The Guard To My Sanctuary - Chapter 27: Chapter 27

Our meeting with Dr. Nisbalm for my end of the first trimester check up went pretty well. We got to see our babies looking somewhat like humans instead of aliens which was a nice change considering I was getting the irrational fear that they wouldn't come out looking like people. We also learned that we were even learning that each had their own separate placentas. This meant that we were having fraternal triplets more than the likelihood that we were having identical triplets. Dr. Nisbalm was confident that we would be having fraternal triplets because he explained that there was some sort of lining in between them that almost always guaranteed fraternal multiple births. That made my pregnancy even more unique since fraternal triplets rarely occurred naturally. I also felt all of those feelings of morning sickness lessen over the previous weeks and had started showing more than the little hump in my tummy. Now I looked more like I was bloated all over more than anything. I was still quite small regarding my weight so Dr. Nisbalm recommended some alternative foods and vitamins for me to take saying that I was probably going to carry small even though I had triplets which meant I'd be having more cramps later down the road. That news was really not the highlight of my day. I hated pain more than anything and cramps were some of the worse pains I could deal with.
"Baby we're here," Marco said happily next to me and his hand rubbed on my thigh. His joy was almost infectious and ever-present but I was feeling this sense of weariness about becoming a Dad that I couldn't shake no matter how many of my psychiatrist's techniques I employed in my day to day life. I did not feel prepared in the least for the changes that were about to happen to me physically and that had already occurred. It was scary to think about and I still wasn't sure what kind of parent I would be to our children. I was sure the hormones were turning my dramatic notch up to about a hundred but the fear was still as real.
Marco got out of the car and came to my door and opened it for me so that I could step out. He shut it once I was out of the car and standing firmly on the ground. Now unconfined I stretched my arms out as I yawned from needing a nap. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he had the shopping list in his hand that Dr.Nisbalm wrote down for us. I wished he would let me pay for things but he had this misogynistic determination to be the breadwinner in the family. He told me one night about his family and how he felt this need to be a super dad for his children so I stopped complaining about him buying everything and let him do for me and the children as long as it didn't begin to harm the relationship. Seeing the smile on his face when he was able to purchase the things we needed was enough for me to stop feeling like I was not contributing to the family we were creating at least in some sense. Checking to make sure my phone was in my jogger sweats which were almost the only type of pants I wore since my skinnies were out of the question as of late. When I was sure my cell phone was secured within the folds of my pocket I took Marco's hand and we walked into the supermarket and grabbed a cart before we started to shop.
"Here you go Honey," Marco said picking me up and placing me into the metal basket like a toddler. Before he let me go he tickled my sides which cause me to laugh from being extremely ticklish to the point that I couldn't a pedicure because I couldn't remain still through the process. I got comfortable as he pushed his way to the vitamin section of the store. Marco was the worst shopper that I knew. He would just follow whatever was first on the list and go from there. We could be in the food section and walk over to the clothing and back to the food. It drove me crazy but he argued that it was the best way to make sure everything was accounted for. Marco was all about efficiency to the point that if I didn't keep an eye on him he would schedule our day down to the second. He looked at the labels of the vitamins and picked out my folic acid, vitamin D, calcium, vitamin C, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and a host of other bottles with complicated names that were printed in bold Helvetica. We then walked over to the infant clothing section and he picked up three cute little bibs. I allowed him one set of gender-neutral clothing item since we didn't know the genders of the babies. I really had to push for the gender-neutral clothing because he would have gotten all blue everything.
"What's wrong Honey you look like your thinking about something. I mean you always seem like you are thinking about something which is fine, and don't lie and say that you're fine. You always say you're fine when you aren't and then I have to obsess about what's bothering and we both don't get good sleep," he said looking at me while somehow maneuvering the buggy to the beauty area between two carts. He grabbed my face scrub and toner and moved a little bit further away from the people and stopped to look at me in my face. He was obviously not willing to let me let it go.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on with you or am I going to be parked here for a while till you break and tell me anyway. Personally, I would love to make it home and eat one of those banana popsicles but I guess we can get some here," he asked me getting serious and bringing out his authoritarian voice. His authoritarian voice was void of emotion and gave off nothing but intensity.
