartment 24. It's on the second floor of the apartment building," he replied calmly. "My, um, daughter-in-law…she's 29-years-old and 16 weeks pregnant and she must have passed out and hit her head, and it's bleeding. I found her that way when I walked in. That cut is definitely going to need stitches. She must have passed out from dehydration and I'm concerned that she might have hyperemesis gravidarum."

"Hyperemesis gravidarum? Are you sure?" The dispatcher asked, sounding skeptical. "This is her first pregnancy?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Aaron huffed, rolling his eyes. "And this is actually her second pregnancy. She's been vomiting much more frequently than normal and she said she couldn't keep her food down. She takes her prenatal vitamins every single day. Her husband is a doctor, and he thinks she might have it, too. I've also been a doctor for three decades and have had some pregnant patients, so I'm pretty sure I know when morning sickness becomes too much."

"Alright, Sir, paramedics are on their way," the voice confirmed. "Does she have a pulse?"

"Yes," replied Aaron, ready to explain everything he already knew to the dispatcher. "She has a high pulse rate. Her husband told me that he took her blood pressure this morning and that it was low, so it's most likely still low now. I'm already putting pressure on her wound and I shifted her into the recovery position. So, just send a damn ambulance here already!"

Considering Lea's current status on her morning sickness, Shaun feared that he would get a call like this.

One minute, he was having lunch with Claire in the cafeteria. The next minute, he and Claire were sprinting towards the ER after he received an urgent text from Dr. Glassman that Lea was just admitted here as a patient and that Dr. Andrews and Dr. Lim were taking care of her.

When they arrived at the ER, Shaun and Claire scanned the entire area for Andrews and Lim. Shaun's panic built up even more when they weren't in sight. He started breathing in and out like Naomi suggested for both him and Lea, blowing out the candles.

"Shaun!"

Startled by someone shouting his name, Shaun turned around towards the source to see that it was Dr. Glassman who called for him.

"L-Lea," Shaun stammered, desperately scanning the beds for her.

"She's in Bay Three," Dr. Glassman motioned to a pale and shaken Shaun, guiding him and Claire to where Lea was.

Shaun stifled a gasp at the sight of Lea on the bed in front of him. Her shoes and socks had already been removed and she was looking very pale. He tried to see what her vitals were, but Nurse Villanueva was blocking the view. He saw that Dr. Lim was running the fetal doppler over Lea's belly, but Shaun wasn't sure if he could hear the heartbeat clearly.

Before Dr. Andrews could explain the situation, Shaun's panic continued to accelerate to a point where he couldn't think clearly.

"Murphy, I need you to calm down so I can explain what is going on," comforted Andrews, speaking to Shaun the same way he spoke to every other family member of a patient.

In an attempt to calm him down, Claire gently placed her hand on his shoulder. "Shaun, just breathe."

Claire's words were exactly what Shaun needed to hear in order to calm down.

He continued to rock his body in place, and he reached for his pocket. He pulled out his scalpel and wrung his hands around the cloth as he "blew out the candles". He frazzled his hair as he rocked back and forth, taking deep breaths that were in sync with his rocking, squeezing his scalpel.

"So, what happened?" Claire asked calmly.

Shaun stared at the floor and squeezed his scalpel, trying to pull himself out of his mini panic attack. "Is it hyperemesis gravidarum?"

"I believe so," sighed Dr. Lim as Nurse Villanueva administered fluids through Lea's IV tubes. "Thank god Dr. Glassman found her just in time."

Right on cue, there was a groggy moan from Lea, but her eyes remained closed. The monitors around her were beeping steadily.

Why am I here? Lea thought as she wondered what the hell was going on. Her head was pounding as she slowly tried to open her eyes. It took a while for her to realize that she was lying on a bed in the ER. She could see the blurry figures of Shaun, Dr. Glassman, Claire, Dr. Lim, Dr. Andrews, and Nurse Villanueva.

"Hey, Lea, how are you feeling? Do you remember what happened?" Dr. Lim interrogated.

