Forever More
Part 2 - Faith
Chapter Twenty Six
The next spring brought Jon, Tom and Scott back together more as they worked on their second album for Dementia. Late that summer and fall saw another tour but once that ended they continued to stay very busy performing regularly all over the country.
The following fall Sarah had started first grade and Treage was just starting to get into his terrible toddler years. Scott celebrated his fortieth birthday and Rebecca had turned forty-one earlier in the year.
Ethan was in his junior year of high school and Kyle was a freshman. Both boys were heavily into sports. Ethan’s love was baseball and he was a very good catcher for his high school varsity team. Kyle loved basketball and when he wasn’t practicing at school there was usually a game in progress at the hoop that was installed out by the studio.
When able to be home Scott was usually found sitting on bleachers cheering on his sons and their many friends who had become familiar fixtures at their home. He was very proud of his sons and the relationship that they had.
Several of Kyle’s friends had formed a small garage band of their own and on many occasions they had joined Scott in his studio to make use of his equipment and generally have a good time.
It was the middle of November and Rebecca and the others had just celebrated Kyle’s fifteenth birthday. Scott had been off doing a few shows in Texas with Jon and Tom. That weekend Rebecca and her two youngest children flew down to meet them in Houston.
Rebecca had looked forward to spending the time with Scott but for some reason she was in a bad mood. Everything seemed to be rubbing her the wrong way. She had no patience at all with Sarah or Treage and as she tried to get them to sleep that night in the hotel room she was snipping at Scott for not being of much help.
"Jeez! What the hell is pissing you off today?" Scott finally snapped back.
"Look, I’m just not feeling really great. I’ve got a headache. PMS, I guess. Just leave me alone." All she really wanted to do was put her fist through a wall.
Scott figured it best just to stay out of her way, but he got to thinking. "You had PMS before I left." He was venturing on very thin ice, he knew.
"Well, I guess I still got it!" she hissed back at him as she walked passed him into the bathroom.
He followed her in. "No, seriously. That was over two weeks ago. You haven’t’ started yet?"
She glared at him, "No." Leaving the bathroom she went back out and started to get into bed. She still felt like hitting something and was not at all amused at his concern for her. Right then all she figured was that he was now assured of a good weekend of unhindered love making, and frankly that in itself seemed to irritate her all the more.
He came and stood by the bed.
"What?" she uttered rudely and impatiently.
"Are you pregnant?"
Burying her head in the blanket she muttered half in tears, "I don’t know!"
Scott shook his head. This was not at all the reaction that he had expected.
"What do you mean you don’t know? Do you think you are?"
"How should I know? I don’t keep track of these things!"
Now he did laugh. Rebecca did not find that amusing either.
"Are you late?"
"Yeah, maybe, I don’t know." Rebecca was confused and didn’t want to answer his questions.
"Jesus, Becky!" She was exasperating. He didn’t know whether to hug or shake her. He reached over and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, "No wonder you’re such a grouch."
"What’s that supposed to mean?" Rebecca’s voice had softened a little with his small gesture.
"It means you probably are and you’re taking it out on me."
"Why would I do that?"
He got up to go get her some aspirins out of the suitcase. "I don’t know, because you’re a woman." He mocked her with a grin.
"I resent that." Rebecca mumbled.
Handing her the aspirins and a glass of water she swallowed them as he studied her face. After she had finished he took the glass, "Tomorrow morning we’re gonna go get one of those tests and find out. And right now you’re gonna go to sleep and hopefully get out of this pissy mood that you’re in."
Indeed the morning looked better and when Scott returned from a drug store near the hotel with the pregnancy test they found out that she was in fact pregnant with their third child.
The following week Scott returned home to his family. Rebecca had gone to the doctor as soon as she returned home from Texas. They wasted no time again spreading the good news to family and friends.
Scott was home for nearly two weeks before he met back up with Tom and Jon on the east coast. This was to be a shorter stint and he would be home the following week.
Rebecca had not been feeling well at all and hated this part of her pregnancies. She had always wanted to be able to enjoy the feeling of new life growing inside her but was so tired and sick all the time that she could not even allow herself that pleasure, add to that the care of a toddler running around who did not let her have a moment’s peace.
By the time she fell into bed that night she ached all over. Some cramping earlier she had attributed to the fact that she hadn’t eaten much since the day before. She just didn’t feel like eating lately.
She would drop off into periods of restless sleep but then be awakened again to lay and stare at the clock. About three in the morning she woke up and felt her stomach tighten as the cramping became stronger.
She wanted to get up to go into the bathroom but was afraid to move. She was now very much afraid and her heart started racing as she tried to search her mind for what to do.
