Page 157 of The Compass Series

STELLA

D amian didn’t know it, but it happened—my dam broke.

I’d been feeling heightened anxiety for the past few weeks.

Every pregnancy before this one started with the same type of fear: the possibility of losing the baby. What was even worse was this time, I didn’t feel right. It was almost as if I could feel my soul warning me of something awful that was on its way.

For the past week, I felt a new level of anxiety that I couldn’t really uncover. I hadn’t gone to the water, and I didn’t even know why. Each morning I woke up feeling on the verge of tears, and each night I struggled to fall asleep.

I stopped going to the ocean because every time I’d feel the waves hit my feet, an odd sadness fell against me.

As if Mama’s love was so far away. Each wave felt more disconnected.

Maybe it was me, maybe it was my mind. Either way, the calmness the water used to give to me was filled with more worry.

Damian could tell something was off, but he didn’t know how to approach it.

I didn’t blame him because I wasn’t even certain how I wanted to be approached.

At first, I thought it was the idea of Jeff not being in the baby’s life, but that wasn’t it.

Secretly, I felt a sense of relief from that fact.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Mama and Kevin for the past few days. I felt as if a cloud of darkness was over me, and I wasn’t certain exactly what it meant. But I knew something was wrong.

“Slow down your mind, baby girl,” Grams told me, giving me a neck massage as I sat at her dining room table.

“I can’t, Grams. I just feel like something’s wrong.” I turned to face her and frowned. “Can you do a reading for me, maybe? Just a little tarot spread to let me know if everything’s going to be okay?”

She frowned. “Stella, you know my rules. When one’s anxiety is high, we do not turn to our magic. We have to be aligned with ourselves to use our gifts. Besides after the last…” Her words fumbled off.

“Miscarriage,” I said.

She frowned, hating the conversation, but knowing that she’d seen me like this before. Every time before when I was pregnant, I had the same kind of fear. “Exactly,” she told me. “We just have to trust in the universe.”

“The universe has screwed me over before,” I cut in.

Grams eyes filled with concern for me. I tried my best to shake it off.

“No, I know. I know, I’m probably worrying you, but I’m okay, Grams. But please, I just, I feel… please?” I begged. “Just one reading?”

Her eyes filled with tears. Emotions swept over her as she took my hand in hers. “Everything’s going to work out for the greater good. Just believe that.”

I pulled my hand away from her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Stella—”

“Did you already do a reading on me?”

She went silent.

“Grams, tell me.”

“Maybe we should go walk down the coastline. Put our feet in the ocean.”

“I don’t want to put my feet in the ocean, Grams. What is it? What did you see?”

She moved in to give me ocean kisses, but I pulled away.

“No. I’m scared, Grams. I’m scared. Tell me what you saw.”

“You’re okay, Stella. You’re okay, and the baby’s okay.”

“Then what are you avoiding telling me?”

“Anything I tell you is just a possibility, anyway, sweet girl. Nothing is set in stone.”

“It was last time you told me,” I said to her. “So, just tell me again.”

“I saw how much hurt you went through with the last loss, Stella. I’ve seen your heartbreak, and I refuse to put any more of that doubt or fear into your system with these cards or silly readings.”

“Now they’re silly?”

“Yes,” she said sternly. “They are silly when you become dependent on them instead of self. You are okay. The baby is okay. My sweet child,” she placed her hands against my face and cradled it. “Be here now. Stop chasing a future that is currently still make-believe. Be here now.”

She wouldn’t say what she’d seen. My stomach dropped, and I instantly felt ill.

I stood from her chair and headed back toward my house, ignoring Grams as she called out my name.

As I walked into the house, I found Damian in his office on a work call.

The moment our eyes locked, he stood to his feet.

“Let me call you back,” he told the person on the other line, then he hung up quickly.

His arms were wrapped around me within seconds, and he held me tight as I cried into his arms.

It took three more weeks.

Three more weeks of anxiety. Three more weeks of panic attacks. Three more weeks of a heavy feeling of pain hovering around me before it happened.

Lying in bed beside Damian, I felt a sharp pain in my side. As my breaths intensified, I sat up beside my sleeping husband, and my hand fell to my stomach. I turned on the lamp beside me and felt an overwhelming amount of fear as I stared down at the bedsheets to see red.

Baby…

“Damian,” I cried out, shaking his body with my trembling hands. “Damian, wake up.”

He sat up and cleared his throat, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes. “You okay?” he asked.

“Baby,” I whispered.

His eyes opened more, and he focused on coming out of his dream state. When he saw the blood, he grew fully awake and alert.

“Baby,” I repeated, tears falling down my cheeks.

He rushed me to the hospital.

But I already knew what was to come.

I stared at the doctor with tears in my eyes in a state of complete disbelief.

