The New

I've never felt cold like this.  So cold, it made my face hurt. So cold that if you spit, you would hear the tinkle as it hit the ground.

In the prairies the temperatures dipped below -40, so cold you couldn't pack a snowball. It just drifted like little pieces of styrofoam in your hands.

The Prairie climate is so much different than that of the coast. Being used to mild and wet climates, the dry cold was not something I'd ever experienced.

In the few months we'd been there, we'd managed to find a home in the basement suite of a nice family.

I began working at McDonald's as a birthday hostess while C continued his job at the railroad. Life became settled and somewhat routine while still having fun being young adults, meeting new people, checking out the nightlife and making love in the hay fields.

One morning, while making myself a quick breakfast before work, I had cooked up some scrambled eggs. I love scrambled egg so I gobbled them up like I normally do.

Two minutes later, I was hanging over the toilet throwing them up. My period was also late too. But they were so irregular, I thought nothing of it. A few weeks later and several visits to the toilet, had me suspecting I was pregnant. I went to a walk-in clinic and took the test. The doctor confirmed I was indeed pregnant. I asked that doctor please write it down on a prescription pad to say exactly that. I was used to a lifetime of not being believed, so I had the doctor write the diagnosis down. It said,

'The above named is pregnant. Pregnancy test done today is positive.'

I walked slowly home from the clinic wondering how C was going to take this.

I was sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in from work and asked me how I was doing. I looked up from my clenched hands and said nothing, I just passed him the note. C read the note and paled slightly. Looking over at me he said,

"What do you want to do? I mean we're too young for kids."

My heart sunk I replied, "I won't have an abortion, I know that. I may consider adoption, I may not." Tears slipped down my cheeks as I looked at my hands. And then another disappointment hit me when C said,

"Okay, let's not tell my parents. We'll keep this to ourselves, give the baby up for adoption and say nothing to them."

I reluctantly agreed.

A few months went by my belly began to swell and soon the fluttering movements inside me began to show itself. C came home from work one day with one such experience going on.

"Come here!" I said, "Feel this!"

The feeling of movement within me that was not caused by myself, was very strange and exhilarating indeed. I placed his hand upon my belly. The baby responded with a direct kick into his palm.

"Oh wow!" He said. "Too bad you have to give it up."

My heart broke once again. I knew in that moment I was not going to give up my child regardless and no matter what he said.

The next morning while C was at work, I made a phone call to his parents.

"I'm almost six months pregnant, C doesn't want me to tell you. He wants me to give up the baby for adoption. I'm sorry," I sobbed.

Later in the evening when C was home the phone rang. He picked up the phone and said,

"Hello?"

He went silent. Slowly he walked back and forth from the living room to the dining room. I knew his father was talking and C didn't dare interrupt. After a few moments he hung up the phone and looked down at me.

"We're keeping the baby." He didn't tell me what his father said and he never spoke about adoption again.  I didn't want to rock the boat, so I left it at that.

I thought to myself, "I'm keeping the baby regardless.  My decision not yours."

But I never voiced it. I tried my best to get past the hurt and carried on preparing for our baby to arrive. One night in the blackest hour, I thought I had peed my bed. I stood up and the waters began to flow...

"C, wake up...it's time."