Medical School & Mommyhood

Imagine, if you will, Uncle Roscoe - a very sizable man with long locs, singing This Woman's Work, in a true classical Soprano…

all that his niece Charlotte wants to do is rest because she spent hours working as he sings about to push a tiny human out of her body. Her husband, Jasper, an Uncle Roscoe enthusiast and a lover of emotional displays is visibly very emotionally shaken by this lovely gesture as he holds in his arms their small child.

As Charlotte's patience wears thin, Uncle Roscoe's performance gets thicker and when he croons, "Oh Darling, make it go…"

"I'll make YOU go!" She practically shrieks.

Jasper gasps, but rubs the back of her neck, lovingly, "She's tired, Uncle Rox. That was the most beautiful gift that anybody has given us, since this, the day of our daughter's birth…" He winced, "Baby's birth! Baby's birth!" He said and smiled at winked at Charlotte.

She had been trying to program him from treating their child like a son or daughter, so whenever the baby finally came out and she realized that they were in that female presenting body, she cried. She knew that meant a harder time for this kid, but Jasper cheered, "I have a daughter!" And, well… That was just gonna mess up the footage, wasn't it? What if Jasper Jr isn't a girl? She was very preoccupied with the thought, because now, she felt like Jasper had gotten off of the page of how she wanted to raise kids. How they agreed to raise their kids before she could ever agree to carrying one full term! If he saw Jasper Jr as his "little girl," he might treat her that way and while Jasper was very progressive in a lot of ways, he still had some of that good old fashioned sexism in his DNA and she just wanted whoever they were to be someone that if the world was gonna put stipulations and limitations on… their parents at least would never.

Jasper held the baby close, most of the time. Charlotte was in a lot of pain and discomfort. She wasn't the "physical pain" type. She abhorred it and had never handled it well. If Jasper could have switched places with her and took on all of the pain and discomfort, he would have. He didn't say that to her, because he thought it would seem like a frivolous platitude, but she knew deep down inside that was the kind of person he was. He would do anything for her to not hurt. Whenever he handed Baby Jasper back to her, he went to escort Uncle Roscoe out of the hospital.

Charlotte looked down at this brown baby person with brown eyes, stretched wide, but unable to focus, the softest and curliest of curls that she had ever seen and a slightly too big onesie that Jasper must've put on them when Charlotte was asleep that had "My Daddy loves me more than the WHOLE world!" and a drawing of a heart shaped Earth. "You are this whole world." Jasper sniffled and Charlotte glanced up. She hadn't noticed that he was back until then. Maybe he had just returned. He quickly made his way to the bed and rested next to them. "Daddy's back."

"So, we didn't get a chance to fill out their birth certificate. I know that you've called them Jasper Jr most of the time, but I didn't think you'd want that on official paperwork, since Jr. is usually gender specific to boys, and because there's no way we're giving them my middle name, even if you've rebranded it." They laughed.

"No. I don't want them to be your junior, not because of the history of junior, but because of your middle name. I was thinking, though. Whenever I rebranded your middle name, which, may I say is such an EXTRA description of what I actually did…"

"You stated that my middle name was a prophecy because I'm so determined. That was brilliant and beautiful. I wish we were in love when it happened so I could make love to you for how awesome that was…"

"It got me thinking!" She cut him off. This soon after labor, the LAST thing she wanted to think about was making love. "The word "determined." Because yours was an uncertain usage. To be determined is so tentative and unstable, unless it's a declaration of this version of you. Look at what you've done with yourself over the years. Only a determined person could do that and I know that your middle name wasn't actually a name, but a placeholder, but we don't need any placeholder. We can just give them a name. And, I can't think of one more fitting and accurate than something that I think of every time that I look at you… Determined."

"Determined?" He repeated.

