Rock Valley

One day resembled the next and before she knew it, Jan felt labour pains in the middle of the day and still hadn’t told Douglas about the baby. All of the sudden it hit her, she was becoming a single mother, there was nobody there to help her trough the delivery, she hadn’t even bought baby furniture yet and worst of all, she couldn’t reach Gary to come and help her because he was at work!! Jan started crying in between contractions, this was not at all what she had immagined the birth of her first born would be. She had immagined herself surrounded by her husband, in the care of a good midwife, maybe a best friend waiting down the hall. Instead, here she was, alone in her spare room, waiting for her child to be born. And thus she criend all the way trough her labour and the delivery, all 14 hours of it.

But then, after those excrushiating 14 hours as she helt her small baby boy in her arms and looked upon him, she knew it had all been worth it. This baby was going to be her life from now on, how could she ever have doubted this to be a good thing? She smiled, got up and bather her child and herself while calling the local store to order some baby stuff.
The next day, after feeding Douglas (she had decided to call the boy after his absent father), she decided it was about time the pore guy knew he even had a son. So she gathered all her courage and called her fiancé at the university.

“Doug, sweety?”
“Hi honey, don’t have much time now, I have class in an hour, and then study group, oh, and I have some great news…”
Jan interrupted her boyfriend.
“I have something important to tell you Doug. Could you come over. It’s to important to tell over the phone”
“I don’t know, it’s kind of busy here you know”
“Please Doug. It would mean a lot to me if you could come”
“Alright, I’ll be there tomorrow, OK?”

As she hung up, she felt releived. Tomorrow everything will be right again.
The next day, Doug arrived around lunchtime. He hugged his girl, it had been half a year since he had last seen him, and kissed her with passion.

“Jan, you don’t know how happy I am to see you, I have some great news to tell you!!”

Silently, Jan took his hand and led him into the spare downstairs room, now the nursery, where her baby slept silently in his crib.

“Who is this?” Douglas asked in a surprised voice. “Are you babysitting now?”
“No Doug” Jan answered in a small voice “This is my son, Douglas”.
“What do you mean you have a kid? And why did you name it after me, people only name their sons after their…”
Doug went quiet all of the sudden.
“This is my kid??”
“Yes Douglas, this is our son. I didn’t know how to tell you honey. Doug? What’s wrong?”
Douglas face went red all of the sudden.
“How could you Jan? Why did you keep the baby? You seriously can’t expect me to come and care for you now cant’t you? I just got a letter saying I can start my postgraduate degree next year, that will take 5 years Jen, five whole years. I won’t throw that away because you weren’t carefull!”

Jan’s blood started to boil. How could he not love his own child? How could he not want to care for his own flesh and blood?? Like it was her fault? She shouted at him and after a long fight told him to leaver her and her son alone.

After Doug had left in the first cab he could call, Jan looked at her baby boy who had just woken up, hearing his parents jell at each other. She picked him up to go and feed him and decided nothing or nobody would ever hurt her like this. She was going to look after her boy herself and by herself and he would be loved more than any child had ever been loved. She pulled him close to her hart and whispered in his ear that he was safe and would always be, as long as she was around.