I had a doctor's appointment that day. The sleeplessness and stress was making it hard to eat and I wondered if I was coming down with something. Everyone knows when you're miserable its easier to contract viruses and such so when she asked if I was pregnant I had to think hard. Nah, I'd had my last period not a few weeks ago.

"Was it heavy or light?"

"They're always light."

"Are you sexually active?"

"Yes."

"Have you experienced weight gain?"

I had to think but it was hard to say, I really depended on what clothes I was wearing, and they were all different shapes and sizes. "Maybe."

"Have your breasts in particular hurt?"

"No more than usual."

"What's usual?"

"They're big and I don't always sleep with a bra on so when they move around they hurt."

"Have they hurt recently?"

"Yes."

"And you've been being sick?"

"Well, yes, but I've been crying every time I'm separated from this guy since I met him and he needed space so it has to be stress."

"It could be, but I'd rather be sure."

So I was tested. She made me wait too.

I was pregnant.

I entered Dmitri's room feeling sick and wanting to run away but powering through. I couldn't have been prepared for the sight before me. The place was trashed. Everything was on the floor and evidently violence had a hand in setting it all there. Dmitri lay on his bed, asleep and exhausted looking and I couldn't believe he had this added to his plate by the universe.

I lay in front of him on my side and he put his arm around me.

"I'm sorry." He told me, relating to the mess.

"Dmitri, I need you tell me what you would have said before all of this… America vs Russia stuff, what would you have wanted me to do if I was…" I took a deep breath, "pregnant. Because I'm pretty far a long, would you believe it and I need to make a decision."

"I go to Russia tomorrow." He said quietly, and I knew even this wouldn't convince anyone to not let him go. "I'm sorry." He added, with his hand over the place we now knew something grew.

Neither of us slept that night, and he was leaving early. We talked in dazed one sentences, only 4-5 of them each time. Overall he respected my decision, but abortion was something he struggled to feel comfortable with, but then he might not return from Russia. All the same, he gave me his professor's name and number, and told me if I needed anything, I was to go to him.

I suppose I decided to keep the baby in a bid to will fate to go my way. When his sister reached out to me to let me know she was fighting to have his body released to her… well she skipped the part where I get informed he has died and possibly in a most awful manner… I surprised myself.

I thought about going home with my tail between my legs and my stomach full and telling, but it just depressed me to think that way. I thought about giving the baby to someone else more able and secure than I was, but that was like giving Dmitri away. And then I thought about not telling my family until I was ready, be that next month or in five years (that's what they get) and I went to the citizens advice and got a plan together.

The doctor's weren't convinced; I was categorically depressed and they were worried about my low blood and sugar levels and all sorts of other scary things. They thought the best thing for me was family, which says more about the distance between my family and the traditional idea of one. So I chose not to heed their warnings, and although they may have afterwards felt smug and vindicated, I still wouldn't have changed my mind if I had a do-over.

I soon needed help getting somewhere to live. The hostel I'd been working in had been so good to me about the whole situation, supportive and even loving. Since I had lived in the hostel during my work, I'd had very low rent, food, and bill costs, so my meager minimum wage had been well saved and with the help thrust upon me by the manager (maternity leave, pay advances, old odds and ends from her sister's kids) it had all fallen into place so that I could at least survive alone. But I needed a stronger voice than a hostel manager's to co-sign a lease on an apartment. It was in the nicest part of a bad area, at the top of a four story block. It had only two rooms, low ceilinged and relatively small but it was just me and the baby I needed space for. IT was within my means to, so all the advances and extras went on to pay for all the throw-aways of looking after a baby.

I called Professor McChord and he was polite and amiable, even charming. He invited me to the campus coffee shop I had met Dmitri at after our first encounter and his face pales when he realized I was pregnant.

"Dmitri never told me." He started.

"He never shared much." I recalled, having to glean much of his life out-with our encounters from what he didn't say rather than what he did.

"I feel so guilty about what happened to him." He confessed.

"Why? You didn't make him go, did you?"

I gathered then that he did. That's why Dmitri had said to ask him if I needed anything; he owed him.

"Forget I said that." I asked quietly, feeling a little hate for this lovely man before me despite the little voice in my head assuring me he probably was only the middle man. "I would really appreciate it if you could sign this for me."

"Is anyone helping you with all of this? Your family?"

"They're not really in the picture. My friends have been great though. You know, I only stayed in Wahshington because I fell in love with Dmitri?"

He looked like he was trying to say something but floundered.

"I don't mean to harass you by that, I'm just trying to remember the nice stuff."

"He was a good kid." He nodded, folding and refolding a napkin. I could tell it was hard for him to talk about. He signed the papers I had set on the table.

"Lets hope his goodness is a gene he passed on then."

That seemed to make the Professor smile but it carried a weight to it I could neither help nor intend. I stood, only now beginning to feel burdened by my abnormal growth. We shook hands and I set off, feeling sorrier for him than for myself or my baby.