The Heartbreak Factor - Part Four

Rushing across the hallway, I grabbed hold of the door and opened it up as soon as I got within reaching distance of the door. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry,” I smiled in a rush as I opened the door fully for Jaymi and Olly to come in. “Katy had a little accident concerning a jar of Nutella and my phone.”

“It’s okay,” Olly laughed, giving me a friendly hug after I shut the door. 

“How did last night go then?” I asked, hugging Jaymi. 

“Okay I suppose,” Olly smiled as I led them into the lounge and out through the patio doors onto the decking. “They’ve gotta do a load of checks on us first but they sounded interested in finding us a baby.”

“Just gotta wait for someone to have a baby now,” Jaymi laughed, waving at Katy as she sat in her high chair at the table in the middle of the decking.

Sitting down at the table, I looked up at the sun that was shining in the sky and then back down at them as they sat down opposite me. “Did they say how long you could be waiting for?” I asked.

“It could be anything from a few months to a few years,” Olly smiled, sounding a little disappointed.

I looked at them both in silence before taking a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about this and..” I paused. “I want to help.”

“You could be a reference for us,” Jaymi suggested. “The adoption agency said we need a few people to say..”

I interrupted him mid-sentence. “No,” I smiled. “I want to actually help. I want you two to have a baby that’s yours.”

Jaymi and Olly both looked at me in absolute confusion and said ‘what?’ in unison. 

“There’s things people can do these days that makes it possible to have a baby,” I said. “You guys have helped me through a lot and I just wanna do something in return for you two.”

Jaymi and Olly looked at me in shock. I could tell by the looks on both of their faces that they were trying to get their head around what I had just said. 

“Sammy,” Olly said, breaking the silence after a few moments. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through properly.”

“Olly’s right, Sammy,” Jaymi paused. “Have you even discussed this with George?”

I shook my head. “He’ll understand,” I smiled. “We’ve got Katy and we both know how lucky we are to have her so I want you two to have what we have because if anyone deserves it, it’s you guys.”

Olly and Jaymi looked at each other smiling, still looking a little weary about the whole idea. 

“I know that it’s gonna be hard and stuff but I wanna do it. I wanna help you guys,” I said. “Honestly.”

“We don’t want to put you or George through anything like this. You’ve only been married for a couple of months and this could put some serious strain on all of you. You’ve got Katy to contend with too and..”

I interrupted Jaymi for the second time. 

“I want to help you.”

*

Laid on the grass in the garden, I laughed at Katy began to climb over me, leaving handfuls of grass on me as she crawled back around to start the obstacle course that was my body all over again. “What are you doing, missy?” I grinned, picking her up as I sat up straight and began to tickle her. 

“Mummy!” she screamed, laughing her little laugh with glee as I continued to tickle her.

Placing her back down on the grass, she grinned at me before crawling away towards the pool’s gate. “Don’t you even think about it, Katy.”

She turned back to look at me with a mischievous smile across her face. “Katy..” 

I could see the determination in her eyes as she slowly began to continue crawling along the grass towards the gate for the pool area. “Katy May Shelley,” I said firmly, watching her as she crept closer and closer to the gate.

As soon as I stood up, Katy picked up the pace of her crawling and zoomed across the grass, grabbing hold of the gate the moment it came within touching distance of her little paws. As I picked her up, George came out of the patio doors from the lounge, looking directly at me with a stern look in his eyes. 

“I didn’t think you’d be home yet,” I smiled as Katy giggled in my arms. 

Completely ignoring my statement, he grinned at Katy as I passed her over to him. She wrapped her arms around his arm and held onto him tightly. I stood awkwardly looking at him, knowing he was ignoring me on purpose. 

“I’m gonna put her down for her nap and then we need to talk,” George said, before turning around and carrying Katy back inside. 

*

Sat by the edge of the pool, I dangled my legs off the side, letting the water from the waterfall gently gush onto my skin. After a few minutes, George returned back into the garden and made his way into the pool area, shutting the gate behind him. He stayed in silence as he walked around the pool and sat down beside me. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked after a few more moments of silence.

“I didn’t know how you’d take it,” I said hesitantly. “I want to do this for them because they deserve a baby.”

George looked at me and sighed. “I know you wanna do a good thing for them, and it really is an amazing offer, but Sammy,” he paused. “Have you actually thought about what this could do to not only you, but us and Katy? Katy’s at that age where she’s gonna be understanding what’s going on around her and if you end up getting pregnant, then giving the baby away, that’s gonna confuse her. She needs all our attention as it is, how will she cope with you being pregnant?”

“She’s a baby. She won’t understand either way.”

“What about you though? You’ve already gone through two pregnancies and one of them ended in a miscarriage. The doctors even said that it’ll be hard for it to happen again as Katy was a miracle..”

I interrupted him. “No, I’ve researched it. There’s all sorts of treatments that they can do with today’s technology that will make it possible.”

“Even still,” George argued. “If you carry their baby for nine months and go through the same agony that you went through with Katy’s labour, you’re gonna get attached to that baby and I know what you’re like. You could fall in love with a half-eaten KFC bucket at the side of the road.”

I sniggered slightly at his joke.

“What?” he said. “You know it’s true. If that baby is growing inside of you for nine months, you’re gonna find it impossible to hand him or her over. You’re gonna get attached to the baby and you’re not gonna see it as Jaymi and Olly’s child. You’re gonna see it as your own and I don’t think that’s fair on the baby, Jaymi, Olly, me, Katy and especially you.”

“You don’t get it though,” I paused. “We’re the luckiest people alive because we’ve got such an amazing kid like Katy. Seeing Jaymi and Olly, who would make the best parents, not being able to have a child that is theirs in every sense possible is awful, but I can do something about that. I know it will be hard. I’m not stupid. I know it’s risky. But for everything they’ve helped me through, for everything they’ve helped us through, I’m willing to take the risk and I wanna repay them in the best way possible and if that means having a baby for them, then so be it. I’ll do it. At the end of the day, it’s my body and I know you’re my husband but I want to do this one thing for them.”

George looked at me with a defeated look on his face. “You know that I’ll stand by you no matter what but I just want to make sure that you’ve properly thought about all of this and how it’s gonna affect us.”