Doctors’ offices are never warm enough. You’d think they’d keep the heat up in a place where you’re expected to sit and wear nothing but a paper gown.
Josh leaned next to me against the examining table where I sat with my bare legs dangling. He held my hand so I couldn’t fidget.
“Does it always take this long?” he asked, checking his watch.
His wedding ring was on his watch hand and I smiled at it, despite being cold and nervous. The inscription inside his ring said “okay.” I’d had my ring sized, and Josh had it inscribed with “my universe.” We were adorable.
We were also hungry.
It had been almost a half an hour since the ultrasound tech finished taking images. Nobody had been back since, and I’d had to fast for a glucose test. Josh hadn’t eaten in solidarity, so we were both starving.
I sighed. “I don’t know how long this takes. I’ve never had a pre-op for a hysterectomy before.”
We’d been married four weeks. It had been a hectic month.
Josh had moved in with me, but we realized almost on day one that we needed a place closer to Sloan. Both of us were there more than we were at home.
We asked her to move in with us and she’d flatly refused. We asked to move in with her and she refused that too. So we’d been house hunting in addition to merging our lives, launching our new line of doghouses, and
taking care of my best friend.
Josh had taken on all the home repairs that Brandon hadn’t gotten to. He cooked most of our meals, and I spent almost every day still getting her out of bed, cleaning her house, trying to cheer her up.
She wasn’t getting any better.
The only time I could get her to leave the house was to visit Brandon’s grave or for the occasional visit to Starbucks. She refused to go to the doctor for counseling or antidepressants to help get her through. I didn’t know what else to do.
Josh nuzzled me and I closed my eyes, leaning into him. “What should we bring to Sloan’s for lunch?” he asked.
“Um, she likes tacos. We can stop at the taco truck on the way over.”
He cupped my cheek with his hand. “Sounds good. Remind me to fix her bedroom door. The lock has been sticking.”
I tilted my head and he kissed me. He was always kissing me. Touching me, hugging me, holding my hand. We didn’t get a honeymoon, but it didn’t matter.
Every day was our honeymoon.
Last week Sloan’s mom came and spent a few days with her so Josh and I could fly to South Dakota for me to meet his family.
He was not kidding. His sisters were crazy. I loved those bitches.
It was like running with a pack of female alpha wolves fighting for the pack leader position. It was so much fun.
When we were there, we decided his sister Carmen was in the best place to be our first surrogate. She was a stay-at-home mom with her toddler and her seven-year-old, and she’d had the easiest pregnancies.
I’d have to do daily injections before they could harvest my eggs, and my fibroids never responded pleasantly to hormones, so even though we were busy with Sloan and my recovery was going to be a long one, we decided to schedule my hysterectomy.
It was time. My cramps had been horrible, and I was still spotting almost daily. The fibroids had started pushing against my bladder, and I couldn’t sleep on my stomach anymore because it was too uncomfortable. And no matter how many times Josh told me I was sexy, I didn’t feel like it with my potbelly.
I was ready to be done.
Josh was kissing me when the knock came on the door, and we jumped away from each other like teenagers who just got caught making out.
Dr. Angelo let himself in, looking at my chart. “Well, we have all your tests back. Mr. Copeland, you were definitely right to be concerned.” He flipped a page, scanned it for a moment, and then turned to me. “You’ve got a few things going on that unfortunately are going to make the hysterectomy out of the question.”
His face was grave.
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath. Something was wrong with me.
I knew it.
They say you’re only as old as you feel. I was beginning to think I might be some kind of ancient relic or something.
For the last few weeks, I’d been getting headaches and I was really run- down. And I’d been losing weight like crazy. I kept having dizziness that I didn’t dare tell Josh about because he would have dragged me straight to urgent care. He’d already been riding me relentlessly to get my glucose levels tested. I didn’t have time to be hauled off to the hospital. I had shit to do.
And now I had diabetes or cancer or some rare heart condition, and Josh was going to have to take care of my dying ass.
This was just my luck. Not only was I going to have to keep my stupid, bleeding, bulging uterus, but now I’d have to deal with whatever else was wrong with me.
I seriously didn’t have time for this. Sloan was a full-time job. My job
was a full-time job.
And poor Josh. I just wanted to be a good wife to him. I wanted to be normal and healthy. And if I couldn’t have a hysterectomy, could my eggs be harvested for in vitro? I mean, how far-reaching was this? And if I couldn’t do in vitro, would my health keep us from being able to adopt? They had rules about that, didn’t they? If you were dying, you couldn’t bring a kid into it?
My velociraptor scratched at some inner door. But Josh put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring squeeze, and the monster went back into hibernation.
I knew my husband wouldn’t leave me, no matter what bomb was about to be dropped. And the thing that sucked was I’d let him put a ring on this, and now I couldn’t leave him to spare him a lifetime of my health issues. Well played, Josh. He was stuck with me.
I sighed and braced for the news.
Dr. Angelo pulled his stool up and sat, his clipboard balancing on his thigh. He twined his fingers in his lap. “You’re pregnant, Mrs. Copeland.”
Everything stopped.
Josh’s hand went slack on my shoulder. I stared at the doctor. “I’m what?”
