It was Christmas Eve morning, and the plant was closed, so Brianna and Ken were home for the holiday. Brianna had not been feeling very well lately, and a gut feeling told her to go buy a pregnancy test. Ken was still in the bed asleep, and she did not want to disturb him, so Brianna quietly slipped out of the house and drove to the local pharmacy and bought a test kit. She came back home and went into the bathroom. She followed the instructions on the package and in a matter of minutes the "Pregnant" symbol came up.
"Oh shit", she thought to herself. "I'm almost forty years old, and I'm pregnant. What am I going to tell Ken?"
She heard Ken's voice in the next room, "Honey, are you ok in there?" he asked.
"I'm fine dear. There is coffee in the kitchen if you want some. I will be in there in just a minute."
Brianna hid the box under some items in the bathroom trash can, and put the tester in her pocket. She would have to figure out what to do with it later. Should she show it to Ken? Should she just tell him? How should she break the news? She had to figure it out.
As Brianna entered the kitchen she could smell the scent of bacon, eggs and toast in the air. Ken was at the stove fixing their breakfast so Brianna sat down at the table over in the breakfast nook. She observed Ken as he moved around the kitchen, preparing the meal. She wondered what their child would look like. She had seen pictures of Ken when he was a child, and he was the most handsome boy she had ever seen. She was sure he would want a son for his first born. "Oh shit, what if he doesn't want a child? What do I do then? I can't just have it aborted. I want to have his baby", she thought to herself.
Ken brought her plate over to the table. He had already served the food onto it, and he soon returned with his own plate, and they sat at the table to begin eating.
"You know Ken, I was thinking, tonight the world is going to celebrate the birth of a special child for many people. Why is it that you never had a child? You never told me. Paul was sterile unfortunately, and we decided not to adopt, so there was never a question as to whether to raise a kid or not."
"Well, Kathy did get pregnant one time, but she miscarried after about 6 weeks, and the doctor said that her baby organs were not in the best of shape, and he recommended that either she should have her tubes tied, or I should get a vasectomy. Kathy wanted to have a hysterectomy so that there would not ever be a chance for her to get pregnant and endanger her life again. So that is what we chose to do."
"I'm sorry about that. I know that you would have made a terrific daddy."
"I would have loved to have been a daddy. I tried to talk Kathy into considering adoption, but she was so distraught over losing the baby, and then having to have the hysterectomy, that she could not bring herself to want a child to raise that wasn't ours."
"I think I can understand where she was coming from. Do you think you would ever want a child to raise now, after all of these years?"
"Well, Bri, I honestly don't know. That is something that I have not considered in a long time. I guess it is something that we would have to discuss more in detail before I decided. Why do you ask?"
"I didn't have any particular reason. I guess I was just curious. We have talked about a lot of things over the past months, but that was one subject that we had never discussed."
They both continued to eat their breakfast, and Brianna cleared the dishes away and loaded up the dishwasher when they were done. Ken wanted to get an early start at the Christmas tree farm so that they could pick out a really nice tree. He particularly liked the Frazier Fir tree and there was a tree farm nearby that grew them.
They both quickly got dressed and went to the tree farm and started browsing through the rows of trees that were ready to be cut. After an hour's time, they settled on one that stood almost seven feet tall, and was nice and full with branches and needles. Ken paid the owner, while one of the helpers cut the tree down and wrapped the tree up in a webbed banding to make it easy to transport. Then Ken thanked the helper and carried the tree to the car and put it in the trunk. Ken used some twine that he had gotten from the helper and secured the trunk lid so that it didn't bounce and damage the tree or the car while they were driving.
When they arrived back at the house, Brianna unlocked the front door and Ken carried the tree in and set it in the stand that they had sitting in the corner of the living room. Ken cut the banding off of the tree, and Brianna set about the task of straightening the limbs while Ken went into the garage and brought in the boxes of Christmas decorations that he had found the day before and had set aside.
"Well, this is our first Christmas together Ken. I can't believe that we'll have so many memories to make in the coming years. I want to treasure each and every one of them."
"I will too, Brianna. I love you dearly, and I am looking forward to many Christmas's with you."
Brianna stopped what she was doing and came over and gave Ken a kiss on the cheek, then returned to the tree and Ken started unpacking the lights and the ornaments. Ken untwisted and untied the light sets and then he handed the lights to Brianna first, and let her string them around the tree. They were solid white light sets, and there were enough of them to have the tree glowing. Then Ken and Brianna both placed the ornaments on the tree. As Brianna was hanging the last ornament, Ken went back into the bedroom and came out with a package. Brianna saw him coming out of the bedroom with the package in hand and looked at him quizzically.
"Ken, I don't think we're quite ready to put the presents under the tree. I want to clear out these decoration boxes first and have them out of the way before we start dragging out our gifts."
