Aiden Borne: Chapter 10

 

Parker tagged Hana on SimFace in their latest picture with a caption that read, “Guess who found out he’s going to be a father? That’s right! Parker Rain, Dad of the year, right here!”

I slumped in my chair. Great. Parker and Hana were the last of Jack’s and my friends to start a family. The Goths had two kids both growing up. Rory and Amy had Melody. Two of Jack’s friends were having kids, or just had babies. Both of our SimFace timeline’s were showing a rapid increase in baby pictures.

It sent me into a depression. Here I was three years married. No kids. Jack and I were happy in our small apartment. So, why did this baby fever that hit my SimFace cause me to fall into a depression? Did I want a family? I never thought about having kids before. I never even pictured myself as a father.

Seeing Parker’s page though, and his happy posts about becoming a dad, made me really think. What would it be like to have a kid? Would I even be a great dad? Probably not. Jack would though. He would be an excellent father.

Jack, he wasn’t fazed by this whole baby craze. He appeared to be happy, and living the life he always wanted. He fished every day. Ran about ten miles a day around town and did a short work out at the gym after. And thanks to our awesome landlord, tore out the dead plants out behind our apartment complex, and started his own garden.

Unlike him, I couldn’t keep busy. I couldn’t paint. I didn’t want to paint most days I worked. It was weird. Jack was the happiest man, and here I was falling apart. All I could do was eat, sleep, and mope around the small apartment. Going out was out of the question.

I should have known that Jack noticed the spiral I was going into. He came home early and found me foraging in the fridge for a snack. I was wearing his clothes, because they were more comfortable. Baggy and loose. When he saw me he raised a brow. “You okay?”

I shrugged and went to grab more junk food. He pushed me away from the fridge. “Babe, I don’t mean to offend, but, uh…exactly how much have you been eating these last couple of weeks?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He patted my belly and smiled, “Well, either you’re pregnant or gaining a few extra pounds.”

I pushed him to the wall and stormed out of the apartment. I couldn’t believe him. He just totally threw that in my face. As if I could get pregnant. That would have solved all my problems in a nutshell. But oh no, he was throwing that in my face. Proving once again why my friends were happy, and I wasn’t. Jack was a bastard sometimes.

The next day Jack found me crying on the bed. He cuddled up and held me, and I held him. “Oh Cutie,” he soothed. “I’m sorry I said what I said. I was teasing you, trying to get a laugh.”

“It’s not that,” I sobbed.

“Then what is it?” He rubbed my back and held me tight. “What’s got you in this funk.”

“I’m never going to be pregnant.”

Jack froze and backed out of our hug. “You mean to tell me that those pills you take aren’t contraceptives? And the condoms? What about the condoms? Gah if I had known!”

I laughed and smacked his rock hard abs. “Jerk, don’t make me laugh. This is serious. I want kids. I want us to have a family. I want to have a little Betty or Bob running around.”

“Betty or Bob? Uh. No. We are not naming our kids that. Sam or Dean?”

“No Winchesters.”

He laughed and kissed me. “We can decide the names later. When we actually adopt.”

“Adoption is expensive.”

He shrugged, “So is a car, but you don’t see me complaining about my Charger. We can make do. We have some money saved. We just need to do our research.”

And research we did. Well…I did. Jack watched stupid cat videos on Simblr and laughed the whole time. “We’re supposed to figure out adoptions, Jack.”

“But this…Baby, you have to got see this adorable kitten.”

“Jack…”

“Okay, okay. Adoptions search commencing.”

We eventually found an adoption agency. We did our Home Study, and were checked off. Though we were suggested that we might want to move to a two bedroom apartment by the time our child was a toddler. We would, I had no doubt about that. After the home study, we sent in a letter to the parent, and put it in the registry online for birth mothers to contact us.

The waiting is what killed me. I worried we would never get picked. And when I worried I painted. My paintings were that of children and babies smiling up at me. Jack called me obsessed. I called it my muse. And Mortimer put on an art show,  and called it, Baby Fever.

About fourteen months waiting we were contacted by a birth mother. She lived in Sunset Valley, which was a few thousand miles away. Jack and I had to make plans.

We sat around during the months leading up to the birth of our child, and planned out what we were going to do. We didn’t know the sex of the baby, and didn’t want to know. We did have fun trying to name our child, and turned it into a game to see who could come up with the worse names.

“Rocket!” Jack shouted with glee. “Rocket London.”

“Rocket Borne.”

And that was a whole other matter. We had no idea whose name we were going to give the baby, and we certainly didn’t have much time to figure it out.

Not too long after the surname debate started, I got the call. The birth mother was in labor.