Chapter Sixteen
Maddie dug into her purse. Where was her gum? She couldn’t find her gum. Her fingers finally brushed against the box and she yanked it out, grabbed a piece, and popped it in her mouth.
She heaved a big sigh. When she’d made this appointment, she thought it was a good idea. Now that she was sitting here, the receptionist smiling at her from time to time, she questioned whether this was the best idea. Could she really talk about everything that was wrong in her life to a stranger?
She eyed the door. It would be easy enough to leave and come back another day. When she was a little bit stronger. Tempting, yes, but she wouldn’t. She dropped her purse and sank back into the chair. Justin was working so hard to repair their marriage. She owed it to him to put in the effort. No, that wasn’t right. She owed it to herself. She deserved to be happy and she deserved to be loved.
The door to the back opened and a woman with shoulder length hair studied the folder in her hands. Was this woman even old enough to understand what Maddie was going through? “Madeline Harper?”
Maddie hopped to her feet. “That’s me.”
The woman extended her hand as Maddie approached. “I’m Dr. Bryson. Nice to meet you.”
“You too. Call me Maddie.” Maddie followed the woman down the hall and into an office.
She gestured to a couch. “Have a seat, Maddie.”
Maddie studied Dr. Bryson as she gathered her papers and tapped a few buttons on her computer. She then folded her hands and smiled at Maddie. “I see that you were referred by Dr. Anderson.”
“Yeah. I broke down in her office last week and she recommended I come see you.”
Dr. Bryson leaned back in her chair. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Everything. Her life was in shambles and her marriage was in the ditch. And, oh yeah, she couldn’t get pregnant. “My husband, Justin, and I have been trying to conceive. And we haven’t been able to. Each month that I didn’t get pregnant, I was more and more depressed. Then Justin moved out a couple of weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. Do you have any other kids?”
“I do. Aiden is five.” She couldn’t help but smile. Just this morning, Aiden had helped himself to breakfast and even cleaned up the mess when she didn’t awake to the alarm. It was no surprise. She hadn’t been sleeping much, her mind racing with images of Justin. “He’s so great. But I want him to have a little brother or sister. Hopefully a sister.”
Her heart hurt at the thought of never having another child to love. For Aiden to not have a sibling. Someone who would always be there for him.
“So, you’re dealing with secondary infertility.”
Maddie cringed at those words. She refused to accept that she was infertile. Ironic, really, that she spent her teenage and young adult years trying not to get pregnant and now that she wanted to have a baby, she couldn’t.
“I can see that those words bother you. I think it’s important to remind yourself that they are simply words. They don’t have any more power than you give them. Just look at it as a challenge to be worked through. I don’t want to say overcome, because not everyone is able to overcome it, but we can definitely do some things to address the issues.”
“That’s why I’m here. I was doing everything Dr. Anderson told me to do, and I found a bunch of internet sites, too. I took my temperature, I charted my cycles, we had sex when I was most fertile. But every month I didn’t get pregnant, my heart broke. And every month, the arguments grew until we were out and out fighting.”
“I can imagine. But addressing any problem isn’t just a checklist of things to do. I believe in taking a holistic approach to problem solving. You addressed the body issues, but what about your mind? One of the biggest hurdles to getting pregnant is stress. What were you doing to take care of yourself? Your marriage? Your family?”
That was definitely an issue. “I got so focused on getting pregnant that that’s all I could see. All I could think about. It consumed me.”
“A lot of women share those same experiences.”
But they probably weren’t as horrible as she had been. “One day, I pushed Justin too far. I lit into him because he didn’t come home when I was ovulating. We had a huge argument and he spent the night at his sister’s house.” She paused. It was hard enough that he had left, talking about it with other people just added to her humiliation. “He moved out the next day.”
“And since then? Are you talking?”
She thought back to this past weekend. She and Justin hadn’t talked much at all. Well, not with words. They’d talked with their lips and tongues and hands and bodies. “Some. I understand why he left. He didn’t like how our relationship was progressing and felt we needed to diffuse the situation. And he was right. We’ve talked about how we got to that point. We’re working to try and solve the problems in our marriage. I want him to come home. He wants to, but he won’t until we’ve fixed what was wrong so this doesn’t happen again.”
“But what about getting pregnant?”
She sighed. “Yeah, that’s still an issue. I’m trying really hard not to obsess about it, especially since Justin and I aren’t having sex right now, but I haven’t stopped wanting a baby.”
“Talk to me about why you want to have a baby so badly.”
