Mother's Obsession

Colette Smith (P.O.V.) I took a deep breath as I looked at the pregnancy test in my hand. I was not nervous, but I was hopeful. My boyfriend and I had been trying for four months to get pregnant. This process is quite frustrating. In the beginning, it was fun because – you know, a lot of unprotected s*x without any fears about something bad or unwanted happening. Every time we tried; I would take the necessary precautions to make sure that I increased my chances of getting pregnant. We would try even when I was not ovulating. We were desperate at this point. I could not count the number of times I would just lay upside down on the bed after s*x. It is quite a funny image to think of and as the thought crossed my mind I blushed deeply. Seems embarrassing now that I think about it. I never knew how hard it was to get pregnant intentionally. The first time I got pregnant, I was eighteen years old, and it was with a guy I had no intentions of being with for the rest of my life. Despite the fact that we had dated for approximately two years at the time of conception, he was not an ideal partner. He was my first boyfriend and while he made me happy, the bad outweighed the good. We met when I was sixteen years old, and he would then go on to be my first boyfriend ever. I was naïve and I was in love. I made a lot of excuses for his actions, and I allowed things I should not have. Thinking back to those years that I had given to him; I could not help but blame him for everything. He groomed me to think that his way of treating me was the way boyfriends treat their girlfriends. He even told me that him cheating on me was a normal thing and that is what boyfriends do. Worst of all when he convinced me to let him have s*x with me, he said he needed to make sure I was a virgin and that either way, he knew he loved me, so it was not an issue that he took my virginity. It was a lot to take in at the time. I did not know better, and I believed every word he told me. Eventually, when we hit our fourth-year mark in the relationship, I began to think more for myself. We started university together so this meant that we would have been seeing each other a whole lot more. While attending university with him, doing the same degree as him as well, I began to see for myself as he would cheat on me while I was around. There were multiple times when I would be walking behind him and another girl. I would text him and I would literally watch as he ignored my text messages and continued talking to her. When I would call him out on his actions, he would then go on to ignore me and do what he wanted with her either way. I grew tired of his manipulations and the pain he caused me. After much convincing from the new friends, I made at the school, I left him and moved on. It was then he realized what he did, and he began to stalk me and beg for my forgiveness, but I had already gotten over him. Out of desperation, he even began to do all of the things I begged him to do for me while we were together. His frugal attempt to get me back together with him was rather pathetic because his tactics were also so manipulative. For instance, when we were together, I would beg him to post pictures of me online because he had a lot of female friends. He would always tell me that if he were to post pictures of me online, he would lose a lot of followers because then girls would know he was not single. When we broke up, he began to post pictures of me except he did it on social media accounts where he had no followers at all so him posting those pictures for no one to see was his way of manipulating me. It was quite funny to witness but I digress. My boyfriend had left me alone at home to go out to visit his family who lived two hours away from us. Although we were only twenty-two years old and had only been dating for a couple of months, we thought it would have been a great idea to start trying to have a baby. It is probably the dumbest idea we could have had considering we spent so much money on renovating and moving in together so quickly, but it was something we both really wanted and the longer it took to happen the more desperate I became. We had spent so much money on pregnancy tests that we decided to just stop checking and wait. Whenever it happened then it happened. The constant disappointment when I would wait to check and then when I did check it would be negative was beginning to get to me. Every time I would get those subtle cramps or spot a little, I would assume that I was in the implantation period but then I would get my period right on time every single month and it would then be a very emotional moment. I stood in my bedroom with the pregnancy test in my hand. My boyfriend had no idea that I had it and I waited until he left to take it. In the case that it is negative then I would not have to tell him the unfortunate news and disappoint him yet again. As I mustered all of the courage and urine in me, I took the pregnancy out of the box and made my way to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and peed on it. Immediately after I got done, I put the cap back on the pregnancy test and waited for the results to show up. Usually, it is instructed that you wait five minutes to see the results but if it is positive, you can tell right away. As the test slowly absorbed my urine, I kept my eyes on the result window, not even blinking. At some point, my eyes began to water but I did not care. