A/N: First and foremost I need you all to know that this contains a miscarriage so if that is triggering to you please do not read it! I try not to write anything that triggers the readers but sometimes I think pieces need to be written to bring awareness or to help those who may have gone through similar experiences. With that said, I am not a doctor nor have I ever been pregnant. I did a bit of research for this one shot but if you come across anything that seems wrong please let me know so I can change it. As always feedback (even if you want to yell at me) is welcomed.
The test sits on the bathroom counter, your fingernails tapping on the sink’s edge as you watch the seconds tick by on your phone’s stopwatch. You glance in the mirror checking yourself out. There are bags under your eyes, the purple circles darker than they had been only a few short years ago when you were nineteen without a care in the world. Your hair is in a messy bun atop your head, stray pieces sticking to your cheeks.
“Sorry it took long,” Calum pants, opening the bathroom door with enough force that it slams into the wall. “Ella wouldn’t settle down. I think I read her three stories.”
You smile, shaking your head as you listened to your husband marvel at your daughter’s energy. Just like Calum, Ella is never tired when it’s an appropriate time to be tired. She truly is a Hood.
“Did you pee on it already?”
“Nothing yet,” you answer, glancing at your phone. “Two more minutes.”
Calum groans, trudging farther into the bathroom. He walks over to the toilet, putting the seat down before collapsing on it. A familiar pair of arms wraps around your middle, tugging you towards him. You fall onto his lap with a squeal.
“What?” he asks, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Did I hurt the baby?”
“Don’t stay that!” you gasp, swatting at his chest. “What if you just jinxed it?”
“I don’t think that’s how jinxes work, sweet pea,” he teases, digging his fingers into your side. You stifle the laugh bubbling in your throat, not wanting to wake your sleeping three year old in the other room.
Calum and you sit on the toilet for what feels like ages. The bathroom is quiet, the only noise coming from your beating heart. Calum’s fingers tap on your hips, he hums your favorite song under his breath.
Calum and you had been trying for a baby every since Ella celebrated her first birthday. The both of you grew up with siblings and neither want Ella to be an only child. You couldn’t wait to see your precious daughter, a spitting imagine of her father, playing mommy to her new little sibling.
Unfortunately, conceiving your second child was a lot harder than you expected. Calum always joked it was because this one was planned. And for a bit you believed him, but as the days passed and you remained not pregnant you began to worry. Of course, that’s when you downloaded the fertility calendar and things became even more planned than they had been when you originally decided to try for a second baby.
Your phone chirps from the counter pulling you back to reality. Jumping off of Calum’s lap, you make the short walk from the toilet to the sink. Calum follows quickly behind you. You glance at him, intertwining your left hand with his right before grabbing the stick from the counter. Closing your eyes, you count to three before you open them.
The test clatters back onto the counter as you turn to face Calum. There are tears in his eyes, his lips quivering as he stares at you with adoration. You wrap your arms around him, pulling him into your body before you start to sob. He kisses your forehead, stray tears rolling from his cheeks and onto your head of hair.
Neither of you say anything because nothing needs to be said. Calum walks you out of the bathroom, flicking the light off as he exits. The test stays on the counter, untouched. You crawl onto the king size bed, pulling the covers over your body before snuggling into Calum’s chest.
“We did it,” you murmur, smiling.
Eight weeks had passed since you peed on the white stick and two pink lines flashed on the tiny screen. A long eight weeks filled with phone calls (to schedule a doctor’s appointment), running to the bathroom (because potty training Ella was in full swing), and bickering with Calum (because he didn’t want you to exert all your energy too soon).
Thankfully, it was Sunday which in the Hood household meant relaxation. Of course, with a three year old running around the house relaxing was a little different.
“El, come on,” you whine, your foot tapping impatiently on the hardwood floor. “Just pick a movie. Daddy’s waiting for us in bed.”
“Too many choices,” she mumbles, running her tiny fingers across the DVD cases. She tugs one off the rack glancing at the picture on the cover before putting it back on the rack. This continues for awhile until she finally decides on a movie. “Stitch!”
