Bed Partners

Bareback

Tape 16, Side A

"Is your mother pregnant?" My psychologist asked while smiling.

I nodded, "She is eight weeks pregnant when she got tested. It's a wonderful news of course, but..."

"But?"

"But she is forty seven. No matter that she looked just forty or younger, the fact remained that she is forty seven. Her pregnancy can be considered high risk because of her advanced age. The doctors gave us that bit of worrying news after announcing that my mother is indeed pregnant. Stress should be avoided, she needs bed rest. She should have that shot...to keep the baby inside her. Mama is a warrior of course..."

"Of course," my psychologist nodded. Then I remembered that she knows my mother. "And how is she?"

"She is fine. Very pregnant. She is due to give birth soon. Probably by caesarian session. I don't know. She is relatively healthy during her pregnancy but that first two months after we learned that she was pregnant was a nightmare. Mama was adviced to remain in the hospital which means..."

"She had to quit her job," my psychologist provided the answer.

I nodded. "I took it upon myself to give her resignation letter to the bank she was working at. They are happy for Mama of course but judgement are still in most of her acquiantances' eyes. They are probably cringing thinking that my Mama is too old to get pregnant but fuck them! The pregnancy is a blessing for us!" I felt anger rising when I remembered those people looking at me like they want to ask me what my Mama is thinking letting herself get pregnant at forty seven.

"I know, Dayu. I understand," my psychologist nodded in sympathy. "And so, your Mama is happy. How about her husband?"

I laughed when I was reminded of Papa. "Oh take my happiness and multiply it by a million. That's how happy Papa is. He even apologized to Qing, saying that he is not that happy when Qing's mother got pregnant with Qing. His happiness on my Mama's pregnancy will break any scale, he said. He wanted to commissioned a whole newpaper just to announce the pregnancy, we just stopped him."

"That's nice,"

"Yeah," I nodded.

"And Qing? How does he feel about having a sibling?"

"Probably like how I am feeling," I said. "Happy yet a bit cringy inside. That baby could be our child. Qing and I are both 25 years old, months seperated us. Our sibling and us will have a huge generation gap between us. But we won't ruin this for our parents. They deserve that baby and the happiness we are all feeling."

My psychologist nodded, "Understandable. Here," she handed the fifteenth tape to me. "By the way, how about that blood tests for you and Qing? What happened there?"

I grinned at her, "It's on the next tape." I said before standing up. "I have to go,"

"Okay," my psychologist nodded.

I left her office.

Tape 16...now on.

Qing and I are clean. We got the results of our blood tests four days after we took it that same night that Mama's pregnancy test results came.

She is pregnant. We are all ecstatic for her. But like I said, complications are still possible because of her advanced age.

Mama got hospitalized for a month. I was tempted to quit my work too, like her, to stay in the hospital with her but Papa stopped me. Instead, he employed an experienced midwife to take care of Mama while she was in the hospital. GrandMa Wang also became a fixture in our life. She stayed in the hospital with Mama for at least four hours daily. Eating lunch there and keeping Mama company.