Continued...

When I broke the news to Casey that I was pregnant, he was obviously not happy about it. On the drive back to my house he told me about a girl he once dated who was pregnant when they got together and had an abortion a few weeks later. The moral of the story was how much better off she was in the long run and how eventually she was happy with the decision.

�I don�t think I can have an abortion. This baby must be flooding me with some major hormones, because I already love it.�

At my house he downed a six-pack in record time. When he was good and drunk he said �I�m not ready to be a dad. I can�t help but think you�re just doing this to keep me around.�

�It�s always the girl�s fault when this happens. Everyone gets to blame me.� I could barely squeak it out. My throat felt like it was trying to choke itself.

We repeated the same conversation every night that week, whether we slept at his place or mine. We barely spoke to one another in daylight, but when he was drunk and ready to fall asleep he would start in with �I�m not ready to be a dad. I really think you�re doing this to keep me around.� and I�d say �I�m not ready to be a mom, either, but I just can�t get an abortion. Maybe I�ll give it up for adoption. I don�t know. If you don�t want to be a dad, you don�t have to be one. We�ll be alright without you.� Then he would pass out and I�d lay awake beside him. Every time we had sex he would ruin it by saying something snotty, like �this is how we got into this mess.�

When he finally got his car out of the shop a week later I was glad to spend a night by myself. The next morning I gathered all his clothes and other belongings from my house and left them on his doorstep with a note informing him that I was going to have a baby in March, so I needed to make some positive changes in my life, which included getting rid of him. He didn�t respond, and we didn�t see or talk to one another for a while. He was obviously glad to be rid of me.

A couple of weeks later I left him a voicemail message saying that I had had a miscarriage. Then he called back to offer his sympathies, and ask if I wanted him to come over. I said �no� but he showed up on my doorstep a while later with a movie in hand. He had rented An Evening With Kevin Smith, remembering how much I loved it, but when we put it in the VCR it turned out to be a �70s porn starring Ron Jeremy. It was much more gross than sexy, but we had a good time making fun of it. The next night he had the video store correct their mistake.

The Anna/Casey relationship went back to its old self, sort of. He would spend a few nights in a row with me, then disappear for a week or two. He was dating other women, but couldn�t find anyone else to fuck so he kept coming back for more of me. We spent the hurricanes together, and right after that his car broke down again.

Physically, I wasn�t feeling so great. I had a cold and a queasy stomach and I was afraid to medicate myself. After the first OB/Gyn appointment the cold got better, but for a couple of months I was queasy, sore, and tired all the time. The worst was living without power for a week after the first hurricane, which added hot, dirty, and hungry to the litany of complaints in my head. I couldn�t bitch about it out loud, because he didn�t know I was still pregnant.

The very first person I told about my pregnancy was my best friend, Abby. She was really happy for me. Even though she moved to North Carolina in August, she continued to be very supportive, and I always went to her with the pregnancy questions that weren�t answered in the books.

When I knew for sure that I wasn�t going to get an abortion I told my family. I called my stepmother, Bridget, who was thrilled about it. About a week later, I called my youngest sister, Amber, and she was so excited.

�Do you think I should tell Alice yet?� I asked, �I don�t want her to feel like I�m trying to steal her thunder.� Alice was six months pregnant, after years and years of trying. All I could think of was her 7th birthday party, when Mom made me go to my room because Alice�s friends were paying more attention to me.

�Yes, you have to tell her! She�ll love it!� Amber assured me. �I wish I could be there when you tell her.�

�Let�s do a three way call, then. Be quiet until you hear her reaction.� I called Alice, told her I was pregnant, and she was happy for me. She didn�t feel like I was infringing on her show at all - in fact she was glad that Mom would now have another pregnant daughter to focus on.

We decided to add Mom to the conversation so we could tell her all together. She was in New York visiting our Aunt, so Alice initiated a three way call to Mom�s cell phone. Mom and Aunt Sue were driving, so we told them to pull over because we had very exciting news. Mom was shocked. Just shocked. She couldn�t stay on the phone long, and after she hung up I talked to my sisters for a little while.

Half an hour later my phone rang and Mom let me have it. She screamed and screamed about how stupid and irresponsible I was, how much of a disaster it was going to be, and what I had better do to straighten out my life before the baby was born. An hour after that she called again, to apologize and congratulate me, and when she started to get all wound up again we ended the conversation for the night.

I gradually spread the news to my other friends, including some of my coworkers. Everyone wanted to know how Casey felt about it, so I told them he hadn�t been thrilled about it, and was now under the impression that I had lost the baby. They told me I was a crazy bitch and had better come clean. I think it was early October when I finally succumbed to all the pressure. We had just spent several weeks in a row practically glued together and I sort of thought he must know anyway. People at the office talked about it constantly, and I was exhibiting all the signs of early pregnancy. We sat at his house one Sunday night, watching a movie, and he reached over to rub my tiny pot belly, smiling beautifully at me. Surely, I thought, he�s trying to let me know that he knows.

I�m always wrong when it comes to reading Casey. He was shocked when I told him I was now four months pregnant. He was pissed. He didn�t speak to me for a while. The next week we met for dinner at the Tavern and he let me know that he wasn�t interested in being a dad, and he wasn�t comfortable hanging out with me if I was going through with the pregnancy. I haven�t gone there since that day, and I will never step foot in that Tavern again.

When we left he hugged me goodbye. There�s nothing I hate more than when he hugs me after he hurts me. That�s just to make himself feel better, because it doesn�t do anything for me. (Ooh, wait, there is one worse thing - when he kisses me on the forehead, especially when he�s leaving in the morning. That always makes me think �Dude, you can fuck me but you can�t stand the intimacy of a kiss on the lips? Blow me!�)

We got back together again pretty soon after that. We spent one or two days a week together. After all, we both needed to get laid. I mentioned the baby as little as possible, but I was getting a hell of a belly, and sometimes I would delicately ask him about the family history of cancer, heart disease, madness, etc. I let him know that he could change his mind about the baby after it was born, and he seemed open to that.

The ultrasound was at the end of October. He was out of town to attend a bachelor party that day, so I was spared the indignity of asking him to go. If he had said no I would not have been able to handle it. At the wedding reception he asked me how it went, and if I knew the baby�s gender. When I told him it was probably a girl I searched his face for a reaction, because more than one person had the gall to tell me that he would be less interested in a daughter than a son, but if he had any thoughts they didn�t show on his face.