Defne & Ömer: What if we had met at an airport instead?

Chapter 4: Raising a Child

Hello! Hello! While I'm dying to get Omer and Defne to meet each other super soon, I also want to focus on what they've been up to while apart and four years is a lot of ground to cover, so please bear with me for just a little while longer as I'm forced to keep them apart.

Please do drop in a comment or a like if you like the chapter/story, it always feels great to know you're on the right track especially when one hits a creative block (as I do ever so often) and also if you still need to get some things straight. Finally thank you for reading!

Defne

(2 months after the wedding...)

"Ma'am, how far along are you?"

"Stay with me. Check her pulse. Get the ultrasound ready. Ms. Topal, Defne do you know how far along you are?"

"Defne. Defne."

Lying on a hospital bed, with Nihan and Iso taking turns to be by her side, her arm attached to an intravenous line, Defne went over all that the Doctor had told her.

She was pregnant. Nearly three whole months pregnant.

Her routine nausea hadn't been because she was heartbroken and couldn't stomach the food being force fed to her. It had been because she was pregnant.

She had completed nearly an entire trimester without realizing it. Her baby was doing well in spite of the way she had failed to care for them both. There was a heartbeat and a strong one at that. She even had the first photograph of her baby tucked safely under her pillow.

The doctor had been brutal not mincing his words clearly appalled that a person who was so obviously loved by those around her had let herself go to this extent. "If you want to have this baby, healthy and whole, you need to start taking care of yourself right away. The fetus has clearly not received the nutrition vital for its care and development at this stage, it is a miracle the baby is well. If you continue going the way you are, the baby – your baby will die and then so will you. I hope you understand why I need to put it to you in such words"

He had only softened when Defne had pleaded with him to not tell her family the news just yet. "A case of abandonment" he had murmured taking in the pityingly frail girl in front of him.

Omer and she had made a baby. A baby who was most likely conceived around the time of their engagement, when they had been incredibly happy and so in love. Her mind went over all the times they had slept together, the times she had snuck out of her house to spend a night with him, the times he had picked her up to just get some alone time in his car not too far from her house, the times they had snuck out of work to make up for all the time lost with their ridiculous fights over Fikret, Selim, the house and whatever other issue life kept throwing at them.

That was probably why their baby had survived its mother's reckless behavior. That was probably why their baby, conceived out of love and devotion, had fought its mother's idiocy.

As she placed her free hand on her stomach searching for a yet unseen bump, Defne resolved two things - she would turn her life around and Omer would be the first to know of her pregnancy.

Omer

(7 months after the wedding...)

After spending a fortnight in Rome, Fikret told him that she was returning to New York. She suggested he went along, asking him to consider creating a new line of designs in collaboration with her and even offered to sponsor his American visa.

In spite of having sensed hope and longing behind her words masked as a business proposal, he wasn't able to refuse her offer outright and had told her that he would think about relocating. He still hadn't told her that he was no longer able to draw.