Vivian was astounded and afraid. The doctor confirmed her
pregnancy. But this happened before. After Don was born in 1939, she had at
least six miscarriages. After the last one several years earlier, her bleeding
would not stop, so she stayed two nights in the hospital. From that point on,
she and her husband Ed decided that trying for another child was no longer
prudent.
When he spoke with her, the doctor even expressed concern.
“I don’t need to tell you this, Vivian,” he said, “but you are
treading in uncertain waters. You are thirty-six years old, and—
“—Thirty-seven,” Vivian corrected. Her birthday was only a
week earlier.
“—And you waited a long time to see me. You’re nearly through
your first trimester.”
“Yes, I know, doctor,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure at first.
There was that time I thought I was pregnant, started gaining weight and so on,
and actually wasn’t.”
The doctor sighed. “I remember.”
Vivian had first considered that she might be pregnant around
Thanksgiving. As usual, she prepared a feast and entertained her mother Leta
and husband Ed’s entire family. She had not been feeling well the entire week,
but for the holiday, she rose at dawn to stuff the turkey and put it into the
oven. Living in a house with two men meant she did all of the work herself.
Having her mother there was helpful. Leta had arrived the previous evening and
spent the night. But Vivian never woke her mother for such things. Leta would
help her later, but getting the turkey in the oven was a one-person task.
Her stomach was so upset that morning that she made three
trips to the bathroom in under an hour. It seemed like morning sickness, she
told herself, but that would be impossible. When the family sat down at two in
the afternoon for the meal, she was perfectly fine.
In mid-December, she had missed her period for the second or
third time. This was difficult to ascertain, as her cycle was very irregular. When
she reviewed the calendar one afternoon when a sudden spell of fatigue forced
her to sit down, she considered for the first time she that she might be
pregnant. She also felt bloated, and her dresses started to become snug at the
waist.
At Christmas, her mother asked her if she was putting on
weight, and she had to answer that she felt as though she was. While she was no
longer the petite young woman she was in 1936 when she married Ed, she was
still a rather trim woman. That she had not felt that she was eating more, she
was as active as she always was, and she had been sick several mornings each
week for a month convinced her that she needed to see the doctor. Her resolve
was strengthened during a family visit to meet her new nephew Alan, born nine
days before Christmas. Although she had been busy decorating the house the
previous day, she had not expected to be so tired. And as she took the baby
from his mother to hold, Kathryn noted that Vivian seemed to be different.
“Vivian, did you change your hair?” Kate inquired.
“No,” Vivian answered.
“Are you wearing more make-up than usual?”
“No,” Vivian said. “But Ed gave me these lovely pearl earrings
for Christmas.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Kate said. “There’s just something
different about you.”
Both let the matter drop and talked of other things. After a
few minutes, Vivian stood to change the newborn, and as she knelt to address
baby Alan’s needs on the sofa, Kate returned to her prior line of questioning.
“Have you gained weight?”
Vivian sighed.
“Just a little, I think,” she answered, over the holidays. I
am hungry all the time.”
Although Kate did not pursue the matter, her demeanor altered
slightly. Vivian surmised that she suspected the same thing.
Shortly after she returned home from her visit, Vivian
telephoned her doctor’s office to make the appointment.
To be continued.
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