Life's Perfect Plan (The Life Series) Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Sarah Goodman

  All right reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains strong language, sexual situations, mature themes and is intended to adult readers.

  Cover Design by Book Designs by Dee

  Edited by Book Peddlers Editing

  Interior Design by Angela McLaurin, Fictional Formats

  Chapter 1: One More Time

  Chapter 2: Déjà vu

  Chapter 3: Third Time’s a Charm

  Chapter 4: Can’t Breathe

  Chapter 5: Jacob-Sleeping Beauty

  Chapter 6: Pregnant

  Chapter 7: Goodbye

  Chapter 8: Birthday Surprise

  Chapter 9: Jacob- Friend of Mine

  Chapter 10: Start of Something Good

  Chapter 11: One, Two, Three

  Chapter 12: Surfing

  Chapter 13: Jacob- Help Me, Dad

  Chapter 14: Confused and Scared

  Chapter 15: My Sign

  Chapter 16: Something is Wrong

  Chapter 17: Mommy

  Chapter 18: Holding Miracles

  Chapter 19: Good News

  Chapter 20: Father's Day

  Chapter 21: Running

  Chapter 22: Jacob- Falling to Pieces

  Chapter 23: Coming Home

  Chapter 24: Surprise … Surprise

  Epilogue: Fireworks

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  To my handsome little men …

  This book is dedicated to my three sons. You three are proof that you can’t plan out life. Life gives you the ultimate plan, and boy did it ever for me! My wish for you is to live each day to the fullest and enjoy every moment life hands you. Find the positive in every negative situation. You are my sunshine and I love you to the moon and back.

  “Beth, I don’t think we should do another round.” I am sitting at our kitchen table going over work when my husband just blurts this out. A ghostly look crosses my face, and my jaw hits the floor. “Seriously Beth, with the last two failing it’s a sign.”

  “What is a sign, Grant?” I reply in a vulgar tone.

  “The signs that we are going broke, that we had to sell my car for the last go around. This is not conventional. I am so tired of everything being planned out by dates, time, and temperatures. I am so God Damn tired of that plastic cup! This is not what I signed up for!” He says with such anger and frustration. His fists are on his hips and his head is hung low. I don’t need to listen to the rage he is spewing. I see defeat and aggravation all over his face.

  He’s never once implied that he didn’t want this. Now all of a sudden he doesn’t think we should. Grant and I have been married for four years. We did all the things married couples do when you are first married; we built our dream home, we traveled to many different locations, including our most recent Hawaii trip over Labor Day weekend. His father made him a partner in his firm, so now the practice is called “Thomas and Thomas Law Associates.”

  For our first anniversary I bought him a Harley motorcycle. He loved to ride his Ducati speed bike, and it scared me with how fast he could go on that, so I bought him a V-Rod Muscle Harley, encouraging him that I wanted to go on more trips with him. Even though, that is the last thing I want to ride on. Those things scare me. I’ve dealt with too many cases involving motorcycles. Grant reassures me that he takes all the precautions necessary to ride the thing.

  Two years ago I approached him saying I think it was time to start a family. My best friend since childhood, Kate, was pregnant with her first pregnancy. My other best friend Ella and her husband were trying for their second. I wanted to get on the band wagon with my BFF’s, and experience and enjoy this time with them. Well, I missed the wagon when it came to getting pregnant. I couldn’t get pregnant without help outside the bedroom. We tried artificial insemination six times, and that failed. We tried IVF twice, and that failed. Now here we are two years later sitting in our kitchen nook discussing how I might never be a mom.

  Just then Grant slams the refrigerator door and brings me back to the present. “Beth, I want us to go back to how things were before all this madness. I can’t handle how excited you get to just get knocked back down again. The procedures are painful, the medicine makes you become a raging lunatic, and normal sex has gone out the window. I can’t remember the last time we just made love. I am so tired of the planning. Maybe if we let it go, it will happen naturally?”

  “Do you think for one second this is what I signed up for? You think I like taking drugs that make my skin crawl, where I feel I am going to jump out of my body because I have so many hormones going through me? You think I signed up for the painful retrievals of eggs? Where in your right mind do you think I want this? I wanted to make babies the normal way just like everyone else, but for some reason that isn’t our plan.”

  I sit in the kitchen chair, as I place my head in my hands, and try to take in deep breaths. I look up to watch him pull his hands through his hair. “Grant are you serious, you just want to stop? You don’t see a future with a child? I want a baby, Grant. I want to be a mother. It kills me to see pregnant women. It tore my heart out to plan both of my friend’s baby showers when I couldn’t get pregnant. It shredded my dreams when I held their babies. I grieved when Kate had two babies, I couldn’t get one. Now you come home from work and somewhere between us leaving the office and coming home you have an epiphany that we shouldn’t be parents. “

  He pulls the other kitchen chair out and sits next to me. He grabs my hands and pulls them into his lap. “Sweetheart, I never said we should never be parents. I said we should give IVF a break. I want to be a dad, but maybe this way of doing it isn’t what nature intended us to do. Maybe … let’s … look into adoption? You know we have handled many cases that the families were in our shoes. They get their baby, and go on to live a normal life. All I am saying is let’s take a break at least till the New Year, and look into other options. That’s all.”

