“Alright. So, first things first. There’s a free women’s clinic just outside the edge of town in the next county.”
“Wait. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t even know if I want to...” her voice trailed off.
“Oh, no. No. I don’t mean that. I mean, yeah. They do that too, but they also offer free pregnancy care. They’ll double-check you and make sure you are pregnant and then you can decide from there.”
“Okay. Do I need an appointment?”
“No. I get my birth control from there. It’s a lot cheaper than going to one of the doctors in town. I don’t have health insurance and the clinic offers a lot of stuff at no cost. They offer other things...but they charge for those, still more reasonable than anywhere else.”
“Have you?” Autumn asked.
“No. My sister, though. I went with her. She was young and the father—he wasn’t someone she could count on to help her through a termination, much less a pregnancy and child-rearing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. She’s in a much better place now. Married to the love of her life and expecting again.”
“You think she ever thinks about it?”
“Yeah. She says she does, but not like you think. She says that she knows it was for the best. She was wild back then and would have made no better a parent than the sorry guy that knocked her up.”
“It’s a lot to think about. I don’t know what I would do with a litter right now,” Autumn said, not catching herself until Leyla laughed.
“Hopefully it’ll just be one and not a whole litter.”
“Of course. Figure of speech.”
They talked well into the night, Autumn opening up about running away from home and the possibility of people looking for her. Obviously, she left off the bit about her being a bear shifter but did express they wanted her to marry an absolute pig.
“That’s just crazy. Your own father wants to force you to marry someone you don’t want to be with? Does he know this isn’t the eighteenth century?”
“It’s his boss’s son and he just wants to get in good with him.”
“By trading his daughter in to be used by some cretin? I know he’s your father, but that’s just wrong on far too many levels.”
“I know. I didn’t say he was a great father. My mother is wonderful, but she won’t stand up to my father, not directly. She’s helped me a little behind his back, but that’s it.”
“Well, I’ve got your back. I’ve been through some shit myself. We girls have to stick together.”
“Thanks,” Autumn told her, though she knew if the tests were correct and she was pregnant, their friendship would end pretty quickly.
She’d have to quit work and move on to somewhere else. There were no nine months of pregnancy for her. She’d be showing in no time and the litter would be born in a few months. Not only would that be a miracle to human eyes, but the fact that she might have multiple babies enhanced it. She could only hope that she was like her mom and only had a single cub. How was she going to take care of more than one? Fuck. How was she going to take care of one alone?
Maybe Leyla was right. It might be better if she took care of it before it was too late. She just wasn’t sure she could go through with it. She had no issue with other people making that sort of choice for themselves, but she just wasn’t sure it was the answer for her.
Curling up on the pull-out sofa later that night, she struggled to get to sleep, only managing a few hours before Leyla woke her up to get ready for the clinic. Less than two hours later, she was sitting in stirrups at the clinic getting a pelvic exam.
“Yes, definitely pregnant. Close to three months based on your physical changes. We can book you in for an ultrasound once you’re a little farther along if you’d like, or I can refer you to a counselor,” the woman said, looking at her clipboard, no doubt at the line where she listed herself as single.
“I’ll call back for that. I’m not sure what my schedule is,” Autumn told her.
“No problem,” the woman told her. “Just call our main number and tell them what you need when you’re ready to set it up.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can do for you right now?”
“No. You’ve been a huge help.”
“Listen, I see that your chart lists your last period as having been about six weeks ago, but you are further along than that. Perhaps you were wrong about the date, but the law here...if you are considering termination, you are close to the cut-off, so you’ll need to make that choice quickly. Okay?”
“Okay.”
The truth was that there would not be anything else this woman could do for her unless she came back within the next few days to end things. Otherwise, she was going to be far past the explanation date to even depend on them for prenatal care. There was no way to explain a shifter pregnancy cycle to a human. She’d have to do it alone or find a shifter midwife to help her.