5Ok guys, this is my first post ever. I am currently writing this so this is only the first chapter. Hopefully I will be finishing this soon. I hope you like it. Any reviews and pointers would be very much appriciated.
The Blessings
Chapter 1
Angela Kitsburn had always been a mother at heart. She had always wanted a family. Even when she was a toddler she could always be seen pushing her little pink pram or with her ragdoll 'Thelma' trailing along behind her. She had found the man of her dreams in a high school sweetheart who cherished her as much as she did him. When she was 24 years old she wed James Harris after the 10 years of knowing him. Her life as Angela Kitsburn was left behind and her new life of Angela Harris had begun. She established herself as a housewife, something most of her girlfriends thought completely ludicrous saying she should be a strong independent woman and get a career, to which Angie always replied;
'This is my career.'
And for the next year tending to her husband and her house was all she could wish for until her maternal urges kicked themselves into overdrive. She had begged James for a puppy one year, hoping to quieten her maternal screams. He bought her a cinnamon coloured Chow Chow puppy called Kai, whom she treasured. However she soon again felt the urges return, stronger and louder this time, she had to ask her husband soon. She and James were sitting in their spacious living room one day, coal fire crackling, Al Green playing on the stereo system, Kai sleeping on the rug and their hands entwined. She rested her head on James' chest; she could smell his signature scent of tobacco and school books. James worked as an English teacher for the local secondary school, he loved his job and obviously loved his children, and she thought he must have been ready for some of their own as much as she was.
She felt him teasing out her curled black hair and closed her eyes as she began;
"James?"
"Hmm..." he leaned his head closer to hers,
"This might seem a little out of the blue but I've been thinking about if for a while now and I wanted to know how you would feel." She sat up and looked straight into his eyes, adjusting herself on the cream leather sofa that had cost an arm and a leg to buy and which she took so much pride in and realised that it may get ruined once a child came onto the scene but she didn't care. He also straightened up, leaning over to the pine coffee table to get his wire rimmed glasses so he could see her better. She looked at him seriously, staring deep into his hazel eyes. His eyebrows were raised slightly in anticipation; his brown messy hair which had suddenly come into style was askew.
"Go on, Hun," His silky voice felt like a spirit enveloping her, it made her continue.
Angela continued, her nose wrinkled slightly and she started to fiddle with a curled tip of her hair.
"Well... I would like to have a- a baby and I would love you to want that too because this is the only thing I have ever wanted to do more than marry you and I think that with a baby our life would be perfect and complete and well... yeah." She finished rather anti climactically and shifted her weight to her right side, her rusty voice had caught in her throat a few times in anticipation of her saying those words. James' face stayed slightly bemused for a few seconds as she looked, on the verge of tears for a reason unbeknown to her. His face creased as he beamed at her,
"Took you long enough to ask didn't it Ange?" she sat seeming unable to realise that he had agreed to her lifelong ambition of finally becoming a mother. He stood up and grabbed her, taking her in his arms and hugging her into him. He laughed, she wept out of sheer joy, and he laughed some more.
However, the smiles and delight didn't last for long. After 15 months of solid attempts nothing seemed to be working,
"James this isn't normal is it? What are we going to do?" Angela queried with another negative pregnancy test lying in the bathrooms waste basket. James sighed for the fifth time that morning, he was feeling awful that nothing was working to fulfil his beloved's dream, but he had run out of things to try without a specialist's help.
"I think we need to go and ask someone now, just to see what's what."
Three days later they were both on the way their doctors only to be turned away and referred to a specialist for the complete logistics of their situation. On Thursday the 18th of April, Mr and Mrs Harris arrived at the Harper & Bronson fertility clinic and sat for 23 minutes in the pristine white waiting room, clutching each other's hands. James constantly rubbed his stubble ridden face every so often in worry. Angela would keep wiping her grey pencil skirt down anxious that there was dust upon it or flick invisible pieces of fluff off of her pale green blouse. They were called through to Dr Harper's office after what seemed like a lifetime.
Upon arrival they realised the room was actually empty, with the doctor unseen for the moment. As the blonde haired receptionist was leaving she politely announced, "Dr Harper will be right through, please make yourselves comfortable" and departed with a sincere smile. Angela and James returned the gesture and walked to the brown leather sofa in front of the doctor's desk. James tried to relax back into the couch but was so anxious to know what was what he ended up standing back up and crossing the room to the water dispenser for a much needed drink, what he needed more was a cigarette and a scotch to calm him down, he settled for water and a nervous crack of his knuckles. Angela perched herself on the end of the sofa, also entirely too apprehensive to relax into the beautiful couch. James returned to her side with a drink for her, he put his arm around her and squeezed her into him reassuringly.
"We're going to be fine." He said nodding, Angela did the same after all this was only the most important thing to her, of course they were going to be fine, and this was what she was made for. Being a mother.
A door to their left of them opened. Their lifeline. The doctor. Dr Vivian Harper smiled warmly as she entered her office. Her dark blonde hair was high in an elegant bun. Her attire was completely professional, a cream pantsuit and a lilac blouse. The couple sprung up as Vivian extended her manicured hand in greeting to each. Dr Harper felt the clamminess of James' hand first and hoped, as she always did, that there would be nothing wrong with either person and their recent infertility was just bad luck. She felt herself wishing this tenfold as she looked into Angela's olive coloured eyes. In that moment she vowed she would do all that she could for this couple. After an introduction by all they took their respective seats.