"A little dizzy and nauseous," Lea croaked before she recited everything she could remember. "I think I was feeding Albert and Poppy, and then I must have thrown up. Oh, god! The baby!"

"The baby is fine. We're going to take good care of you and your baby," Andrews explained. "We think you might have hyperemesis gravidarum, which in simple terms is…"

"Severe morning sickness," finished Lea, sighing. "Shaun already told me about it. It's one of the perks and downsides of being married to a doctor."

"Yeah," said Dr. Lim, smiling softly at Lea. "From what Shaun and Dr. Glassman told us and based on our own medical observations, you're pretty dehydrated. We're going to run some tests. We've administered fluids through IVs which will…"

"Restore your hydration, electrolytes, vitamins, and nutrients," Shaun completed the sentence.

"We're also going to have to give you a nasogastric tube to get some nutrients into your stomach and we'll perform an ultrasound to check on the fetus," reassured Dr. Lim. "And since you hit your head when you fell, we'll also need to look for any concussions or head injuries of any kind. We're going to need to admit you for observation."

"That means you'll have to stay overnight," conceded Andrews.

"Go ahead and page an on-call OB/GYN," Lim requested, looking at Andrews.

Once Lea's wound was stitched up and bandaged, she was given a CT scan of her head and it was thankfully confirmed that she only had a mild concussion…so she was given another week to work from home, except she was told to actually stay off her feet for a week and have a substitute IT director for the week…but her usual stubborn self refused to give herself a break.

She was told that the good news was that her symptoms would disappear once she gives birth. However, the bad news was that postpartum recovery could be longer for her and that there were risks. Worst case scenario (besides losing the baby), she gives birth to a premature baby and/or her baby has a low birth weight.

While Shaun walked out of Lea's room for a while to talk to Claire, Dr. Glassman came in to check on her and see how she was doing.

"Thank you, Glassy," she shyly expressed her gratitude as he walked in. She was physically looking better than she did when she was admitted, but she appeared to be pretty banged up mentally.

"You're welcome. Are you okay? You seem upset," observed Dr. Glassman, guessing that it had something to do with the baby she and Shaun lost. Ironically, a pregnancy with a probable rainbow baby wasn't really always all blue skies, sunshine, and rainbows.

People like Lea and Shaun needed extra care, and he and everyone else all tried their best to make sure both of them were receiving it.

"No, honestly, I'm not," sobbed Lea, rubbing her eyes with her IV-secured arms. "I've honestly been back and forth about whether Shaun and I should have decided to have another baby. None of this is going the way I wanted it to go. I wanted to feel happy and excited, but all I can feel right now is fear and regret over what happened last time."

"Lea, you shouldn't have to regret something you had no control over," reassured Dr. Glassman, patting the woman's shoulder. "What happened during your last pregnancy, you did not cause it and nothing was your fault or anyone else's. Despite what some insensitive people who never experienced a similar situation like to say, sometimes, terrible things just happen to good people for no fair reason. It's just life."

Lea knew that Dr. Glassman was right. Too many people believed in the Just-World Hypothesis, a term she was surprisingly still able to remember, which was something she learned in her required psychology course in college. Unfortunately, as a person with self-esteem issues, she had a bad habit of putting herself down, especially over things that happened to her in the past.

"It's not about how my last pregnancy ended. Part of it is, but it isn't just that alone," she wept, staring down towards the foot of the bed with an expression of remorse. "Because although this is my second pregnancy with Shaun, this isn't my second pregnancy overall. It's actually my third."

Dr. Glassman was shocked at Lea's confession. He assumed that her first pregnancy must have occurred years ago when she was very young and obviously not ready for motherhood.

"Shaun already knows it, and so does Claire, Dr. Lim, and Jordan because during the complications with my last pregnancy, they asked me if I had any previous pregnancies, and that included every miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth," sighed Lea, already answering one of Dr. Glassman's questions that he was about to ask. "I already told him the whole story when I found out I was pregnant with Eleanor."