  I pull my hands out of his, push the chair back to where it slams into the bay window behind me. I grab my pen and throw it across the room. “Grant, I want a baby that grows inside of me! Part you and part me. I have done those cases, and it is just as God damn hard as what we are going through now. I don’t want to wait months upon years for a baby that might be ours or might not! A baby that enters our lives that can easily be taken from us. You and I know the laws. I refuse to go that route.” I’m shaking. I have never gotten so angry with Grant in all the years we’ve been together. I don’t understand why this is happening.

  I go into the family room, and sit on the cream linen love seat. I grab the denim blue pillow, hold it to my chest. I feel that at any second my chest is going to open, and my heart is going to fall out. I am so desperate for a baby! I see that it’s changing our marriage. It’s changing us, not only as a couple, but as individuals.

  “I’m scared Grant, I don’t want us to be alone forever. I’m approaching thirty. I know my window for babies is only open for a little longer. I want us to have children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I envision us sitting in that formal living room with our children opening Christmas presents. We even built this hug
e house for a future family. It scares me that it will be just you and me in this house. It scares me even more that you will get bored with just me, and leave me for someone who can give you a child.”

  Grant walks over and scoops me into his lap. I rest my head on his firm chest. I breathe him in. I wrap my arms around him brushing his long dark brown hair off his shoulders. I kiss his neck, I dart my tongue out and lick the sensitive spot on his neck. He tastes salty, and starts to shiver.

  “Beth, look at me sweetheart.” I push my arms out and grab his shoulder as I look into his deep brown eyes. He uses his thumb to wipe away the tears on my cheek. “Sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere. Whether we have a baby or not I will be by your side till the day I die. I can’t fathom a life without you. We’ve been together since we were twenty one, and we will be together till we are one hundred and one.”

  I give him a smile and a little chuckle. “That’s a long time with me, you sure about that?” I snicker.

  “It’s not long enough, I will need longer with you.”

  I wrap myself back into him and grab his face and kiss him with everything I have. He tells me to hold onto him. He stands up, and carries me into our room. He gently places me in the center of the bed. He lies to my side, grabs a hold of my chin with his thumb and forefinger. He stares at me as if he is remembering every detail of my face. “Sweetheart, I love you so damn much. We will have a family one way or another. Just take a break for a while, for me. Please.”

  I put my arms around his neck and bring him to my lips. We kiss long and hard. He puts his hand under my blouse and rubs my stomach. My hands are in his hair trying to pull him closer into me. I need us to be even closer. He yanks my blouse up and over my head, along with my bra. Grant kisses my neck, then gives me gentle kisses along my collarbone, down my chest to my breast where he starts to suck and tug my nipples. With his right hand he fondles my left breast; he tugs and pinches my nipple with his finger and thumb. Shocks of electricity go straight to my core. “Grant, please I need you … please make love to me.” Pushing himself up, he sits back on his heels, licks his lips. He scoots back from sitting between my thighs. He removes my belt, opens the button on my slacks, pulls my slacks off and throws them on the floor. He puts his thumbs in the waist of my black lace panties and leisurely pulls them down. He just gazes at me, full of love in his eyes. I love this man more than anything, I love him more than any future children we may or may not have. I look into those coffee colored eyes and appreciate he is my family. I get lost in the taste of his mouth, the slide and thrust of his tongue, and the sensation of his hands on my body. He stands up and gets completely naked in front of me. Leaning back down on top of me I feel his arousal pressed against my thigh. I whimper and plead. I need him. “Please Grant … I need you.”

  He fills me in one hard, yet gentle thrust. I moan into his neck, the intense feeling was surreal. In that moment I felt alive, and normal. We made love. The type of love that we haven’t made in a long time. The type of love that has brought us back to where we should be.

  The next morning we wake up entangled with each other. “Good Morning, my sweetness. How did you sleep?” Grant says is his morning voice.

  “I was thinking, about what we talked about.”

  “Beth, can we give it a rest for a few days? We just talked not even ten hours ago about this.”

  “Love, just listen and then I won’t bring this up for a long time.” I roll completely onto him, and place his head in between my hands. “Listen … One more time. All I ask is we give IVF one more time and then we will look into other sources if it doesn’t work out. Just, one more time and who knows maybe by the end of the year we will be pregnant?”

  He places his hands on either side of my cheeks. Licking his lips, “Sweetheart, I would do this over and over, but it is you that I worry about. Your body and mind go through so much stress. I just want a break from it all. I am all for one more time, as long as you promise we are done for a while. We can practice more on the old fashion way of getting pregnant.” He says while wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  “I promise, this is our last time … for a while.”

  It’s Tuesday morning and I’m standing against the kitchen counter waiting for the coffee to brew. I am looking through my phone calendar of my day’s itinerary. I have to go in for blood work. After our talk in August, Grant agreed to one more procedure. I’ve been on Lupron to get my ovulation on track. I have a good feeling about this round. I feel better, Grant and I couldn’t be happier in our marriage. He even seems happier this round. I hear Grant coming down the hall. He approaches me, grabs my waist and pulls me into him with a long and sensual kiss. He tastes of mint toothpaste.

