Free Inconceivable by Carolyn Savage Page A

God, can I catch a break, please?” I screamed in my car. I caught the startled look of the pharmacist, who I’m pretty sure was glad that there was a pane of bulletproof glass between us.
    After I got my purse and returned for the prescriptions, I had to pick up Drew early from school for an orthodontist appointment. While he was at the doctor, I shuffled through the market like I was eighty years old. I figured keeping my legs together would prevent the baby from falling out. After the appointment, Drew wasn’t feeling well, so I took him home instead of back to school. There I got a call from Dr. Read’s office saying my blood work was good. I lay down that afternoon in hopes of resting while Mary Kate napped.
    Sleep had been elusive since we learned of the mistake. I needed to get to a point where the situation wasn’t consuming my thoughts every minute of the day. I prayed for the strength to move past my anger toward the person in the laboratory who made the mistake. I knew I had a right to be angry, but I didn’t want to walk around being mad all day. How could I forgive this person? Did I have to forgive him or her? Was that the only way I would get some peace?
    Focus on the baby , I thought. We’d just dodged a tragedy. The baby was strong, and I was strong enough to survive this.
    SEAN
    That night I couldn’t sleep, and I saw that Carolyn was restless too. It seemed silly to pretend that either of us was sleeping when we both were so shaken. I touched her on the shoulder, and she opened her eyes immediately. “Carolyn, that drive to the ultrasound was terrifying,” I said. “Ican’t imagine what it was like for you. The fear of losing the baby is still with me.”
    “I know,” she said as she turned to face me. “With all the problems we’ve had lately, it surprised me how much I love this child already.”
    “The baby is already part of our family,” I said.
    As we lay in bed I started to understand that the child inside of Carolyn was now someone I needed to protect. How long he or she would be with us was already defined by law and by the choices we made, but for these eight months I was the baby’s father. After that, Carolyn and I would want to be a part of the baby’s life, but it would never be the same kind of connection we were going to have for these few months. Although I never could fully comprehend what Carolyn was going through, I could support her by taking on the planning and organizing needed to set up a structure that would guide us throughout the pregnancy. And that was a task that played to my strengths.
    Ever since I was young, I have been someone who likes to plan out everything. My parents taught me the importance of planning, and I went into a profession where I help individuals and families plan for their futures. My own financial planning began at age five when my mom drove me to the bank to open a savings account in my name. When I had earned enough money for a deposit, I loved watching the teller make another entry in my ledger book and seeing my balance increase. Heck, I do not think I took a withdrawal out of that bank account until I paid a college tuition bill.
    After our sessions with Kevin Anderson and the one with Father Cardone the day we found out about the pregnancy, I had written down several lists of action items. When I went for my run, they were just in my head. The next morning, after my talk with Carolyn, I woke up early so I would have time to write down everything that this mistake had introduced into our lives.
    I began with the fundamental choices we made to (1) continuethe pregnancy and (2) not fight for custody. All of our problems and plans flowed from these two decisions. Next, I wrote down the tasks and difficulties that resulted from those two decisions and divided them into categories. When they became so numerous that they crowded the edge of the page, a light went on in my head. We needed a binder. I had to smile at that. There are few