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the first line and I jumped up. I did not have to wait for the second line because I just knew it was going to appear and say that I am positively pregnant. I looked at myself in the mirror, grinning brightly from ear to ear. Out of total disbelief, I looked down and looked at the two lines on the test. I jumped for joy again, screaming quietly in excitement. I ran out of the bathroom and into my bedroom to retrieve my phone. I wanted to wait for my boyfriend to get home so I could see his reaction for myself but I was too excited to wait. I unlocked my phone and found his chat. Guess what? I typed and sent to him. Within two minutes my phone notified me of his response. What? He said. I rolled my eyes at his response. I am pregnant!!! I bit my lip and looked at the phone. He immediately opened the message and was already texting me back. You are lying. I took a picture of the test and sent it to him. When he opened the message, my phone began to ring. It was my boyfriend calling me. Grinning widely, I answered the phone. “So does this mean I will have to work more now instead of skipping work to spend time with you?” He said and my heart skipped a beat. I felt so happy and excited that I already could not wait for my bump to start showing. I already could not wait for the baby to get here. “Yes, unfortunately. I am so excited and happy! Ahh. I just cannot stop looking at the test, and to think I was not going to check it. Imagine if I did not check then one day I just wake up with a big belly?” I joked and we both laughed at the possibility of that happening. While I stayed on the phone with my boyfriend, I sat behind the computer and began to Google things about pregnancies. I knew a little about it, but reading more about what happens during pregnancy, now that I am pregnant seems rather exciting and interesting. I was still in disbelief that I was pregnant. I was only ninety-eight pounds and I stood at a mere five feet four inches in height. I was quite short. I really hoped that during my pregnancy as it progressed that I would gain a lot of weight. I wanted to have that pregnancy glow and I was really looking forward to it. I did not mind the possibility of having a swollen nose or feet as a result of it. Any pregnancy symptom that I was to experience in the future would be welcomed with open arms. There is another thing that I had to take into consideration now that I am pregnant. School. At twenty-two years old, I am still a university student. I am scheduled to graduate within a year but that just means that I have two more semesters of school left. I would have to find a way to balance school and a baby simultaneously. Luckily for me, by the time I am ready to have the baby, I would have already completed the prerequisites required for me to graduate. I felt like everything would fall into place once this baby comes around. I was so excited about it all. I wanted to tell my parents the news, but I also wanted to wait until my baby bump has started showing. With that thought in mind, I figured that I would take a short nap. It was only Friday, and I did not have any classes today, so with a sound mind, I crawled into bed and fell asleep with ease. Callum Johnson (P.O.V.) Collette and I had been dating for approximately eight months. Before we became official, we were friends while she was involved with another guy. According to her, he was rather abusive and manipulative. Every time they would get into a fight, she would message me for advice. I personally thought he was not good enough for her, but of course, I did not express these concerns to her directly. I would consistently tell her that she should leave him, but she was blindly in love with the guy, so she did nothing about the poor treatment she was getting from him. I had just gotten out of a relationship when I joined the dating website that Collette and I met on. When we met there, she expressed how she lost all of her friends due to the guy she was dating. She had explained to me that he was concerned about the assumption that both girls and guys wanted to take her away from him. He was so delusional that he did not allow her to communicate with her own siblings because he was under the impression that even her brothers wanted to be with her sexually. It was the craziest thing I had ever heard of. There was just something different about Collette. She had a really great sense of humor and from what I could tell from the conversations we had online, she has a very big heart. Not to mention she is also breathtakingly gorgeous. It was rather unfortunate that she could not see this herself because her former boyfriend made sure to keep her self-esteem at a very low level so that she would be emotionally and mentally dependent on him. After a couple of months of being in contact with Collette, we decided to meet for the first time. She said she was going to a club for the very first time and she was very nervous. At the time I did not have money to purchase a ticket to get into the event that would have taken place the night she decided to go to the club, but I did not let that stop me. I come from a family who is really supportive of my siblings and me and they are very loving. Although we are all adults, my mother made it her duty to ensure we were all well taken care of. My mother lived in London with my two brothers, while my older sister and I stayed in New York. It was not the greatest arrangement, but she did what she had to do to take care of my brothers who had a different father from my sister and me. Their father was a citizen in the United Kingdom, so it was only fair that they got to live in a place that was easier for them to be taken care of properly. All of my siblings meant the world to me, and I loved the family I was blessed with. I missed my mother dearly, but I understood why she could not be with me. After high school, my sister and I traveled to the United Kingdom to be with our mother, but we could not stay there due to citizenship reasons. When my sister and I returned to the United States, I went on my own to rent an apartment after I got a job, and my sister went on to live with our grandparents. Our father was never around to take care of us and due to the fact that my mother lived in another country, we relied on our relatives to get by along with the financial help our mother would send to us whenever we needed it. I know Collette may think that we were moving too fast when it comes to starting a family and I would agree but it is something that I miss a lot. This is not something I would talk to her about because I am really not one to speak about my feelings a lot. I wanted the chance to have a family of my own; children who would love me and cherish me. Someone to depend on me and who would always love me no matter what. I may have Collette for that, but I wanted to share a family with her. My mother met my stepfather when I was just the mere age of five after my father had left her for good for another woman. I did not understand what was going on, but I did