She laid there longer praying that the feelings and cramping would go away, but they didn’t. She started to get up to go into the bathroom when she realized that she was bleeding. Shortly afterwards she stood at the sink in the bathroom cleaning herself and sobbing as her body trembled. She had lost the baby.
Making her way carefully down the steps into the basement she went into Ethan’s room and told him what had just happened. She needed to go to the hospital. She went back upstairs and put on some clothes and Ethan woke his brother and told him what had happened and to watch their younger brother and sister. He then drove his mother to the hospital.
After he returned home the next morning he tried to find a way to reach his father. Finally after several calls and not making any progress he called his father’s manager. Reaching him he told him what had happened and was told that he would contact Scott for him.
When Scott did call home he had no idea what had happened only that he should call home immediately. He was on the earliest flight home and at his wife’s bed that evening.
The loss of their baby had affected Rebecca terribly. She was somehow blaming herself and searching for any reason why something that she had done had caused it. All she wanted was to become pregnant again. Now she desperately wanted another baby. She had known that life growing inside of her and wanted to hold it. She found little comfort from anything else.
Scott was apprehensive at best but he too wanted the baby that they were robbed of having. But most of all he wanted Rebecca to be happy again. She had been so depressed since she miscarried and he hated to see her that way.
As every month went by that Rebecca did not find herself pregnant she would become more and more depressed. Scott was now wishing that she would just stop trying. He was beginning to feel that every act of intimacy between them was not even pleasurable for her.
Finally in the first week of June Rebecca stood in the bathroom reading the results of yet another test that she had taken shortly after waking up. The test read positive. She was so happy that Scott knew he had to mask the worries that were building in his mind.
Rebecca was worried also but she had accomplished her first step. She would do everything right this time. She would do everything in her power to make sure that this baby would be perfect.
They didn’t even tell many people at first. Rebecca felt that once she had gone passed the nine weeks that she had lost the other baby everything would be fine. Their familles knew and of course Jon and Paula.
The doctor was very concerned again. Rebecca was not young any more. That almost sounded offensive to her ears but at forty-one she was a pregnancy risk. Had the doctor known that she was trying to get pregnant he would have counseled her against it. Too many factors were not in her favor. She had a history of difficult pregnancies and births. Her high blood pressure and the fact that she had miscarried within the last year only added to the problems. Rebecca was still adamant.
But as the summer months crept on and the baby was fine she felt more and more certain that everything would be fine.
During August and September of that year Scott’s career took another turn. Though the band Dementia with Tom and Jon had not officially broken up Tom had left to record an album that he had previously signed to do as a solo. During this hiatus Jon and Scott decided to put together one of their own. This was mostly done at Jon’s place in California in a very laid back atmosphere. The whole arrangement just seemed like two guys kicking back and doing what they loved best. A contract was picked up and they planned a national tour come the next spring.
By October Scott and Jon had finished recording and he was back home again. Three of their children were back in school by then. Rebecca was about six and a half months pregnant at the time. She was really starting to show now He had always loved to see her pregnant. Something about that always excited him. Maybe it was purely a male reaction, she was pregnant with his child, he had taken her and made her that way. Whatever the reason he found her extremely sensuous during this time.
He loved to lay in bed at night resting his hand on her belly or feel the baby move against his back if Becky had snuggled up behind him.
Rebecca had gone up to bed earlier and Scott had been out in the studio until nearly midnight. When he finally got undressed for bed he pulled Treage to the edge of the bed and carried him downstairs to his own bed in the room that he shared with his brother Kyle.
When they had built the house they had assumed that four bedrooms would be enough. Kyle wasn’t happy about having to share space with his little brother who more often than not ended up in his bed anyway. Kyle was just biding his time until Ethan graduated the next spring and moved out to college in the fall. Then he would move into his room and finally be able to get some sleep at night. He loved his little brother but a teenage guy needed his privacy.
Scott tucked the comforter up around his son’s neck and made his way back upstairs where he slid in next to Rebecca. Some time later he was vaguely aware that she had gotten out of bed but then the light from the bathroom blinded him and he rolled over. Rebecca got back in bed and he drifted off to sleep.
A second time he was disturbed as she pulled her weight to the edge of the bed.
"You OK?" He asked half asleep."
"Yeah, I just feel like I have to go to the bathroom and I can’t."
He heard her for some time in the bathroom before she came back to bed. Her breathing was heavier as she tried to prop up some pillows and get comfortable.
He asked if she had heartburn again. She nodded almost with a grimace.
"You want me to get you something?"
