Lovers

Stressed

Only a few more chapters before the gender of the baby is going to be revealed, and I can't wait! Until then, this one is sad in some places, but mostly sweet and fluffy. Enjoy and have a great rest of your weekend! Comment/vote if you please xxxx
-ab

—————————————-

October 9, 2027

Harper

As soon as I hear the door shut when my mother leaves, I breathe a sigh of relief. I can wipe the smile that I've been forcing off of my face, finally.

As much as I love my mum, and I really do, she stresses me out sometimes. She will sometimes say things to me without thinking about them. It's not that I've never been guilty of doing the same to her, especially when I was a teenager, but I don't think that she realizes how much she does it herself.

"Hon, come here," Patrick says, opening his arms for me. "Let's go to our room and cuddle."

I nod, thinking that's a good idea. He pulls me into his arms and guides me to the master bedroom. He knows that I'm not happy, and he knows exactly why.

Only when I'm positioned securely in Patrick's arms on top of our duvet do I allow myself to really lose it. I feel tears form in my eyes as my whole body begins to shake.

"Do you know that you're the most beautiful woman in the world?"

"No, I'm not," I sigh. "I'm ugly and fat. Especially now, apparently."

"Honey..."

"No, Patrick, don't lie to me. I've gained a lot of weight recently. Everyone around me who doesn't know probably just thinks that I'm fat now. Or that I'm overeating or something."

"Hon, nobody thinks that."

"How do you know that?" I ask him, rubbing tears out of my eyes. "Mum said that she thought it. Everybody else probably does too."

"Even if they do, what does it matter?" he asks me, trying to calm me down by playing with strands of my hair. "You know that you eat healthy and exercise. You know that the weight that you've gained is because of the little baby that's growing inside of you, and it's important to have that extra weight for the baby. Your body has to be able to support him or her."

"Patrick..." I whimper. "I don't like this. I want it all to go away."

"Don't say that, lovie. You don't want it to go away, becuase then the baby would go away, too. You're so happy about the baby. I'm so happy about the baby. We are going to take on a new adventure, and you don't want to wish that opportunity away."

"No, but I just want the baby to appear. I don't want to be pregnant."

"There's not much that we can do about that, now, hon," my husband tells me, clearly holding back a bit of a chuckle. I know that he's right. I've got to stick this out by now. I have an emotional connection with this child, like it or not, and I'd never be able to bring myself to terminate the pregnancy, even if that was something that I wanted. As much as I don't want to be pregnant, I don't want to not be pregnant, as well.

I don't really know how to feel about the whole thing, at this point.

"Harper, hon, I'm going to ask you to do something hard."

"What's that?"

"Can you please just block out that comment that your mum made from your memory? It was a stupid comment and she shouldn't have said it, but she did, and I don't know why. You need to push it out of your brain, okay?"

"I don't know if I can..." I admit, my voice quiet. Patrick wraps his arms more tightly around me.

"It'll be hard," he admits, "but you need to do it. For your sanity, and for the health of the baby. All of your stress is really bad for you."

"I guess..."

"You've just got to try to cut down on your stress, sweetie. I'm genuinely really worried about it. You're naturally a high-stress person, and I get that, but you've got to keep it controlled for the next six months." He pauses. "Flip over. Lie down on your tummy. I'll get some tension out."

I smile at Patrick- a for real smile. He knows that I love when he does this, and I happily oblige to his request.

He helps me out of my shirt, as he knows that I like it better when he massages me with skin-to-skin contact. I find it more comforting.

My husband begins to rub the muscles up and down my back. "Honey, do you feel how tight you are?" he asks me. "That's just not good. I'm gonna loosen you up more often until April, but you can do stuff to prevent that, as well."

"I know," I reply, my voice muffled from the blankets on our bed. "That feels nice."

He laughs.

After a few moments, we hear a knock on the door to our room. It's quite clearly Katherine, as she's the only one who could be in our house already.

"You should get that," I say. He doesn't move, but instead just calls for her to come in. I hear the door creak open.

"Flip onto your back," Patrick tells me. I do so, then look over at Katherine by propping myself up on my elbows.

"What's up?" I ask her.

"I could ask the same of you," she replies, raising her eyebrows. I blush a bit, realizing that it may not look the best, considering that I'm sitting on our bed without a shirt on- only a lacey bra.

"She's too stressed out," Patrick informs her, "so I'm trying to get some tension out of her."

"Oh," Kath laughs. "That's sweet of you. I just wanted to know how the announcement went tonight. I know you were a bit worried about it, Harper."

"It was alright," I say, lying through my teeth. She doesn't need to know about certain comments that were made. "Mum's really excited, and I survived it." That's all true.

Kath laughs. "You've got the hard part over with, I guess."

"Yeah," I reply. "Hey, look at this." I pull myself out of the bed and stand up to show Kath the tiniest trace of a baby bump that I found this morning.

"That's so exciting," she says, rushing over to me and pulling me into a hug. "I'm so excited for the two of you."

It's only a moment longer before Kath leaves the room.

"Let me finish up with you," Patrick says to me, causing me to nod and run back over to the bed. He starts to lightly rub little circles on my tummy, with two fingers. He's applying just enough pressure for it to feel good, but still being very careful. "You've definitely got a baby in there," he tells me. "Your stomach feels very different than it did a few months ago. It's all tight." He lightly runs his hands over the tiny curve, then plans a kiss on my forehead. "It's beautiful and perfect, just like you."