Eight weeks pregnant (July 3rd)
Sitting in the OB-GYN office waiting room, Jason heard the hushed tones of a whisper behind them and immediately knew what was happening. He could hear the couple behind them debating about what he was doing there and whether he not was Lyla's husband in such a quiet voice that he missed words. He tried to keep up his focus without looking backward. Before she even turned, he could feel Lyla tensing up. "It's fine, Lyla," he said quietly.
For years now, this has been a part of Jason's life. When he first got hurt, he hated when people made the little comments about him or when they'd stare at him while he was living his day-to-day life like he was some zoo animal on display. Some people tried to hide it, glancing at him repeatedly or talking in a whisper, whereas others just blatantly did it in front of his face. As he got more comfortable with this lifestyle, he found it easier to ignore these people and accept it all as a part of his life. For Lyla, he could tell this still wasn't as easy. Despite being friends with him for many years after his injury, she hadn't been so directly a part of this for as many years as he had.
"No, it isn't," Lyla furrowed her eyebrows. "I'm so sick of people assuming that you're not my husband, just because you happen to use a wheelchair." She hated when people looked at him like that or said those stupid little comments, like he was incapable of being a regular person. She wished that she could just show each of them a list of the roles that Jason took on regularly: husband, father, high profile sports agent, athlete, person who repaired everything in their home, and her very best friend. If anything, he was better than a regular person. "They just don't understand," she said.
"I know," he answered, covering her hand with his own. "They're not trying to hurt you," he said. "They just haven't lived this life that we have."
"They don't hurt me, Jason," Lyla crossed her arms, turning back to stare daggers at the couple that was talking. "They make me pissed off, and today, I don't want to be pissed off, not when we are about to see our baby for the first time." She stood up quickly.
Jason tried to grab her hand again, "Ly- " he started to say, as she stormed away toward the couple. He turned his chair swiftly to follow her.
"Excuse me," Lyla said, interrupting the couple who were now talking about something else.
The couple looked up at her, both looking a little bit horrified. The woman in the couple was clearly very pregnant, making Jason want the whole encounter to stop even faster than he was already hoping. "Um, hello," the woman said quietly.
"Hello," Lyla said firmly, keeping her arms crossed. "I overheard you inquiring about my husband from where we were sitting over there and wanted to know if we could answer any questions for you." She said pointedly.
The woman's face turned a brighter shade of pink. She was clearly embarrassed. The man glanced over at her as if he was waiting for her to say something, before he jumped in, "Uh - oh, uh, we're sorry about that, miss."
Lyla nodded. "Thank you." For a moment, Jason thought that was going to be it before Lyla started to speak again, "But, instead of being sorry, I'd highly encourage you to do your research on spinal cord injuries. My husband is already a father and, happily for both us, is going to be having his second child with me. He also happens to be amazing in about five thousand other ways, so next time, maybe don't make assumptions."
The couple looked flabbergasted and just nodded at her. Lyla quickly turned away to head back to their seating area. Jason glanced at the couple and quietly added, "Sorry about that," to them before turning to follow her.
Clearly still annoyed, Lyla sat back down, picked up a magazine, and began flipping through it.
"Can you put that down for a second?" Jason asked her quietly. She kept flipping, looking a bit like she might burst into tears. "Lyla, stop," he repeated, placing his hand over hers. "Hey, I'm here to talk through these things, you know. I get that it can be hard. I've been living this for years now."
Lyla looked at him. "I know," She said with a sigh. "I probably went a little overboard. I mean, that woman was like nine months pregnant, but I just can't stand it sometimes." She wished that calling out the couple had made her feel better, but it hadn't. If anything, she felt a little bit bad that she made them so embarrassed and that she realized that it probably made Jason more embarrassed in the process too. She knew that he wanted her to let it go, but for whatever reason, she hadn't been able to this time. She felt tears in her eyes from all the frustration.
Jason noticed the tears. "Hey, hey, calm down attack dog," he said, his voice lightening. "Babe, it's just all the hormones." He glanced down at her stomach with a smile, "Our little baby is in there, growing for us, and it's going to throw all of your normal hormones all over the place. But it's all going to be worth it, every single second, because what you're doing is going to bring us our little girl."
Lyla smiled, sliding her hand over her stomach. "You don't know that it's going to be a girl!" Even before she had gotten pregnant, Jason had seemed convinced that they'd have a girl. Secretly, Lyla had started to almost believe it too.
"I have a feeling that we have a little lady in there," he said rubbing her stomach with his hand. "I also think that she's our future president, but I might be a bit biased," he shrugged.
"I can agree on that one - boy or girl!" Lyla said, her grin expanding. She didn't care what this baby pursued professionally though, as long as it made them happy. She hoped that she could be the type of mother to convey that to her child. She had experienced what it was like to have parents' with such demanding expectations and had struggled with it for many years. As a step parent, she thought she'd been doing a decent job so far of encouraging Noah to pursue whatever dreams made him happy. It helped that playing her role was essentially her job at work as a guidance counselor too.