not care because my step-father was more of a father to me than my actual father ever was. I wanted to be like him when I got older. He was the perfect role model and he loved me like I was his biological son. He was a doctor and so he was able to take care of all of us. That is, until one unfortunate day when he passed away from an overdose. It was something that none of us was expecting as he had been receiving psychiatric treatment for depression and bipolar mood disorder. I was fourteen at the time when we discovered his body on the bathroom floor. It ruined me. I do not think I ever got over it. My sister and I both started therapy after it happened but it was no use. As an adult now, when I think about him, it still aches my heart and I yearn to see him again. I wish he could see me…I wish he could see the type of man I had become. Sometimes I wish he was around to give me fatherly advice. I am not sure if I am doing the right thing at the moment, but I hoped that I am. Sometimes I felt like I would be a disappointment to him because I feel like I could never be like him. I dropped out of college within the first few weeks of attending. My grades were not the best and I just did not have the motivation to better myself. A few years ago, before I met Collette, I started a new hobby. I was really into bodybuilding, and I was good at it. As a skinny teenager, I wanted to look good and feel even better about myself, so I became a gym junkie. Within a few months of vigorous training, I began to see results and I just never stopped. When I had achieved the body, I had desired for so long, I got a couple of tattoos and was then sought after by a large number of females. I do not want to sound like a jerk, but I was proud of my womanizing ways. I would date women while I slept with others on the side. I did not care if they had gotten hurt in the process. I only cared about myself. I looked amazing and I was able to get any female that I wanted. At times I would cheat with multiple women within a day. I had no intentions of confessing to my partner about my infidelities but if they found out I would not have cared either way. I was living for me. At the time, I did not have a great job, but I lived alone so it did not matter. I made enough money that allowed me to go to the gym regularly and eat enough food to continuously gain weight. After my last relationship ended due to my constant cheating, I met Collette and I fell for her hard. I could tell that she was not really interested in me because sometimes she would take months to even open my messages but that did not stop me from consistently messaging her. Then one night we met at the club. This occurred after she had broken up with her former boyfriend. When I saw her at the club, she must have been really drunk because she was making out with another guy. When she saw me, she stopped making out with him and walked over to where I was standing, speaking to another girl. Without hesitation, she grabbed me away from the girl and began to make out with me. I did not stop her. She then proceeded to dance on me and grind on me. I remembered that night like it was yesterday. I remembered when she left me to go to the restroom. While I stood outside waiting for her, a few guys approached me asking for her. It hurt me to think that she was already leading so many guys on but at the same time, it was nice to know that I had competition. I knew she would choose me over them because we already had chemistry going on. When she returned outside from the restroom, she ignored the line of guys who were waiting on her and grabbed my hand before she pulled me away from the crowd. As she began to dance on me again, she must have felt my boner, because she asked me if I wanted to hook up. I would have been down to do anything with her that night but unfortunately, her heels broke soon after with all of the vigorous dancing she was doing. It was funny to see her attempt to walk in her heels after because the straps had burst so with every stride she took, her entire foot would twist. I remember holding her as she walked out of the club and into a taxi. I really thought that would have been the last time I would get to see her, then low and behold, the next day approached and she texted me. She said she would be in my area and wanted help with directions to get to the beach. I immediately agreed to meet with her. This time, she was completely sober and did not have a ton of makeup on her face like the night we met. She was even more beautiful than I remembered. I became her tour guide throughout the city until it came time for her to leave to go on the beach. I really did not have the funds to go with her, so I simply left her to go on without me but with her friends who accompanied her. Before she left, she gave me a peck on the lips and went her way. I had a feeling that if it were not for Collette, we would not have become exclusive. She made so many sneaky moves just to see me whenever she was in the city. Eventually, we got closer, and I asked her to be my girlfriend and here we are. We moved in together and now she is pregnant with our baby. I had introduced her to my mother and brothers over text and they had actually gotten really close which warmed my heart. I really wanted to get home now to see her. I felt really excited about the whole thing. I could not wait to become a father. The news of her being pregnant had motivated me a lot to be a better man and to work harder. Since I met Collette, I had started to neglect work; so much so that I got paid like half of my basic salary but that is about to change. Although this meant that I would be spending less time with her, I am sure it would all be worth it in the end.   