“Didn’t we just watch Lilo and Stitch?”
“Not for week, mama,” she smiles, running in the direction of the master bedroom.
When you walk into the bedroom, Calum is sitting on the floor with the DVD player open. He helps Ella open the movie case before letting her put the dvd on the tray. Once the disc is in, he scoops her up from the floor before tossing her onto the bed.
“Here you can hold the remote,” he says, handing it to Ella. “Don’t play it until daddy gets back. I’m going to go grab the popcorn.”
Ella waits patiently for Calum to return. Her hands gripping the remote so she doesn’t lose it. She loves pressing play, it’s her favorite part about movie night. Meanwhile, you get yourself situated on your bed making sure you have enough pillows behind you to satisfy your already aching back.
Calum and you decided not to tell anyone about your pregnancy until you were through with the first trimester. Well, you decided not too had it been up to Calum the whole world would have known that you were carrying his future son or daughter. Not even Ella knew anything yet, you figured you could wait until you started showing to announce to her that she’d was going to be a big sister.
Calum returned a moment later with a giant bowl of buttery popcorn. Climbing into the bed, he sits the bowl in front of Ella before giving her the okay to start the movie. As soon as the music starts, Ella is dancing on the bed trying her best to mimic the hula dancers on screen. The bowl of popcorn shaking sending the overflowing kernels all over your blankets.
“Alright El,” Calum chuckles. “Let’s sit down and watch the movie. You’re getting popcorn all over mommy.”
“Sorry mommy,” she apologizes, snuggling in between Calum and you.
For the next hour and half Ella is calm. Had Calum and you not known any better you might have worried that the movie was hypnotizing her, but ever since she came home from the hospital, movies have always calmed her – especially Lilo and Stitch.
Before she used to watch quietly, with her thumb tucked between her lips and eyes wide; but now its so much better. She gasps every time Lilo punches Myrtle, laughs every time the ice cream falls out of the cone from the poor tourist, and even gets sad at the end when Stitch is almost taken from Lilo.
“We have doggy?” she asks, later that night when Calum and you are trying to put her to bed. “Name Stitch!”
“Maybe when your a bit bigger,” you smile, kissing her head.
“Yeah, so then you can play with him,” Calum says. “Now, get some sleep petal.”
When Calum and you return to your room, you collapse into bed the exhaustion from the week finally hitting you. Calum chuckles as you struggle to pick up stray popcorn kernels from the sheets.
“No more popcorn in bed,” you grumble.
“It’s not movie night without popcorn! Besides she only spilt it because someone let her pick Lilo and Stitch again.”
“She wouldn’t pick anything else!”
“Did you see? She was even quoting the movie,” Calum says, situating himself on his side of the bed.
“That’s not a bad thing. Besides, we need her big so she can be the best big sister to our mystery baby,” he smiles, placing his palm on your belly. “Isn’t that right mystery baby?”
“Don’t call it that,” you giggle, swatting his hand away from your belly and replacing it with your own. “It’s our precious bean.”
“Bean?” Calum laughs. “I like mystery baby but whatever you say. I know better than to piss off a pregnant women. I’m not doing that again.”
“I told you, you’d learn your lesson after sleeping on the couch for a night.”
“My neck was stiff for a week!” he grumbles, before pulling you towards him. “Goodnight sweet pea, goodnight bean.”
The paper crinkles under you as you fidget on the examination bed. You’ve been in the office for an hour answering questions and being prodded by the OBGYN that took over for the doctor that helped you deliver Ella. Calum had sat patiently next to you, eying the young doctor as she rambled on and on about the risks of a second pregnancy but even he grew restless.
“What’s taking so long?” Calum whispers, when the door shuts behind the doctor leaving the two of you alone in the room.
“I think I’m her first official patient.”
“What!” Calum shouts, standing up from his chair. Letting go of your hand he begins to pace the small room, his hand running through his hair. “How can you let her be your doctor if she has no experience!”