"Several cultures name children things that are attributes or wishes or descriptions. Even some of the names that they name their children translates into characteristics when you put them in their original form. We speak English, so Determined. BUT… If you just hate it, I can go for a name that translates to it, like Erimentha or Ernest… Ernesta… etc…"

"No. No. Those are hideous. Anyway, I love it. I just… I keep thinking that it isn't possible for me to have more joy, but then, I keep finding more, or… it keeps finding me. If someone had told me at 16 that I would have a family, an amazing wife who is out of my league in like every way, but loves me just like she's in my league, and a beautiful baby that looks just like her and door after door of opportunity to thrive in my career and take care of them… I just… I would have thought it was make believe. I'm living a dream." He wrapped his arms around Charlotte and rested on her shoulder. "Jasper Determined Dunlop."

"We can call them "Jazz," just to make it a little less convoluted when speaking at home," she suggested. "They look like a Jazz."

"They look like a Charlotte," he said and booped her nose.

.

Medical school was NOT a brilliant idea for a new mother, but Charlotte was always a hardworking person, so she figured that she could handle this. Whenever it seemed to get really hard, Jasper would always say, "You know, you can quit, whenever you want." But, that would have the opposite effect. She pushed harder. No, she couldn't quit whenever she wanted to! In addition to that being the opposite of what she wanted to do, it would be too much like what she knew Jasper wanted her to do. He wanted her to stay at home with the kids whenever he wasn't able to. Speaking of… Shortly after Charlotte got her entry into medical school, she also got pregnant, again.

What could she say? Surely, old her would have planned for and against this, but mommy her, busy with Jazz, medical school, etc took the time that she could whenever she got with her husband to enjoy it and she hadn't been as meticulous as you might expect! So, she had two babies, less than a year apart and was going to medical school during her second pregnancy.

Jasper wanted her to take a break. It was too much, he'd say. Nobody should put themselves through all of this bodily and mental strain, if they didn't have to and she didn't have to. They were more than comfortable without her having a doctorate, and the girls were having so many moments that she was missing out on! "The kids," she corrected him. "Until they say otherwise…"

"Well, you're never home to implement that," he said, sulking. She threw him a glare. He sighed and said, "I don't slip up, much. But, nobody knows a boy named Amber, so it's harder to keep up with it with her than with Jazz."

"With them!" They both said at the same time, correcting him.

Charlotte sighed. "I can't take a break. I took a break from work when I had Jazz. I took a break from medical school when I had Amber."

"Hardly!"

"It affected me!" She squealed, collected her things and stormed out of the room. Jasper wiped his face and looked over at the two small children. The toddler with a full head of wild curls, trying to give a ball to the baby in the walker, with equally as curly hair, but not as much of it. Amber accepted the ball and immediately tried to stuff it into their mouth. Jasper told himself that it had been rolling on the floor, but if he snatched it away, they were definitely gonna cry. He didn't need to upset another one of his loves tonight. He just wished that Charlotte could realize what she was missing out on whenever she wasn't around. What he couldn't put into words… the bonds being formed in her absence… They were supposed to be doing all of this together.

Several times, Jasper would make plans for the entire family at times when she didn't have "anything pressing" coming up, but by the time it was time for the plans, she would either be so tired that she told him to just go without her, or he would cancel, seeing that she was tired, which generally resulted in her fussing very grouchily about why he cancelled when he knew that she would be trying to sleep. Or better yet, why even be on this side of the house when the house that they bought was huge? "I THOUGHT that even though you're tired that you might want to at least TRY to pretend that our children exist!" he snapped back once. She was angered to full awakeness. He regretted letting that accusation slip out. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to say that."

"You said it. So, you meant it," she commented, clearly angry.

"No. I don't know where that came from. Some dark and wrong part of me. I don't feel that way…"

"And the thing that perplexes me about you saying that is that I wasn't even really ready to start having children. I was going through things at my workplace and I was desperate and vulnerable, and you convinced me that I could do whatever I wanted to do and began to put the pressure on me to begin having children."

"That's not exactly how I remember…"

"So, in my emotionally distressed state, I came to the decision that if I did have a baby and transition away from that lab, Jasper will have my back!"

"I do… Char…" He sounded desperate, but she was not finished.