"Fine, I'm just a bit nervous about becoming a dad," I admitted to him knowing I was going to lose the stalemate the moment he pulled out that voice on me. It was an annoyingly effective tactic that he employed.
"That's not all is it," he asked me and a shook my head like a child and immediately regretted the action.
"Well continue then, we need to have open lined of communication between one another," he said to me.
"It's just that I know our kids are going to have it hard having to biological Father's in a world that is still quite homophobic despite all the parades and marching you see on television. I can already see them running home crying about how the kids were mean to them for something that they had no choice in being attached to. Then I have my whole issues with London who I still on occasion have nightmares about. I'm scared I'm going to smother them and end up pushing them away from me because of the things I have been through and I know that's not fair but I couldn't imagine going what my dad went through. He only had hope that I would turn up for ten years no real proof that I was still alive. He couldn't keep a relationship running and lived in a constant state of limbo. Plus I have no idea how to parent a child into adulthood, my life is still being scrapped together. I'm nervous that I'm going to ruin them and I don't know how to get over these feelings that keep welling up inside of me. Then I look at you and seem to have a plan for everything while I'm just the incubator," I said rushing through my confession. Marco didn't answer me he just started rolling the cart to the food aisle and I was stuck wondering what he was thinking which was torture. We made it to the food aisle and he started adding things into the cart making sure none of it hit me as he dropped it inside.
"Are you not going to say anything to me," I asked getting notably irritated with his silence. My anger level was swiftly reaching one hundred with him. He made me bare my soul to him in the middle of a cosmetic aisle and then he had the nerve to not say anything back to me. The hormones were telling me to throw his protein powder at his head but the little bit of sanity in me kept me from snapping how I wanted to at that moment. He cut his eyes at me like he knew what I was thinking about doing and was wondering if I really had the nerve to follow through.b
"I don't have everything together and I don't understand how you came to that idea. When I told Josephson I was leaving and explained in detail as to why I was leaving I voiced some of the same concerns about becoming a Father as you just did. I'm just as scared as you are about becoming a Father if not more scared than you are about this situation because while it's on the both of us I am the one that got you pregnant and carries the responsibility to help you make it through this all in one piece. We both didn't grow up with our fathers in our lives, for a completely different reason but we still have to fix that void that had been left by the absences. I want our kids to grow up being able to know us and come to us for any issue they might have because I didn't have that growing up. Are we going to be a tad overprotective of them? Hell yeah. I know what you went through and from the moment those test came back positive that became my biggest fear in the world. Losing any of you would devastate me worse than going overseas did. London may have fallen off the face of the Earth but when he decides to come back and if he comes for you I'll be there to make sure that he never bothers you or anyone again. Now as far as the kids having it harder because they have two biological Father's we will just have to wait and see. If they do go through a little bit of struggle for it I only think that it will make them stronger and more empathetic to the plight of others which is a good lesson for them to learn. Plus all the kids will know not to mess with mine. We are going to get through this together, every single step of the way. So don't think you have to figure everything out alone because you don't have to and you won't," Marco said to me in his normal tone of voice. He must have sensed my anger and knew the military voice would cause me to throw his box of cinnamon flavored Frosted Flakes at him. He leaned over the cart and kissed my forehead before he returned to pushing the cart around the building. I looked up at him as he seemed to have relaxed and was picking out my favorite ice cream from the cooler. With the last of the items accounted for we walked to the self check out section where we paid and left to the car. I kept looking at him wondering how much stress he was putting on himself that could have been shouldered by the both of us together.
" I love you and don't deserve you, and one day I'm going to get to a point where we can lean on each other evenly."