“Calm down,” you chuckle, motioning for him to sit back down. “She’s helped delivered babies before, this is just the first one she’ll be the head doctor for. Our bean will be fine.”
Calum doesn’t have time to argue with you because the door opens and a nurse walks into the room. She’s walks straight over to the sink, washing her hands before grabbing a tube of gel.
“Hi Mr. and Mrs. Hood,” she greets, sliding a small table towards you. “Are we ready to hear the baby’s heartbeat?”
“It’s the only fun part about this check up,” you joke, rolling your shirt up so that she can get your stomach ready.
The gel is cold on your stomach sending goosebumps across your arms. Calum hand instinctively reaches towards yours, fingers intertwining before he brings your hand to his lips. He places a delicate kiss to your knuckles before turning his attention back to the nurse.
The coolness on your belly is replaced by the poking of the nurse with the instrument. She runs it across your belly, smearing the gel before digging it into your flesh in the hopes of finding the heartbeat. It takes her a moment, before she finds the special spot, digging the instrument farther into your flesh to ensure the heartbeat can be heard throughout the room.
The first “thump” makes you jump, the second makes you smile, and the third sends you over the edge with tears streaming down your cheeks. The reaction is different for Calum who starts crying at the first thump just like he did when he heard Ella’s heartbeat for the first time.
You hadn’t thought you’d be this emotional since it was your second pregnancy but you can’t help it. Turning your head to look at Calum, you’re met with his lips on your forehead.
“Everything sounds good,” the nurse says before she begins cleaning you up. “I’ll give you two a minute alone. As soon as you are ready you can meet Sandra at the desk to check out and schedule your next appointment. Oh and congratulations!”
Just like that Calum and you are left in the room again. Before you have time to pull your shirt down, Calum’s hands are on your stomach his mouth not far behind as he leaves tender kisses on your skin. The sensation of his breath on you makes you giggle. You push him away, pulling your shirt down before hopping off the uncomfortable examination chair and into the warm arms of your husband.
“This is real,” he breathes, wedging his hand in between the two of you so he can hold your barely showing belly. “I love you.”
“Alright Mr. Corny, let’s get check out. Your wife and unborn child are craving a burrito.”
Calum laughs, rolling his eyes in the process. “I though I had a few more weeks before the cravings started.” You shrug, taking his arm and tugging him to the door. Calum stumbles, his foot kicking the examination chair in the process. “Alright, alright I’m coming,” he laughs.
It’s dark when you open your eyes. The television is turned off, the drapes drawn shut, and Calum is snoring next to you. The clock on your nightstand reads three in the morning and you groan. You stay still in bed, waiting for the call of your name from Ella. Usually, you wake up a moment before she calls yours name some kind of mother’s intuition you think. But she doesn’t call and the light in the hallway never flicks on.
And yet you still can’t fall back to sleep.
You toss and turn for a moment, flipping your pillow to the cooler side. You watch the clock turn from 3:10 to 3:11, listen to the snores of Calum, wait for Ella’s cries. You try and count sheep, you do, and then you repeat. Still, nothing works. You roll over again, this time with your back to Calum.
That’s when you notice it.
The uncomfortable wetness between your legs. Fearing you had peed the bed (something you had done a few times when you were pregnant with Ella) you push the covers off of you. Though the room is still dark, your eyes have adjusted. Your grey pants are darkened, this you know, but something is missing. You don’t smell urine, a smell you’d recognize given three years of changing Ella’s diapers. Instead, you smell nothing.
You reach your hand down, feeling the dampness of your pants. It’s only when you remove your hand do you realize what’s going on. This isn’t pee, it’s blood.
There is blood on your pants.
“Calum!” you shout, using your clean hand to shake your husband awake. He blinks a few times, eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. He mumbles something about being tired before rolling away from you. “Calum,” you say a little more sternly. “Something is wrong with the baby.”