"Now, I was told by your GP that you have been experiencing some trouble getting pregnant and you have been trying at your best time of the months and everything correct?" Her accent was one of a Scottish origin but it had slowly faded over the time she had spent living in the English city much to her appreciation. There was, however, sometimes a twang of the thick accent she once had, the one she had worked so hard to lose.
"Yes, pretty much all the time. Especially when I'm ovulating,"
"And this has been for... 15 months?" The couple nodded while Vivian glanced at a file sitting in front of her. She sighed, "You do know that there is a high risk one of you is infertile, right?"
"We've thought about that, and our doctor referred us to you, we asked for only the best and he sent us here. If it does so happen that one of us is infertile then we want the best treatments to ensure us our own baby." James stated.
"And before you ask, we have thought about adoption, but all my life I have wanted my own baby, I just don't think I would have the strength to bring up another woman's child." Angela explained. Vivian nodded her way through both of these speeches.
"Well I'm glad that you know where you are both headed towards, we need to run tests on both of you to see if either of you are infertile. Once we know we will contact you and discuss in detail what you want from us and what options you may have, and remember that is worst case scenario. You could both be just fine, ok?" After more contact numbers were collected from both the couple and the doctor the slightly eased couple left the fertility clinic, hoping that once the results came in they would both be perfectly fine.
A month later the couple returned to the clinic for the final outcome of all of the tests they had undergone. They were ushered into Dr Harper's office as soon as they arrived, and were greeted warmly by Vivian when they walked into her room. The people never bothered to make small talk, deciding to get straight to the point of the couples presence there.
"I'm really sorry Mr and Mrs Harris but one of you is infertile." Angela felt the air rush out of her body as if someone had punched her; she looked pleadingly at James, who had lowered his head.
"Who? Which one of us?" James breathed, looking up, Angela's head whipped around to Vivian, a panicked look on her face.
"Now, remember there are many treatments these days, I don't want you both to-"
"Just tell us!" Angela's gritty voice rang, slightly hysterically. Vivian lowered her head slightly,
"I'm so sorry Angela."
"No... Oh James! Are you sure? What am I supposed to do? Being a mother is all I have! All I'm supposed to be! Now I'm worthless!" James turned sternly to his wife, and took her by the shoulders, her pleading eyes were streaming.
"Now stop it Angela. You heard what Dr Harper said, there are many options for us. You will be a mother. Now please listen to her and we will be closer to your dream, ok? Good, I love you and I'm sorry but now we must do everything we can for our children to be born." Angela sniffled and looked at her husband with adoration; she thought he would think her less of a woman, because that was how she felt at that moment. The truth was she needed James to act how he did, she knew if he had reacted in the same way she would have been lost, unable to think a rational though. James often did this for her, this was one reason they worked so well together, she gave him a reason not to turn into a bitter, lonely man and he gave her the structured calmness she often lost with her occasionally neurotic mood swings. Vivian looked at James with admiration of his coping and ability to help keep his wife on the right track. They turned back to her, Angela had an apology in her eyes and Vivian nodded to her sympathetically.
"The problem is with your fallopian tubes, they aren't working how they should, fortunately your womb is however habitable for a foetus which means that you have a good chance of some of the fertility treatments working. There are options for the both of you now. Probably the most used for of infertility treatment is IVF and that also seems the most successful. We need an egg from you Angela and a sperm sample from you James and this is put into a kind of dish. The egg is fertilised and placed back into your womb Angela. There is the chance the egg will not stay there but if you are willing to take that risk so are we. Another option is surrogacy, this is a treatment with very good results, but some women don't like the idea of another woman carrying her child."
"Yes I feel that way; I want to carry my own child." Angela said with dignity, she had completely composed herself now, James had hold of her hand and she gripped onto it like a life support but she was poised now. Vivian nodded and wrote this new information down on a piece of file paper, which would be put into the notes in their personal file.
"Is there anything else doctor?" James queried, not really expecting a great outcome from this answer. Vivian's eyes shifted left and right as if she were thinking something over.
"There is one option that hasn't been tested often... our clinic has overseen only six cases of it and all six have worked completely with no problems. But there is an ethical battle going on and some people do not like the idea."
"Well what is it?" Angela leaned forward in anticipation.
"It's a kind of gene splicing. We take DNA from both of you, one sample of blood from each and one egg from you Angela and one sperm sample from you James. We artificially create inseminated eggs using the most dominant genes from both DNA samples, which will help to cut out time. We make sure that at least one of the eggs will stay inside the mother from splicing her genes repeatedly with multiple eggs; it would be like we were training it to stay by your side if you will. The eggs are then placed back into the mother and hopefully... we have a baby. However, there are certain things that get added to the foetus which make sure that it develops quicker than usual, both in growing and in mental capability. Basically, this process allows a baby to be born in half the time with less worry about it having anything wrong with it." The couple were engrossed in this explanation. Their hands were clasped even tighter than before; a smile was spread across James' face, a look of relief on Angela's. James looked down at Angela who nodded to him. He turned back to Vivian.
"We'll do it."