"When was your first pregnancy?" Aaron asked, expecting a possible heartbreaking answer as he took a seat next to the hospital bed.

"I got married at 18 and then got divorced pretty quickly. Not long after the divorce, I found out I was pregnant," answered Lea. "I was so not ready to be a mom or even go through pregnancy, and I never told anyone about it. Not my parents, not my brother, or my ex-husband, or even my grandparents. So, I had an abortion…and it's also when I started using birth control pills for the first time and then became terrified of committed relationships for years. Besides other doctors, the only person I ever told was Shaun. I never regretted my decision, but now I'm wondering if I should start."

"Are you saying that you think God is punishing you?" Aaron guessed, although neither Shaun nor Lea were religious, he knew they did both grow up Catholic.

"Sometimes," sighed Lea. "Because Shaun and I originally decided to have an abortion with our last pregnancy, but we changed our minds at the last minute. Sometimes, I kind of wish we just went on with the abortion so we wouldn't have to go through the grief of losing the baby. Also, I haven't felt traumatized by my decisions until now."

Aaron didn't know what to say to Lea. However, he was guessing that there was something else that Lea was leaving out…but he decided to continue and let her talk.

"I mean, it's not the abortion itself that I'm traumatized by. I was never traumatized and I don't regret having one. What actually keeps haunting me to this day are the anti-choice hecklers that were outside the Planned Parenthood I went to," explained Lea, and then Aaron realized that it all made sense.

"What were they doing?" Aaron asked, feeling a tear drip from his eye, although he knew that the answer was pretty obvious.

"Both times when I arrived and left, they were harassing me while I was trying to get to the building's entrance. They were holding up signs and saying things like 'think about what you are doing for your baby' or 'it was the will of God to bear your child'," shared Lea. "But, the one that actually didn't really haunt me until now was that this woman told me that God was going to punish me for killing my baby."

"And sometimes, you wonder if this is maybe karma coming back to haunt you?" Aaron suspected, wondering if this was the case.

"Yes, because think about it. When I decided to keep a pregnancy that I wanted, I ended up being forced to terminate. And now, I'm suffering through a difficult pregnancy to get another baby that I want," moaned Lea, choking up even more. "I never felt so traumatized by the specific words of a heckler until now…or even the awful, hurtful words of what Trump said about late term abortions during one of the 2016 debates. Because that was one of the toughest decisions I ever made in my life. I never thought I would ever become one of those women."

"Who would have to make one of the most painful, toughest decisions of her life?"

Lea nodded, tears squeezing from her eyes. "Hearing those words about 'ripping babies straight from the womb' hurts so much more now that I've actually been through it. Hearing it for the very first time made me angry, but remembering his scare rhetoric now just really makes it much more traumatizing, especially because some of my relatives actually voted for him or even support him. Shaun and I never did and we never will."

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself," Aaron comforted, wanting to give Lea a hug. "The abortion you had as a teenager and the abortion you canceled in your late 20s, they have nothing to do with your current situation. You made your own personal decisions, which have no effect on your fate."

Aaron also shuddered at that horrible memory of watching that presidential debate, aware that wasn't how second and third trimester abortions were performed.

"You're going to be okay," he reassured. "You and Shaun can get through this, and you'll have a beautiful baby to love."

He also started to feel more sorrow for Lea than he ever felt since she lost her last baby (it was also when she acted a lot more vulnerable in front of him). No wonder she was so afraid of relationships, he thought.

AN: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and let me know what you thought of Dr. Glassman and Lea's heart-to-heart talk about her past.

However, since Debbie and Glassman are now divorced in canon, would you like me to keep them married in this story or integrate their divorce into a later chapter? Because honestly, I am torn because I did think they rushed into the marriage and think they weren't meant for each other. I mostly wrote Debbie into my previous fics because I thought she was going to be around for the whole show (I actually thought she and Glassy would divorce at the beginning of season 3). Please let me know what you think in the comments or send me a message.