This gets Calum’s attention. He jumps out of bed, tugging on a pair of athletic shorts that he keeps at the foot of his bed incase of emergencies. He doesn’t notice the blood until he looks at your hand. He knows the doctor told the two of you that bleeding may happen but this, this isn’t normal. That much he knows.
“I’m going to call Ashton,” he says, already dialing Ashton’s number. He walks out of the room, asking Ashton if he can come watch Ella.
You’re left in the room, a hand full of blood and a head full of worry. This can’t be happening. You try and get out of a bed but a sharp pain shoots through your abdomen, a yelp of pain accompanying it. Calum races inside before your scream is over, hanging up the phone and rushing to your aid.
“Ash is on his way,” he mumbles, before placing a shaky hand on your belly. “Please hang in there, bean.”
Calum runs to the closet, retuning with a pair of black sweatpants. He helps you get changed before he hoisting you out of bed and down the seventeen steps that separate you from the front door. Just as he’s about to set you down, there’s a rushed knock on the door.
“I came as fast as I could,” Ashton pants, shirt on backwards and worry in his eyes.
“El should stay sleeping until we get back,” Calum says, tugging on his shoes. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
The car ride is tense, Calum’s hand never leaving your stomach. The bleeding doesn’t stop and the pain only gets worse. It’s not long before your in a hospital gown, the ER nurse prepping your for tests before the doctor comes in to finish the job your body has already started.
The term miscarriage doesn’t come up until everything is done.
You feel like you’ve been through labor. Your body exhausted, still bleeding and still in pain but instead of holding a screaming infant in your arms, you have a nasty word lingering over your head.
“We were just here last week,” you mumble to the doctor. “Everything was fine.”
“Sometimes there isn’t a reason for the things that happen,” he answers, before instructing you to take it easy.
The car ride home is quiet. The reality of the situation hitting you when Calum goes to reach for your belly but retracts. His hand stays gripping the steering wheel until he pulls safely into the driveway.
It’s seven in the morning when you walk through the door. Ella runs to you, asking a million and one questions as to why Uncle Ash had to make her breakfast instead of you. She tattles to Calum about how Ashton burnt the first waffle and had to make a second one. She tells you about the “bad words” that slipped her uncle’s lips when he burnt his hand on the new waffle.
And just like that you are forced to forget about the last four hours of your life in order to care for the beautiful, innocent girl standing in front of you.
Six months had passed since the three am nightmare and life had seemingly gone on. You woke up every morning and made Ella breakfast sometimes Calum joined you and sometimes he stayed in bed until Ella came shouting to wake him up. Every night you put Ella to a bed with a bedtime story and a kiss to the head while Calum watched from the doorway waiting until you left to kiss his baby girl.
And though life went on in the Hood household, something was different between Calum and you.
The miscarriage had taken a toll on him, that much you knew. The spark in his eyes dimming every day that passed. The door to the spare bedroom remained shut when he was a home, a constant reminder of what could have and should have been.
Though, it didn’t start out that way. In fact, Calum was eager to get you back in bed as soon as you got the okay from the doctors. Eager to start over and fix the hole that had found a way into his heart. It was only when you shooed him away did he start pulling away.
Perhaps the whole thing was your fault, but you knew that wasn’t fair of either of you to say. Truthfully, you probably should have attended those therapy sessions the doctors set up for the two of you. And you would have, had life and the reality of having a three year old running around not gotten in the way.
“Momma,” Ella asks, tugging on your shirt. “We watch Up tonight?”
Despite the tension between Calum and you, you tried to keep things as normal as possible for Ella. And though she was only three, Ella knew today was Sunday which mean it was officially movie night.
“No Lilo and Stitch tonight?” you asked, finishing up the last of the dishes from dinner. Ella shakes her head, mumbling about how she’d seen stitch yesterday on the television. “Go give daddy the dvd, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Calum and Ella are already in the bed when you walk into the room. You place a few snacks on your nightstand before quickly changing into a pair of pajamas. Settling in, Ella presses play on the remote and the Pixar lamp Luxo bounces on screen, a shrill laugh falling from El’s mouth. She snuggles between the two of you as the music starts, a young Carl taking the screen before Ellie makes an appearance.
