I heard the heartbeat a few days ago.  It was so weird.  I was actually afraid that I wouldn’t.  That when Angie went searching around it’d just be radio silence.  I told myself I wouldn’t care one way or another, so long as something nasty didn’t rot in my stomach and come oozing out of my belly button… or worse.  But I wake up every morning and feel this thing moving… and then suddenly it stopped?  How the fuck was I supposed to feel about that?  I thought it died… I’d been so sick again, all this puking…

Folks are noticing more frequently now.  I feel like I’m keeping some sort of dirty secret from the community.  I don’t want them targeting me as weak.  I don’t want pity.  I just want to run my business and root in.  Sarah told me not to get attached more or less.  I know she meant well but, I felt a lot like a kid that was building a really badass sand castle on the beach, and then someone just came up and kicked it over.  I know she didn’t mean it like that but… I mean I get it, there aren’t any kids, there aren’t babies.  Just death.

It’s not like I just woke up one day and said, holy fuck, I hope I get pregnant.  I mean it happens.  It’s normal.  It used to be.

Daniel keeps looking at me too.  I think he knows, but… but what… I keep asking myself that.  Why should it matter?  I’ve proven myself to be strong enough to make it.  I just wish things were different.  I wish I could wear those cute little fat belly dresses like my aunt Stacey did.  Everyone made such a fuss over her.  Funny… it only just now hit me that she probably died before the baby was even born.  I never even stopped to think about it until now.  All I thought about was… making it to the next day, and the next, and then the one after that.  And now it’s like the world suddenly has become so much bigger than just me… just my survival.

I got this thing… this baby growing inside of me.  If I die, it dies.  It seems so final all of a sudden.

What if it dies?  I just keep going right?