"SO, I did have a baby and I did transition away from the lab and I entered medical school to further my career, and in between, I went to networking luncheons, dog tired, with a small infant and sometimes two dogs and I smiled and socialized - two things I don't even really like doing that much - with your clients, to support your career change that you SPRUNG on us suddenly one day then dived head first into it with my complete and utter support, because I knew that you hated your job and wanted to do something else. Granted, there were no children at the time, but if there were, I would never address you the way that you just came at me."

"If the kids were born, I wouldn't have made such a rash decision!" He said.

"So… only the kids' feelings matter? They don't even know what's going on. I had to just tell myself to stay out of your way while you sorted something out to bring you joy and when I do the same thing, kids or not, I expect the same respect. It isn't like I never see them! It isn't like I abandoned them. A lot of women are career women. Some of them out there doing it by themselves. I take the time that I take because I know that the two children that I grew inside of my body, painfully ushered into this world, and in exhaustion and dedication fed on my own two teets, are in safe hands, because I've trusted myself in those very same hands for many years before I ever even decided to make the sacrifices that I made to my career trajectory and to my body to have them. So. You. Saying. Such. A. Thing. To. Me?" Her shoulders slumped. Her anger had been released and replaced by hurt and sadness. "Fuck you, Jasper." She whispered, started crying and left the room.

"Baby!" he called and pulled two handfuls of his own hair. How could he? How could he have sank so low as to say something like that to her? They didn't argue a lot, not over really serious stuff, so maybe he just reverted to the only kinds of arguments he was used to - the way he and his mom would speak at each other's flaws instead of talking out their problems. Charlotte definitely didn't deserve that, especially when they hadn't really discussed this concern of his in any real way. So, it was not only out of nowhere to her, but he could only imagine how extremely hurtful that must've been. She was supposed to be able to trust him with her feelings, with her heart, with the truth. He did feel like she didn't spend enough time with the kids, but that wasn't the way to say it, and while she's tired and sleepy and… "Fuck!" he hissed at himself.

"Fuck!" Jazz repeated. He gasped and rushed over to where they were playing with the ladybug hockey set that Pansy bought.

"No, no, no… Don't say that J."

They giggled and repeated, "Fuck!" Daddy's excitement face was hilarious to them and they realized that the key to getting it was to say whatever "Fuck" was. Jasper sat on the floor and covered his face. He was really not doing a good job today. Jazz pulled his hands from over his face and laughed, "Fuck." He could only laugh now too, at this point. Amber was crawling to the puck. They were gonna try to eat it. That was all they did. Poop their diaper and try to eat everything but what was served to them as food. He snatched them away just in time.

Charlotte came out of the bedroom, having been crying for a while, ready to face Jasper again and smooth over whatever happened, because even though she felt attacked and was going to be hurting for a while, she knew that Jasper would never say something just to hurt her, so that was obviously how he felt and they needed to come up with a solution for it. Because, she was not going to tolerate another low blow like that in the future.

Jasper had started on dinner. Jazz was "helping" and Amber Reign was already in the highchair, with an empty plastic bowl and spoon to hold them over. The moment they saw Charlotte, they began to kick their legs happily and try to get out of the seat, so she went to collect them. Jasper glanced over and just seeing her was overcome with guilt again. Jazz went over too and began to tell their mom a story that Charlotte understood almost perfectly, despite the fact that none of it was in real words that adults could just understand. Jasper could sometimes detect a few sprinkled in, but he didn't have that gift that Charlotte tended to have where she pretty much got all of what this kid was telling her.

He came over and said, "Char, about earlier…"

"Please don't taint what little time I spend with my children with any of that. We can get into it later." She said it with a smile, as to not alarm the children, but he saw her eyes, how sad they were and the flecs of anger whenever he spoke. After dinner, which was weird because they rarely got dinner together as a family and whenever they did, usually Jasper and Charlotte were catching up like besties and sprinkling the children in. Jasper was silent. He didn't want to say anything. Charlotte was talking with the kids. Helping Amber with the spoon and Jazz to pronounce things a little bit better. But, afterwards, Charlotte said, "I'll get the kids cleaned up. You got the table?"

