Uh oh

For my past FX Memories please click this sentence.

After I dealt with my emotions with fragile x, life became pretty routine.  I wasn’t working since I had a different therapist who came to my apartment on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Luckily we lived in very low income housing so I was able to survive on Matthews SSI.  I could make $500 pay all our bills and still get us what we needed each month.  I put Matty in a really nice daycare on Tuesdays and Thursdays while I attended classes at the local community college.  My pell grant paid for it.

I dated here and there.  I always took Matt on a first date.  I didn’t want to really like someone and then find out that my son scared him.  I figured if Matt came I would know if they were really up to the challenge.  Honestly, I only dated two guys before I got with Rachel’s dad.  After a childhood of abuse, and one man bailing, I had major trust issues. Matts dad got married one month after the diagnosis.  He then had a healthy baby girl 9 months after he got married.

My landlady introduced me to Rachel’s dad.   He wasn’t even phased about Matty having fragile x.  I would learn years later that he had a little brother who was deaf.  His brother was pretty much raised in a school for the deaf.

Rachel’s dad talked with Matt and played with him just like he was normal.  Which is what I wanted.  I didn’t want anyone around who would pity him or baby him. We really hit it off.  He was a lot of fun and he had a job that paid 6 times what I was getting a month. 

Well, I’m fertile myrtle.  I’ve mentioned it in the past that I read that fragile x carriers are 4 times as fertile as a normal woman but 3 times more likely to miscarry.  I really wish I knew what book I read that in but it was 11 years ago and I have no idea the validity of that statement.  It does deem true in my life.  I got pregnant with Matt using birth control pills.  

I doubled up with Rachel’s dad.  We were using the pill and condoms.  I was still really unsure where I was at with having another child.  And really I didn’t want another baby for quite a while.  I wanted a happy and secure relationship.  I wanted the decision to have another baby to be a team effort.  And I really wanted to give Matt a few more years to kind of get a feel to the extent of his fragile x.

One sunny day, Theresa was over visiting my apartment.  She LOVED coming over and playing with Matty.  We would do therapy with Matt and hang out.  I had just went to the restroom and was walking down the hall to the living room when it hit me.  And I mean it HIT me.  I froze in the hallway.  Theresa looked at me really wierd and asked me if I was okay.  I looked up at her in a daze and told her, “I’m pregnant.”  

“You seem so sure,” she asked me.  I could hear the amusement in her voice. 

“I missed my period and I can feel it.”

*  *  *

When I told Rachel’s dad he just chuckled and told me, “That figures.”  He wasn’t at all concerned, angry or nothing.  He was just like, okay, whatever. 

*  *  *

I decided to go to the doctor on my own.  I was having a very hard time dealing with the fact that I could be pregnant.  I wasn’t ready to have another child, especially another fragile x child.  But I don’t believe in abortion for myself. 

The only appointment the doctor had was on my 21st birthday.  There had been a cancellation.  I could take it or wait 6-8 weeks.  I don’t wait well.

*   *   *

The nurse dipped the test in the urine.  It turned the brightest shade of blue imaginable.  She confirmed what I already knew.  But I wasn’t going down without a fight.  I asked her if she was really sure that I was pregnant.  Maybe we should try it again.  Nothing is foolproof.  She told me, “Honey, I have never seen a pregnancy test look this blue and I’ve been doing this for 20 years.” 

I told her that if that was the case I wanted her to mark it in my chart, right then and there, that I wanted fixed as soon as my baby was born.  I wasn’t going to be getting knocked up every time I had sex anymore.  I was done!!! 

She marked it.

*  *  *

Then I cried all the way home because I had no idea what my future was about to give me.  And while I was crying I prayed that the baby would either not have fragile x…but if God felt my child should have it at least make it a girl.