Maddie’s thoughts were so jumbled, she didn’t know where to start. But Dr. Bryson sat patiently, a relaxed expression on her face, until Maddie could organize what she wanted to say. “I’ve wanted a big family ever since I could remember. I was thrilled when we had Aiden and I love him so much. But one isn’t enough for me. It doesn’t mean I love Aiden less. I just need more.”
“Of course it doesn’t mean you’ll love your son less. When we have multiple children, we have more love to give.”
“Right.”
“You said you’ve wanted to have a big family since you were little. Tell me a little bit about how things were for you growing up.”
Maddie had spent most of her adult life trying to forget the worst moments of her childhood, but she wasn’t kidding herself—that was why she wanted a big family. “I was an only child. I never knew my father. He left my mom before I was even born. It was just the two of us.”
The doctor nodded. Maddie expected her to say something about that, but she sat quietly, until Maddie was forced to add more.
“Mom worked a lot. Sometimes the only job she could get was overnight.”
“So you were home alone?”
“Yeah.” She shuddered as she remembered cowering under the covers, flinching at every sound that echoed through their little apartment. How they couldn’t even afford a cat to keep her company. “And now that Mom is gone, it’s just me. I wish I had a brother or a sister. Someone I grew up with who was still around as an adult. I want that for Aiden.”
“And for you.”
Maddie thought about that for a minute. Was her need for a baby trying to fill a hole that she had from growing up as much as it was wanting a sibling for Aiden? “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe. But I also want it for Aiden. And I want it for Justin. I’ve seen his eyes light up when he talks to his future niece. I’ve seen him watch other little girls at the playground. He won’t admit it, but he really wants to have a daughter of his own.”
“That definitely sounds stressful. What are you doing to take care of yourself during all of this?”
“For a long time, nothing. It was bad, Dr. Bryson. I wouldn’t leave the house. I stayed in my pajamas most of the day.”
“It sounds like you were suffering from depression.”
“I hate that word,” she snapped.
Dr. Bryson didn’t even flinch at Maddie’s outburst. “What about depression bothers you?”
Her mom’s voice echoed in her ear. When Maddie was a teenager and would challenge her mother’s authority at every turn. The fights had been epic. And Mom would always spit ugly words at Maddie. “I loved my mother, don’t get me wrong. But she had a rough life. She worked hard to ensure I had a roof over my head and shoes on my feet, but not much more. I spent a lot of nights alone and scared. When I tried to talk to Mom about it, she would throw out depression like it was a bad thing. She would wield it like a sword, holding it over my head. I grew up thinking that people who were depressed were crazy and that scared me.”
“I’m sorry that she said that. Depression has had a stigma attached to it for a long time, but it’s just another condition like high blood pressure and diabetes. And secondary infertility. It’s a condition to be treated. You can’t control it any more than you can any of those other medical issues.”
“I guess. It’s just so hard to unhear what my mom said. She would say that maybe there was something wrong with me and I needed to ‘talk to somebody.’”
“Well, I’m proud that you overcame that conditioning and are sitting here today. That’s a huge step.”
“Thanks. After Justin left, I started looking at what my life had become. I was…” she cringed and forced the sound from her lips. “…depressed… and I was going to do something about it. I started getting dressed every day. I started going to yoga with my friend. I used to love yoga but I stopped for some reason. I’m taking Aiden to the playground, and it’s hard because I see moms with multiple kids or pregnant with another child, and I want that to be me.”
“Those are all great steps. So, what are you hoping to accomplish through counseling?”
“I don’t know. I made the appointment because Dr. Anderson recommended I come. I was desperate. My marriage is in shambles and I’ll do whatever I need to do to fix it.”
“What if the solution is that you don’t have another baby?”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she sucked in a breath, willing them not to fall. She had cried enough already.
Dr. Bryson handed her a tissue. “It’s okay to cry.”
She shook her head. “That’s all I’ve done for so long. I don’t want to cry anymore. And I don’t know if I’m ready to give up on my dream of having more kids.”
“That’s fair. But I think it’s important to look at all paths your life could take, those things you have power to influence, and those things that are out of your control. It’s how we respond to the events we can’t control that’s important. I want to help you with that.”
“I’d like that.” She couldn’t imagine her life without more kids in it, but she wanted her marriage and her family back and she wasn’t sure if both of those things were possible.
She walked out of the office with an appointment card tucked in her purse and her heart lighter than when she had walked in. She didn’t know how Dr. Bryson had done it, but just discussing what had been going on in her life had helped. Maybe if she had been talking about these things with Justin in the first place, they wouldn’t have ended up where they were now.