He just nodded. He was… simply depressed that he had done this to his home. He had invited in something ugly and something he never wanted to bring from his first family to this one. She sighed, collected Amber, kissed him on the cheek and took Jazz's hand. "You kids are filthy! Who taught you two how to eat?" She joked around. Jasper was grateful for that pity kiss on the cheek, but he wasn't gonna forgive himself any time soon.

He cleaned up the kitchen and went into the bedroom. Charlotte had already went to sleep. Probably couldn't sleep earlier after he'd upset her. He didn't know if he should get into bed or go to the couch. There was a pullout wall bed in Jazz's room and a cot in Amber's nursery. He could crash in either, but that might confuse the kids. They only used those whenever the kids were scared or sick or sleep eluded them for some other reason. Not for selfish dads who say hurtful things to their wives when frustrated. She stirred and gasped when she saw him standing there. "My god, Jasper! What're you doing?"

"Trying to figure out if I should get into bed or not. Didn't mean to wake you." He sat on the bed, and didn't move. He felt her arms wrap behind him from behind and her head rest on his back. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have…"

"Let me talk first, okay?" He nodded. "Okay. I've had a rough time in medical school. I had a rough time prior to that. Before, whenever I had a rough time, I'd come home and vent and fuss and cry and you were always there for me. Today, I wanted to sleep. That's all I wanted, and I kept hearing Amber screaming every time you took something from them. Jazz talking nonstop. And, that's what they should be doing. They're kids. Kids are noisy creatures. I should have just came and asked, "Hey. Think you could maybe take them on a day trip or something. I really want to sleep." Instead, I came in fussing and I really shouldn't have spoken to you that way, especially in front of them. So, it wasn't like I came home and wanted to go to sleep and you went off on me. I probably triggered something. I probably made you feel some type of way. But, Jasper… even though I am holding myself accountable for my part in that argument…" Her voice cracked. "You can't say things that hurtful to me. Okay? Because… I can't handle it. If you had fussed back and told me not to talk to you that way, I'd have been mad, maybe. I'm cranky and tired, so I probably wouldn't have been super rational. But, what you said…"

"It wasn't fair. I'm sorry." He turned to hold her. "I don't know why I would say something like that. I promise, all I ever speak about is how great of a mom you are. Because, you are, Char. You've put Amber in a pouch while you've studied for midterms. You've let Jazz think they were helping you study by lowkey going over anatomy notes with them. I just had an image in my head that when we started a family, it would be perfect. That's on me. Nothing's perfect, but you're always wonderful and you spend as much time as humanly possible with them. That was… so shitty of me." He sniffled. "And I accidentally taught Jazz the word "Fuck." Charlotte accidentally started laughing at that portion of the confession and he squealed, "They keep on saying it and I can't stop them!"

"I'm sure they'll survive, F Sized."

He squeezed her. "I'm still that?"

"Hurting my feelings one time doesn't make me stop loving you, but you'd better be really careful in the future. I wanted to punch you in the face." He allowed himself a little laugh.

"It wouldn't hurt. You have miserable upper body strength."

"Nu uhn. I've had to work on it because I have to be able to help move those body dummies!"

"Okay, but that won't make your punches harder, necessarily."

"You wanna test it out?" she jokingly threatened.

"I wanna hold my wife."

"Okay. But, I'm gonna lay down and actually finally get some sleep."

"Yes, that's good. You deserve it." She laid back down and Jasper wrapped himself around her, crying softly. She knew that she couldn't say anything more to help him accept that sometimes, even he'll make mistakes. She hated it though. She hadn't heard him crying in a really long time. She turned to wipe his face, as needed and did so until the sleep took over her. He didn't know if her graciousness made him feel better, or worse.

.