"No. Just let me lay here for awhile. Maybe if I sit up."
He was aware of a sense of discomfort in her voice. Lying there a while longer he got the feeling that maybe she was feeling better and he allowed himself to doze off again. When she made a sound and changed her position in bed he became aware that something was wrong.
She had started having contractions. Just slightly uncomfortable at first but in the last few moments they had gotten stronger. She was starting to cry and panic because it was much too early for the baby to come. He tried to calm her but nothing he said was having any affect. He helped her up again as she went into the bathroom. While she was in there he fumbled through the phone book for their doctor’s home phone number. He was talking to him when Rebecca came out of the bathroom.
She felt a little better and just wanted to lie down again. The doctor told Scott that if she felt like the contractions were coming harder he should take her into the hospital but since she now was feeling better maybe they could wait till morning. She should come into his office then.
Rebecca got back in bed again and laid there quietly. Scott laid next to her on top of the blankets and just watched her as she closed her eyes and tried to relax. Their few moments of rest were short lived. The contractions started coming again but this time they were stronger and more like cramping.
Scott told her to get dressed. He was taking her to the hospital. By the time she reached the bathroom she was hemorrhaging and the cramps had overtaken her so that he had to grab her before she fell. There was no time for anything else. Rebecca held on to her husband as she tried to make her way down the steps and through the living room. Scott was yelling for Ethan or Kyle to wake up. Ethan ran up the stairs as Scott put Rebecca into the backseat so that she could lay down.
He didn’t even remember how he finally got to the hospital some twenty-five minutes away. The road was clear and he knew he was driving much too fast.
His thoughts were on Rebecca in the back seat. Right now the only thing that he could do for her was to get her to the hospital the fastest way he knew how. She was crying more and much more hysterical as she begged God not to let her loose this baby. She had grabbed some towels from their bathroom before they left and they were now soaked with blood.
When they finally did make the emergency room and Scott found someone to help him he was struck by grief when he saw how much blood she had lost. They rushed Rebecca upstairs to try to stop the inevitable. Before the first light of morning she had lost the baby. A girl, stillborn fourteen weeks early.
When he was finally able to see Rebecca she wanted answers to questions that he didn’t have or didn’t want to give her.
Something inside of him had the courage to ask to see the baby. When Rebecca demanded the same he flatly refused to allow her go through that. In her grief she lashed out at God and him for not allowing her to see her baby. It was the hardest thing that he had ever done but to allow her to see the baby would only hurt her more. It had caused him a great deal of suffering.
Somehow Rebecca gained enough composure to let him know that she wanted the baby buried. At first the hospital tried to discourage them but Scott persisted knowing that it was what Becky wanted and needed to do.
He had promised to call their priest when he got home, which he did sadly the following morning and in turn the priest contacted the funeral home for them. Rebecca knew that the baby would be baptized when Father went to the funeral home and she had instructed Scott to give the name, Britnay Rose, that they had decided on some weeks before if in fact she was carrying a girl.
Scott went through all the motions for his wife. He did not even know how he was surviving himself but he had to do it.
Rebecca was released from the hospital following the normal procedures after a miscarriage. Within a few days Scott, Rebecca, Ethan and Kyle stood with their priest at the cemetery for a graveside service. Scott then took his family home and tried to make some sense of it all.
Rebecca found no comfort even in prayer. Scott had never seen her like this. She wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything. Paula flew out to spend a few days with her. She told Scott that all Rebecca needed was time to heal. She would never get over losing her baby but as time went on she would be able to not hurt and hate as much as she was right then.
The Christmas season was especially hard on Rebecca. Scott even found himself being upset with her. He had suffered a loss too but he had to pick up and go on. She was not even trying. He wanted to give her all the time that she needed but it was getting harder and harder to understand why she wasn’t responding at all.
Their physical relationship had suffered much. Before she had become pregnant with the last baby Scott had felt that making love to him was for one purpose only. Though matters improved once she found out about the baby she had let him know that she did not intend to do anything to cause any problems.
Even though he knew that this was not altogether true having gone through two pregnancies already with Rebecca, he stayed his emotions for the sake of her and the baby. Once the baby was born everything would be back to normal.
But now the death of their child had sent Rebecca into such a state that the mere touch of his hand made her stiffen. The doctor had told Rebecca that she should not become pregnant again. Scott was beginning to feel that the responsibility now belonged to him.
When he approached Rebecca and told her that he could not put either one of them through the pain again he told her of his decision to have a vasectomy. Rebecca knew that she couldn’t have any more children and she knew that he was doing what he thought best for them but deep inside she almost resented him for it.