You always had a soft spot for the opening scene of the movie, recalling the first time you saw it in theaters with Calum and sobbed into his shirt giving it a permanent wet stain. Still, nothing could prepare you for the way you felt watching the scene in the doctor’s office.
Your heart dropped as the music turned somber and Ellie and Carl’s mood deflated. Though you wanted to cry, you refrained reminding yourself that your daughter was next to you and she didn’t deserve to have the memory of her mother crying engrained in her memory. Instead, you snuggled closer to her, pulling her to your chest before glancing over at Calum. His eyes were brimmed with tears, his bottom lip quivering as he tried to control his emotions. But he couldn’t, and instead of pulling his family closer he walked out of the room. Leaving Ella and you to finish family movie night without the man that helped you give you a family in the first place.
“Where daddy go?” Ella asks, later that night when you’re tucking her into bed. Though she’s tired, her eyes are wide open with concern staring up at you.
“He had to do something for work that he forgot to do today,” you lied, pulling the blanket over her. “Don’t worry though, I’m sure he’ll come check on you tonight. You just go to sleep, petal.”
Ella nods, grabbing her Stitch stuffed animal and snuggling into it. You wait a few moments in the doorway until you hear her breath even out. Only when you know she’s asleep do you stalk into your husband’s home office.
Calum is slumped over in the office chair when you walk in. The only source of light comes from the dim screen of the computer that’s still on his screen savor, a picture of you, Ella, and him at Disneyland for her second birthday. Had you not been so angry you might have found the sight enduring, but you didn’t.
You didn’t wait for Calum to turn around; instead, you marched right up to the chair turning it towards you. There your husband sat, red and puffy eyes looking at you with confusion. He didn’t even try to conceal the fact that he was crying like he usually did.
“Dammit Calum!” you shout, throwing your hands into the air. “I just lied to our daughter because she wanted to know why her father stormed out of family movie night.”
“What did you tell her?” he sniffles.
“I told her what I tell her every morning when you don’t join us for breakfast or when you lock yourself in this damn room at night. I blamed work.”
You stare at him blankly, waiting for him to say something. Anything, to cure the pain you feel in your heart for Ella but he doesn’t say anything. “I can’t do this anymore,” you say, walking out of the room.
“Didn’t you want a baby?” Calum shouts, following after you.
“I can’t believe you just asked me that.”
When you make it back to your bedroom you begin picking up the stray snacks that linger on the bed. Calum walks in shortly after but stays in the doorway watching.
“Did you want a baby?” Calum repeats himself.
“Of fucking course I wanted a baby!” you shout, crossing in front of Calum and exiting in the room.
You made your way to the kitchen, fingers gripping the empty snack wrappers as Calum’s footsteps follow you. The last thing you wanted to do was wake Ella with all the screaming but truthfully this moment had been coming. It was only so long before the both of you came to your breaking points. You never though a children’s movie would be the tipping point though.
“Then why haven’t you cried?”
“Because we have a three year old daughter who needs to be taken care of! I don’t have the privilege of locking myself in a room and sobbing for hours.”
“You think it’s a fucking privilege?” he sneers, a strangled laugh following his words. “You think I like crying my eyes out every fucking night? You think I like the feeling of them burning every morning I wake up?”
“At least you get to grieve,” you say. “I have to pretend everything is okay. I have to look into our daughter’s eyes every day and know that I failed to make her a big sister. Do you even know how hard that is? No, you don’t, because you’re never fucking here to help anymore!”
His face turns cold, the emotion that once flashed through his eyes, gone. Part of him whats to apologize for being absent, because he knows he has. He doesn’t. Instead he replays your words which only fuels his anger.
“Why haven’t we tried again?”
He knows he’s tried. He tried every damn day for two months to get you into bed with him again and yet you refused. Making up excuses left and right so he stopped trying.