“Everything’s okay?” I asked the doctor for the hundredth time. Damian’s hand was clasping mine. Even though my nerves were shot, his comfort was wrapping me up tight in his hold.

“Yes. Again, it’s called preeclampsia. And with your past struggles of being pregnant, I believe it’s important to monitor this closely.

Since your blood pressure is high and your ankles are swelling, I am going to suggest bedrest for the remainder of your pregnancy.

There is also a list of dietary changes we can add to your plan to help with this, and the medications I mentioned previously. ”

“Is this because of my weight?” I asked, feeling shaky. I heard Jeff in the back of my mind, telling me how the loss of my previous pregnancies was my fault. “Did I do this?”

The doctor smiled as he shook his head. “Actually, preeclampsia can have many causes. All that matters is we caught it early enough, and we are able to monitor it from here on out.”

“And by bedrest, do you mean staying down completely or…?” Damian asked.

“Good question. Yes, we are going to recommend full bedrest based on Stella’s levels and blood pressure,” the doctor said.

My chest tightened. “I’m only five months pregnant. You’re saying I need to be on bedrest, in my bed, for the next four months?”

He frowned, knowing it wasn’t the most ideal situation. “I know this can be a lot to handle?—”

“Are you kidding? I have a job. I have commission projects. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that,” I explained. “And will this even help the baby? Is there still a chance I’ll lose it?”

I felt a squeeze of my hand and looked at Damian. His ocean blue eyes locked with my panicked stare. “We’ll figure it out.”

“But…”

“I’ll take care of you, Stella,” he whispered.

I parted my lips to respond as tears streamed down my cheeks. No words came. I closed my eyes, feeling overwhelmed by the idea of losing said baby.

“I’ll take care of you,” he repeated, sending a wave of comfort through my system. He then spoke to the doctor, asking for a list of things we should watch out for during the next few months.

When the doctor mentioned the possibility of blood clots in the legs from laying down so much, Damian smiled, trying to ease my worries. “I guess it’s my turn to be the one giving massages.”

He’ll take care of us , I thought to myself, taking in as many breaths as I could.

Damian drove us home, and I was silent the whole time even though my thoughts were screaming. When I did speak, my words weren’t the positive ones that Damian was probably used to from me.

“I can’t believe I did this to the baby,” I softly spoke.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Stella.”

“I did. I know I did. Just like with the ones before. It’s my weight. It’s always been my weight. If I didn’t… If all those years ago, I would’ve listened to the stepmothers who told me to get in shape. If I would’ve just?—”

“You’re more than enough,” he said, reaching out with one hand and rubbing my leg. “Don’t do that, Stella. It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”

It was almost impossible not to do just that.

After we made it home, Damian parked the car and turned to me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I stared forward, frozen. Unable to answer.

Unable to do anything.

He climbed out of the car and walked over to my door.

He opened it and reached in, lifting me into his arms. He carried me into the house, into his bedroom, and laid me down on our bed.

I rolled onto my side, and he lay across from me.

Our eyes locked, and he moved a piece of fallen hair from in front of my face.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated.

A lone tear rolled down my cheek. I wasn’t certain that I had any more of those left within me.

He leaned in and kissed it away, then he rested his forehead against mine.

“It’s not your fault,” he said once more.

Four words.

They were the only four words he spoke for the remainder of the night.

He repeated them as if he were a record that played on an eternal loop.

He played them while my inhalations were a struggle and my exhalations were packed with pain.

He played those four words as my eyes grew heavy.

He played those four words as sleep found me slowly, and his body intertwined with mine.

He gave me those four words, and before darkness overtook my soul for the night, I gave him four words back. They were quiet, and broken, and scarred, but they were all I had to offer him after he stayed so close for so many hours.

With my eyes closed, I parted my lips and whispered, “I love you, too.”

I’d been sitting in a pool of unease, unable to shake off the nerves of something being wrong.

A heaviness in my chest made me so fearful of the future.

My mind went to the darkest place. Something was wrong with the baby.

I knew it was. I felt it deep in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong with the thing I cared about most.

I couldn’t be alone.

I felt awful about that fact, but my anxiety was too high when I was alone. I worried about something going wrong and no one being there to help me. I worried about having a panic attack in the middle of the night, and Damian not being around to calm my soul.

My artwork was suffering due to my panic attacks.

I couldn’t create the way I was supposed to, which sent waves of guilt through me, which only sent me through a loop of more panic about falling behind with my commission pieces.

Which, in turn, only sent me through another level of panic attacks. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I feared being pregnant. Honestly, I thought it would never happen for me again after the last time. That was what the doctors told me, at least. The terrifying fact that anything I did could harm another being.

My being.

My baby.

I can’t do this. I’m not enough…