"Lyla Street?" The nurse entered into the waiting area and called her name. Lyla felt butterflies flutter through her stomach.
"Ready partner?" Jason asked her, as she dropped her magazine back on the rack.
"Ready to get good news," She confirmed, smiling nervously back at him as they headed over to the door to the examining rooms. Turning to the nurse, she smiled, "Hi, I'm Lyla and this is my husband, Jason."
"Hi, I'm Mandy," the nurse said, introducing herself.
Jason stopped wheeling momentarily so he could shake Mandy's hand. "Very nice to meet you, Mandy. How are you today?" He asked. Medical professionals were a larger part of their life than most people's due to Jason's injury. They both tried to get to know each of their regular medical professionals as people too, something that Lyla had struggled when Jason was first injured.
Lyla reached out her hand too, smiling at Mandy. "Hello Mandy. Thanks for helping us today," she said. Mandy shook her hand as well with a smile.
"I'm doing well today, but not as good as you both are going to be doing when we get you all hooked up to this ultrasound. I see it's your first one after a positive pregnancy test?" Mandy replied with a smile.
"More like three pregnancy tests," Lyla answered. "We wanted to be sure. We've been trying for a little while."
"Of course," Mandy nodded. "How have you been feeling, Lyla?"
"Pretty good," Lyla answered. "I've had a bit of nausea off and on and feel a little bit more fatigued than usual, but other than that, everything has been great. We're just so excited, you know? I don't think it would be possible for me not to feel great."
"Just what we like to hear," Mandy answered. "Now, Lyla, if you could just lay on the table, I'm going to do a little check-up for you. Then, the ultrasound tech will come in to do a sonogram for you and will be able to print some pictures for the two of you, sound good? From there, the doctor will be able to confirm your due date and let you know when to come back next."
The ultrasound tech joined the nurse and began the sonogram. She slid the jelly on Lyla's belly and began to explain the process of how they'd use this as the dating exam to figure out the baby's due date and to get them both the first pictures of their future baby.
"Mr. and Mrs. Street, meet your baby," the ultrasound tech said, gesturing toward a tiny bean-like figure in the middle of the monitor. The picture was murky and dark, but you still could make out the shape clearly.
As soon as the image came on the monitor, Lyla felt her heart leap. She squeezed her hand around Jason's own, as he watched from next to her, feeling her eyes fill up with tears. "Wow," Lyla managed to utter. "We did it, Jason." Lyla turned to look at her husband, whose eyes were also filling up. He wiped away a tear with the back of his hand, smiling at her.
"First glance and I can already tell that our kid's a genius," Jason said, sounding a bit choked up even as he joked with her.
"Our kid," she repeated back to him, squeezing his hand a bit tighter. "I love our kid already," she said, feeling sentimental as she processed it all.
Lyla had met Jason nearly twenty years ago when they were just kids. He had been her first everything - kiss, boyfriend, partner, lover. For most of her teens, a life with Jason seemed like an inevitability. She had the entire dream mapped out back then. He'd play in the NFL. She'd do philanthropy work and raise their kids. They'd be married by twenty-five and madly in love forever, and, as a bonus, they'd be financially secure and successful. Then, suddenly, that hot Friday night happened at the beginning of Jason's senior year, and everything changed. They weren't kids after that one moment, really, not in any sense that mattered. Lyla considered it the moment when she first became an adult, even at the relatively young age of sixteen years old. Innocence lost for them both, Jason's spine shattered, right along with their entire plan, or so it seemed.
It took them a long time to come back together after that first year, but it was like a magnet kept pulling them back together until they couldn't resist it anymore. In that in-between, Lyla tried to make other futures work, but nothing felt right. She watched as Jason raised a son with Erin, never able to shake the feeling that it was supposed to have been the two of them who had kids together, but loving Noah nonetheless. Then, one fateful afternoon, Jason called her on the phone and asked her for her help, beginning everything once again.
The first time they had sex after all those years, she remembered him asking her the question that they both always pondered, "What is it about us that keeps pulling me back to you?"
Lyla had grinned back at him and shrugged, "Love makes us kind of stupid."
He had looked at her, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her against his body. "I will take that stupidity any time," he had said. It seemed silly at the time, but it was true too; from there, they never looked back.
"I love you, and I love our kid too," Jason's voice pulled Lyla back out of her thoughts, as he rubbed his knuckles lightly against her hair. His voice was quiet, as he gazed toward her carefully with a deep look of love.
As Lyla looked at the baby on the sonogram and listened to the ultrasound tech share that the pregnancy was 8 weeks along, she realized that this reality, surprising as it may have been, was even more wonderful than any dreams she'd ever had.