Her last year of medical school, Charlotte got pregnant again. Jazz was a 4 year old wild child, Amber a 2year old TOTAL princess, and this July baby that she would have, she DESPERATELY wanted not to be a Leo like their father. She loved him and everything, but did she need two personalities like that? Whenever she already had a restless Aries child and a Sagittarius drama queen. Being an Earth sign surrounded by all this fire was enough for Charlotte! "So… You want them to be a Cancer?" Jasper asked and rolled his eyes. "I can tell you right now, you don't want to deal with the emotional habits of a cancer on a daily basis. You hate dealing with emotions."

"I… don't hate dealing with emotions. And we aren't talking about some person in a mommy group. We're talking about my kids. I'd deal with whatever."

"I'm rooting for a Leo," he said flat out.

"These birthdays are so close together!" She complained. "Mine and Jazz's. Henry's and Amber's. Now yours and Ruby's."

"I like it. We're all birthstone buddies. I was so stoked to find out that even though technically Jasper isn't Jazz's birthstone, it's the planetary stone of Aries. That was awesomely cool accidental serendipity."

"You don't have to say accidental in front of serendipity." He rolled his eyes. She could stomp him in science and math, but she didn't want any of him in Language Arts. "I'm worried."

"About what?"

"That after medical school nearly tore our marriage apart that I might not even be able to use it."

"Both of those observations are ridiculous."

"I'm going to have to take a maternity leave when I should be in my internship. Which means that I will have to probably postpone it and seeing that, who will want me, Dude? It's like the world ONLY wants child producing humans to do that."

"The country, maybe. A lot of other places have better opportunities and situations when it comes to maternity politics. You wanna move somewhere?"

She laughed, "WHERE? What country would I want to just try to move to, knowing nothing of their language, society, etc, because of a maternity leave situation?"

"I didn't consider all of those things when I suggested it." Charlotte laughed and leaned in to give him a kiss, to which, of course, he responded, fully engaged.

Jazz came into the room and folded her arms, "You two kissing in the mouth in here?"

"Mind ya business!" Charlotte said back.

"Y'all nasty," Jazz commented and left.

"I feel like that couldn't have been the reason they came in here," Charlotte observed.

"They are bad at focusing, just like their daddy. I'm gonna go check things out." he was gone for about 30 seconds whenever he shouted, "OH MY GOD, AMBER!" Charlotte jumped up and went to see what that meant. Amber had a yellow power wheels convertible that Jasper had specifically done that way because all of the ones that he could find were pink or purple, and neither were colors that they liked, despite often selecting "girl things"themselves… and they had just covered it in painted handprints.

"How did they get paint?" Charlotte wondered.

Jazz said, "I got my ladder chair."

Charlotte noticed the rolling steps that Jasper sometimes used for housework and she stared at him. "I thought I put those away." He grabbed the rolling steps and Charlotte grabbed the paints. "Well, they've got an even more custom car now," he said, with a laugh.

"No more fire signs. No more fire signs…" Charlotte cooed, picking up the toddler who was wearing a Belle gown from Beauty and the Beast - their favorite Disney Princess, so she could clean the paint off of them before it got worse.

"You left the paint, Mom!" Jazz commented, even though they were the one that even got it down for Amber in the first place.

"No more fire signs. No more fire signs."

Eight Months Later…

"Another fire sign!" Jasper cheered. This dude was about to have a mini Leo in the house, like all of their children weren't already just various incarnations of mini Jaspers. Uncle Roscoe came to the hospital with a boombox and Charlotte already knew that she wasn't in the mood. He and Jack Leigh had given them a "blues version" of Amber by 311 whenever Amber was born and while Charlotte wanted to ban both of them from the hospital any time she had a baby, this was apparently something that Jasper felt was a good tradition. These songs. She wondered what she was about to have to endure with this infant latched on to her person to feed. Her uncle pressed play. Fire, by the Ohio Players. She put in the earplugs that she had brought in preparation for Uncle Roscoe's tribute and went to sleep. Ruby anxiously looked around to find the source of the music, but wasn't about to let go of their lifeline to milk, either.