What next?

One day, after a visit to the doctor's office, I finally got up the courage to ask what Kelz was going to do once she had the baby. Her response was, "I thought me and the baby were going to continue living with you." I sighed very deeply.

"No, that's not going to happen. As much as I love you and care about you, I can't help you raise a child who's not mine." "WELL, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?" "I don't know. I'm only letting you live with me so that you can have a healthy baby. This is something we've needed to discuss for a long time and I'm sorry we have to talk about it just a couple of months before you give birth." "WELL, I GUESS I'M GOING TO HAVE TO GIVE IT UP FOR ADOPTION AND THEN YOU CAN KICK MY ASS TO THE CURB AGAIN!"

But this had always been a problem with Kelz. She typically did things without discussing them with me first. She (allegedly) started having NA meetings at our house. She got her tongue pierced. She started "hustling." And now, she was expecting me to be okay with being responsible for a little human being and roll with it like I had the other stuff.

Another issue what that, even though she was able to get on Medi-Cal, she was not able to get on Welfare. Her explanation was that the caseworker happened to be the ex-wife of Brod (the baby daddy). I sort of don't believe this was true. They likely denied her Welfare claim because she told them about me and my income level, but she didn't want to tell me that.

She started making calls to find out about adoption options. She received some stuff in the mail that showed a few families looking to adopt a baby. They all seemed nice, but I was still left with another problem: If she gave the baby up for adoption, what was going to happen to Kelz? I wasn't planning on having her stay with me. I knew that once the baby was no longer in the picture, she would be back to her old ways before I knew it and she would always be angry at me for making her give up her child.

I guess Kelz figured that for her to keep the baby and have a place to stay, things needed to improve between us. Late one Saturday night, I had to go to work to load the tapes for the next day. She was sitting in the comfy chair. I gave her a hug, and the next thing I know, we started kissing passionately. I had to tear myself away because my work depended on having those tapes loaded on time. When I returned, she was not interested in picking up where we left off.

Sometime later, I asked if I could touch her tummy. "Go ahead." I could feel the baby moving inside. It was constant. There was no break in the movement. I put my ear to her belly and I could hear the baby's heartbeat. I was stunned. This was the first time I'd gotten to experience this.

And I got addicted to that. Sometimes, I could just sit there for a half-hour at a time, feel the baby move and listen to her heartbeat. Kelz also started being more affectionate with me.

Kelz and I also started sleeping in bed together. I was slowly feeling like things were getting to a good place. Good enough that I actually wanted to help Kelz raise the baby.

And I must have let my co-workers know this, because they decided to throw a baby shower for her (even though they were all fully aware of the drama she caused when she first moved in with me). We arranged it to be a surprise. When Kelz had a doctor's appointment, I told her I needed to get something at work. We went in and received several gifts, including a car seat and clothes. Kelz was very pleased by this.

So, it looked like, against my better judgement, a baby was on her way into my home.