  “Last night was amazing, sweetheart. Maybe we can have a repeat?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. I push him back because I want to look up at him. I’m only 5’4, whereas he is 6 ft. “Not tonight, love, my period has visited. I wouldn’t mind messing around with you though.” I whisper to him as I slowly lick the side of his neck.

  “We are getting close to the wire, huh?” Grant says, as he kisses my forehead.

  “It’s getting there, maybe another two weeks and I’ll be having the transfer. Hopefully in a month we will find out that we are parents.”

  “Sweetheart, one step at a time here, let’s get through today and worry about tomorrow when it arrives.” Grant reassures me to stay focused on the present and not worry about the future. I notice that he takes out his phone and starts looking at it. I watch as he pulls his top lip in and bites it. This is his thinking expression.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask him as I pour creamer in my coffee. “Nothing, I’m just counting down the days and all this will be happening around the time I go to Daytona. I just need to figure out what to do. I don’t want to let you down or the guys.”

  We live in Central Florida. Every year Grant, his best friend Sean, and a few others go to Daytona for Bike Week and Biketoberfest for the weekend. I’ve never been. I don’t see the fuss over a bunch of people riding their bikes around a crowded city. Plus, it gives him his break, and some guy time. With my insecurities, I can’t be around some of those biker babes. Grant has always been my “bad boy” man. He sure has the looks for it. He’s tall, lean, dark shoulder length hair, dark eyes, always has a five o’clock shadow, tattoos, and lives every day as an adventure. He is equipped for speed, always has to go, and go fast. These are the only fears I have when he is gone, because I know what he likes to do, and what he is capable of doing. He might be thirty, but once a bike is between his legs he acts like a stupid eighteen year old.

  I walk towards him, bringing his cup of coffee to him. “You sir, need to take your own advice.” I sarcastically say to him as I kiss him on the cheek. Walking back to the fridge I tell him not to worry. “Keep your plans for your motorcycle trip, I am sure everything will work out around the transfer and if you aren’t there. I have Ella or Kate who can take me. I’ve done this before; it’s not that big of a deal.”

  Within two strides Grant has his arms around my waist and facing me. “Dammit, Beth it is a big deal. This is our last time and I want to be there for you. We do this together all the way through. I don’t care about the stupid bike trip. I love you and this is more important.” He leans down and kisses me. He picks me up and places me on the counter. Standing between my legs, he has me wrapped in his lean arms. Our kiss is intense and the hold he has on me is even more powerful. We stay embraced and kiss for what seems like minutes. He pulls away and his chocolate covered eyes look into mine. He stares, thinking of what to say. “Sweetheart, I love you and don’t ever think that just because I don’t have a physical part in this baby making process. That I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s a huge deal, we are making a baby. Our lives will be forever changed. I’m by your side through all of it.” He kisses me again and pulls me off the counter.

  I grab my things and head for the door. “Now, let’s get to work before the boss kicks my ass!”
I say with a giggle to him.

  “There is a lot more that I would like to do with that ass then kick it, sweetheart!” Grant snorts.

  I put in a few hours at work, before I head to the doctor’s office. I have blood work taken and was given an ultrasound. I wait to hear back from the doctor and go on from there with the drugs. After my appointment I return to my office to see a huge, beautiful bouquet of pink roses, blue hydrangeas, and baby’s breath. There is a card leaning against the crystal vase. Seeing that it is in Grant’s handwriting, I open the card and read it.

  Just know that I love you. I have been thinking about you. You will be an excellent mother and our baby will be as lucky as I am having you in my life. I love you!

  That man is the sweetest and caring man ever.

  Friday morning comes and I get a call from Dr. Wilson’s office.

  He has been the one that has been handling our IVF procedures. When our insurances changed last year, my best friend Ella referred me to Dr. Alexander. Ella is an OB/GYN nurse in his office. She said he is great, and has great contacts with doctors in the infertility field. Dr. Alexander referred us to Dr. Wilson. Dr. Wilson is a wonderful older gentleman. He has been doing this for decades with a lot of success! He has a great reputation of getting 85% of his patients pregnant. I hope I am not the other 15%. I just pray that third time is a charm! My desk phone starts to ring and I pick it up, “This is Elizabeth how may I help you?”

  “Hi Elizabeth, this is Lucy from Dr. Wilson’s office. I have your test results. Everything came back great and Dr. Wilson wants to start you on Clomid. Can you come in this afternoon?” Looking at my calendar I see that I am free. “Yes, Lucy, put me down I will be there this afternoon.” I hang up the call and walk towards Grant’s office.

  His door is open which means for me to enter, but he is busy typing away on his computer. Working with him has been the best decision I could have ever made. I really enjoy the closeness of being with him all the time. I couldn’t imagine working eight to ten hours away from him. Here I have the leisure to go and see him whenever I want, unless he is in court.