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A/N- Capricorn75 has bullied me into posting the rest of it. Thanks.
Alice dutifully called Angela and I about planning Rosalie's baby shower, although she was hardly halfway through her first trimester.
"When are we going to have this?" Alice asked, opening her day planner as we met at her coffee shop.
"Can we plan this for late April?" I asked.
"I'm in agreement," Angela said. "We'll be leaving for vacation in May, so let's get this over with."
"So, let's come up with themes," Alice said. Alice had to have a theme at every party she threw. She went overboard. "Something that suits Rosalie. Let's not worry about what Emmett thinks."
Rosalie had had a yellow theme at her wedding. It had been a cheerful wedding- yellow was a great color, anyways. I suggested it, and Alice snorted. "How about… Breakfast at Tiffany's?" Angela asked. "We can have a brunch. And old retro 1960s New York decorations and we can dress up like Audrey Hepburn."
"Oh, that's perfect!" Alice cried. "I love it! That's what we're doing."
The conversation eventually drifted to if we were going to allow the husbands to come. Alice thought that it was a bad idea, but Angela thought it was just fine- they usually helped us with the decorations. "Are you going to bring Edward?" she asked.
I felt a little guilty. Edward and I hadn't gone public, yet. "Why would I bring Edward?" I asked.
"Well, I thought since you're spending so much time with him…"
"He's a doctor, he helped take care of my baby," I said.
"You know, it's OK if you want to start seeing someone again," Alice said. "It's been a year. I think that's appropriate mourning time to get over Mike."
"Well… maybe we should ask him for some help, if he's off for that day," I said, playing it off.
While I was unloading some stock, wiping my nose, and Jeannie was cruising the store in her glider, Jasper came running in.
"Bella! Emmett!" he shouted. Jasper's usually a pretty soft-spoken guy. I knew something big was going on.
"Jasper? What is it?" I cried.
"It worked!" he cried. "The in vitro treatments worked! We're going to be parents!"
"Congratulations, man!" Emmett cried, hugging him.
"That's great!" I said. Jeannie came around in her glider and grinned at him. Jasper picked her up and kissed her.
"We'll tell Rose," Emmett said.
"I'm gonna be a dad!" Jasper yelled. I hugged Jasper before he left the store, and took Jeannie back. He almost ran out the door with Jeannie he was so excited.
"You're going to be a cousin, Figgy!" I cried. "Aunt Allie's having a baby, too!"
"Alice is pregnant at the same time as Rose, this couldn't have worked out better," Emmett said.
"Yeah," I said, sighing. I wondered how Alice knew. She had been tracking her cycle, keeping an ovulation calendar, doing all sorts of ritualistic things like standing on her head after sex. Jasper had to hold her feet up while she balanced on the wall when she did that. She told me all about it. It made me laugh, it was ridiculous the things she did to have a baby.
And I had gotten pregnant without a lot of help, either, when I had had Figgy, but when Mike and I had decided to try, we only had to try for two months before I missed a period. Speaking of which… I was supposed to get it this earlier week. It came and went when it wanted to since Jeannie was born, but I didn't think about it too much. I panicked for only a moment. I had been nursing a cold since Jeannie got out of the hospital, pretty much. I wasn't the most fertile uterus in town, it had taken Mike and me a few tries to get pregnant. Edward had been using condoms the last few times. Our first time, we hadn't used anything at all, but it had been so poorly planned, so spur-of-the-moment.
I ran to the office to shut myself in.
I couldn't be pregnant. No, not me, not right now. I wasn't remarried, yet. Mike had been dead over a year. I felt sick for a moment.
Small hands pounded a rhythm at the bottom of the office door.
"Bean?" I asked, standing up. I wasn't particularly religious. I had enough money in the bank that I could get an abortion if I had to and nobody would know. But, I had to know if I was pregnant, first.
After work, I took Jeannie to the drug store with me and picked up several things, tossing in a pregnancy test to keep the cashier from noticing. I sneaked it into the house and took it.
While I waited on the results, I thought about what this meant for Edward and me. We weren't even telling people we were seeing each other, yet. For me to get pregnant with Carlisle's nephew, the one in the prestigious medical internship, Carlisle, who was like a second dad to me, that would be a slap in the face to him and his family. Jasper and Alice would be hurt- this was their time to bask in the glow of a pregnancy that they'd never thought she'd ever have. I'd give birth about the same time as Alice and Rosalie. Charlie, Renée and Phil would be so ashamed of me. Where would we put this baby? I'd have to move out, but I was hardly making any kind of profit from the store. There was no room in this house. Well, I wasn't the first person in Forks to give birth to a baby outside of marriage, but everyone expected better of me. Especially better of Edward. I could only imagine the humiliation Edward would suffer if everyone suddenly found out that he had impregnated me and no one knew that we were an item before this. That he had been seduced by the slutty widow Newton, the Police Chief's daughter. My only option was an abortion. I hated to do this. It was best that I did this, now, and not let any body know about it. I wondered if I should even tell Edward. I felt backed into a corner.
I didn't know the first thing about abortion. I had heard in college that it was painful and would leave you barren and put you at risk for breast cancer. The internet was not a reliable source for information on abortion.
I checked the pregnancy test. I was, indeed, pregnant.
I was a complete zombie that night. I debated on whether or not to tell Edward the news. I needed somebody to tell. Somebody trustworthy, who wouldn't spread the news but would support my decision. I thought and thought and thought… and finally, I came up with my choice.
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