“If you want Ella to be a sister so fucking bad why won’t you let me give that to you?” he shouts, jaw clenched.
You wish it was that simple. You wish you could undress right there in the kitchen and start over. Create a new human that would actually see the world. A baby that would get to feel your love and be Calum’s best friend. But you can’t and you won’t just because that’s what Calum wants from you.
Six months of bottled up tears finally start to fall, your fist coming down on the counter with a loud thud. You try and stay quite, slapping a hand over your mouth but it doesn’t help. Only making the sound of your cries louder, more painful.
The sight of you alone renders Calum motionless. He can’t bare to witness you hurting and yet he can’t walk away. Your sobs send him back to that night, the sound of you shrieking in pain ringing in his ears. He wants to help you but he can’t. The image of that night haunting him as he watched you fall apart.
“I can’t go through that again,” you hiccup, tears finally falling. “I can’t go through that pain. I can’t put you through that again. I just can’t!”
For the first time in months, Calum’s demeanor changes. His face relaxes, his eyes softening.“Sweet pea” Calum coos, hesitantly walking towards you. It’s the first time he’s used your nickname since the miscarriage and the name alone makes you want to collapse to your knees. You don’t, instead you collapse into Calum’s arms. His hand rubbing soothing circles on your back as you sob into his chest. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re going to be okay.”
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Hey, you’re the strongest person I know,” Calum reassures you. “You’re an amazing mom to Ella, and a fantastic wife, and we’re going to get through this. I promise.”
“I”m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“You were there for Ella and that’s all that matters to me,” he says, kissing your forehead. “Let’s get to bed, yeah?”
You finally feel at peace when you’re head is on Calum’s chest and his arm is around your waist. The television is on, playing reruns of FRIENDS but you’re not watching it. Instead, you’re watching Calum, the sadness in his eyes finally seeming to diminish as he watches the episode.
“I missed you,” you whisper, snuggling into Calum’s chest.
The three of you are gathered around the breakfast table enjoying Calum’s famous pancakes. Ella is 5 now and instead of siting on your lap she is next to you, secretly feeding the burnt parts of her pancake to Stitch, the two year old Labrador Calum rescued for her fourth birthday.
The tension that once loomed over the house is gone. Sure, Calum and you still argue about who gets to clean up after Stitch or lately who gets to help Ella with her homework but it’s a normal kind of arguing. Bickering that every married couple goes through and not enough to send the two of you back to therapy.
Ella is the middle of a story when the phone rings. You let the first call go to voicemail thinking it’s one of those telemarketers trying to convince you to put solar panels on your house. But when the phone rings again, you pull yourself away from the table (and Ella’s imaginative story) and trudge over to the phone.
“Hello,” you answer, putting your finger to your lips to remind your family to be quiet. “Oh, hi Mrs. Shaw.”
At the mention of Mrs. Shaw, Calum jumps up from his chair and moves towards you. He tries to angle his head to hear the conversation but you shoo him away, trying to focus on her words.
Mrs. Shaw was the caseworker assigned to Calum and you when you begun the process of being a foster parent. After your therapy sessions, Calum and you decided not to have any more children. Though, both of you still wanted Ella to be a big sister which is how you ended up applying to be a foster family. You were going to adopt a child from another country but Calum and you decided against that when you began the process and realized how many children needed homes in your own country. Besides, Calum and you fully intended to adopt whatever child was given to you by the system as soon as you could.
“Thank you so much Mrs. Shaw,” you say, hanging up the phone.
Calum is the first one you grab when you put the phone back on the receiver. The tears falling from your eyes as soon as you feel his arms around you. You don’t even have to repeat Mrs. Shaw’s words because Calum is also crying, clearly having heard the important parts of the conversation.
“Why is everyone crying?” Ella asks, walking over to the two of you only after her plate of pancakes is finished.
“You’re going to be a big sister, El!”
And just like that your family of four (the fourth being Stitch) becomes a family of five.
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