Colette Smith (P.O.V.) I had just woken up from my nap when I heard my bedroom door shut close. I looked around to see Callum entering the room. He placed his bags on the bed before he got onto the bed and laid down next to me. Just then he rolled over to face me before he placed his hand on my belly and rubbed it. “Hey, pregnant lady.” He teased before he lifted himself slightly off the bed to kiss me. I smiled through the kiss and hugged him. “Hey, you. I was impatiently waiting for you to get home to celebrate with me. How do you feel about everything?” I asked him as I played with his hair. I guess it felt good because he laid his head on my lap and closed his eyes. “I am very happy I get to start a family with you. I cannot wait until the little one gets here. I could only assume you have already begun picking out names.” Callum murmured, chuckling lightly to himself. I felt his head getting heavier and heavier on me which indicated he was about to fall asleep. I rolled my eyes at him and poked his rub. Callum is extremely ticklish so it served only right that he would jump in defense of me poking him on his ribs. “Hey! Do not do that. You know I hate it when you tickle me.” He exclaimed and glared at me. I poked my tongue out at him to tease him further. “Well then, do not fall asleep when I am talking to you. Anyway, I was thinking about some changes we would need to do to the room for when the baby gets here. I know we just renovated but I can apply for another student loan, and we could expand the room a little bit so that when we put the crib in the room it would not seem so clustered.” I explained to him as I looked around the room for any little adjustments we would make. Callum and I did not have our own house. Our mini sanctuary was really just my bedroom that we recently added new furniture to when Callum moved in. I still lived in my mother’s home and seeing as Callum would sneak in here a lot to spend time with me, she finally caved in and let him move in. Of course, to make that possible, Callum had to agree to help with the bills. We bought our own groceries which we kept in the bedroom. The only time we would go to the kitchen is if we had to cook a meal. I come from a very dysfunctional family. My mother is a manipulative and abusive narcissist, and my twin brother is a drug addict who likes to steal a lot. When Callum moved in, this caused us to keep all of our groceries in the room because if we were to put it in the kitchen, my brother would either eat all of it when he has the munchies or he would trade it for drugs. We also had to change all of the locks in the room as my brother would also pick the locks and duplicate my bedroom keys so that he could steal things from my room. Whenever I would speak to my mother about his behavior, she would act like she does not care at all what he does. However, when he interferes with her things, she would turn the entire house upside down and take all of her anger out on me because she knows to herself that I would never retaliate. I was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder when I was just twelve years old. This stemmed from the s****l abuse I experienced when I was six years old from an old man who lived across the street. The day that that happened to me, I remember running to my mother to tell her about what he did and instead she blamed me for it. She said it was all of my fault for getting sexually assault because I did not stay home. I did not stay indoors; and so, she went on to beat me and ground me for a week. From that day on, my mental illnesses began to develop. At the mere age of twelve, I was diagnosed with severe depression, bipolar mood disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder/ Due to the presence of my posttraumatic stress disorder, I am unable to function normally around loud noises. Loud music is fine, but loud noises that are disturbing to me are not. Such things as yelling, loud motorbikes, and sudden banging, frighten me and it makes my body shut down. When I am around those types of noises I instantly panic and I stay frozen on the spot. It is something that has affected me all of my life. For this reason, I had been hit by passing motorbikes countless times because I would just freeze on the street upon hearing one approaching me. The fear of loud shouting and yelling stemmed from my mother. Whenever she would yell at my brother and get mad at him, she would beat me in order to take her anger out on me. My father left when I was two years old and so he was never around to stop anything bad from happening to me. When I met him around the age of twelve years, he claimed that he cared for me, but he would only come around when I would beg him for money for school. There are a lot of things I would like to achieve in the future academically, such as getting into medical school, becoming a doctor, and then furthering my studies to become a neurosurgeon. I always had a fascination with the brain. Callum used to always say that we were not a perfect match because I was used to dating doctors and lawyers and he was only just a security officer who had dropped out of university during his first semester. I constantly reassured him that professions do not decide whether or not I would willingly love someone. Although, when I met Callum and we became acquainted, I used to ignore his messages a lot because while I did have feelings for him, I refused to date someone who did not have as big goals and accomplishments as I did. The first time we hooked up I had no intentions of speaking to him again because I felt like he was just good enough for a one-night stand. That night after we slept together, when I got home, I received dozens of messages from him which kind of gave the impression that he wanted to be with me long term. The messages repetitively said to be safe and that he had fun. I was truly surprised that he messaged me because I literally had no intentions of messaging him ever again. I thought about ignoring the messages, but the guilt consumed me, and I decided against being mean to him. I did not want a relationship with him or with anyone for that matter. I had just gone through a breakup, and I was going through my hoe phase. Before I met Callum, I had been hooking up with a doctor who I had met on a dating website. Eventually, the doctor and I became really good friends, and we would casually have s*x whenever we went out for drinks. It was a fun time until he had to leave the country to work at another hospital. When the doctor left, I began to give Callum a lot more attention and that is how we ended up meeting at the club - the rest is history. We were moving rather fast with our relationship despite only having met a few months ago. I could only hope that our relationship remains just as vibrant as it is now.