“A little over four months along.” Dr. Angelo gave us a grin. “What? ” Josh breathed.
Dr. Angelo swiveled his stool in front of the ultrasound machine. He typed into the keyboard, and a black-and-white image came up on the monitor.
He tapped a pen to a spot on the screen. “There’s Baby.” He tilted his head. “There’s a foot. We have Baby’s head here. There’s a hand…”
Josh and I gawked at the screen. I don’t think either of us breathed. My ears started to ring.
A black-and-white paper printed out under the monitor, and Dr. Angelo handed it to us. “Your first baby picture.”
Josh and I looked down on the thin paper in shock, each of us holding a corner.
Dr. Angelo pushed his glasses up his nose. “Your glucose tests did come back a little off. Gestational diabetes. You’ll need to be vigilant with your diet from now on, and you’ll have to test your blood sugar.” He talked to his clipboard. “That’s what caused that bout with hypoglycemia that you mentioned.” He nodded at Josh. “I’ll give you a dietary printout. Your ultrasounds look good. Your baby appears to be healthy. Everything looks fine.”
“How? ” I breathed. “I have an IUD. And the fibroids! I’ve been bleeding this whole time!”
Dr. Angelo shook his head. “You mentioned spotting when we spoke earlier. Spotting and cramping are not unusual during pregnancy, especially after intercourse. And from what I can see, your IUD is, well—” He laughed a little. “It’s not there. I didn’t see it. My radiologist didn’t see it
either. It was likely expelled during a heavy menstrual flow. If your period is heavy enough, the IUD could have dislodged and passed completely undetected.”
Josh was shaking. I could feel the tremor in his hand. I looked up at him and his eyes were wide. I started to laugh manically, and as soon as I lost it, he did too. The doctor waited patiently for us to get ourselves together.
“How is this happening? Things like this just don’t happen.” I looked up, wiping at my cheeks. “Why don’t I feel it moving? Is it okay?”
I was processing all this at a rate of a thousand what-the-fucks per second. I couldn’t believe it. I literally couldn’t believe it.
The doctor smiled reassuringly at me. “You’re still a little early yet. And if you’re not anticipating being pregnant, it’s not unusual to disregard the fetal movement and symptoms as something else.”
“I just thought this was…the fibroids. I was so used to feeling like crap…” I put a hand on the small, rounded bulge that was my stomach for the first time in months.
A baby.
My swollen stomach was a baby. Not a belly full of tumors, but a baby. I was pregnant.
“Your fibroids don’t seem to be causing any problems for the pregnancy. The tumors actually appear to have shrunk quite a bit since your last visit,” Dr. Angelo said, flipping through my chart. “It’s not uncommon for the pregnancy hormones to have this effect.”
The last four months began to come at me in flashes. “But I drank. And I didn’t take vitamins and…and…”
“The occasional drink won’t harm the pregnancy. Even getting a little tipsy once or twice won’t hurt the baby. And while prenatals are ideal, you can get most of what you need in your normal diet.”
I gasped for air. I was getting dizzy. I covered my mouth with my hands, and then I broke down. Body-wrenching sobs. I clutched Josh again, and he buried me in his chest.
Neither of us could contain our emotions. You could probably hear us through the whole clinic, laughing and wailing like lunatics.
The doctor handed Josh and me tissues. “I’m recommending you take it easy, and we’d like to see you gain a little weight. You’re about ten pounds from where you should be. A pregnancy requires an extra three hundred
calories a day. It’ll take everything you have if you don’t eat properly, and we want you nice and strong for the delivery, Mrs. Copeland.”
The room whirled around me. I couldn’t catch up to it. Pregnant. Me. Me and Josh.
When the doctor finally left the room after I’d asked all my questions and I got to see the baby again on the ultrasound and hear the heartbeat, Josh and I sat hugging.
“It was that night,” I said. “The night of Sloan’s party.”
He laughed and wiped a wet strand of hair off my cheek. “The first time. It was the only time we didn’t use condoms back then. One shot and I knocked you up.”
I snorted. “It was your super sperm. Thank God you made an honest woman out of me. Dragged me right down for a civil ceremony, befitting my scandalous condition.”
He laughed. Then he hovered a hand over my stomach and looked at me for permission.
He’d touched every inch of my body but there. I nodded, and he set his warm palm over my belly button, and it was the most intimate moment of my life. He leaned over and kissed me, holding our baby under his hand.
And then the terror took over. I jerked back, suddenly frightened. “Josh, what if I miscarry? My mom lost my brother. What if it comes too early? What if it’s a girl and she has the same issues I do? What if I’m a shitty mom like my mom and I don’t know how to raise her or tell her how much I love her or…or…” Hysterics bubbled out of me.
I was now a woman who got hysterical.
“Hey, hey. You’re not going to be a shitty mom,” he said, holding my face in his hands. “You’re nothing like Evelyn. Don’t think about the what- ifs, because there’s nothing you can do to stop any of it. Let’s just enjoy this. And if things don’t go the way we planned, we’ll deal with it. Always and no matter what. Together.”
I nodded, the shaking in my hands slowing the tighter he held me.
I closed my eyes and calmed my breathing, focusing on my husband’s hands on my face and his familiar presence. My rock. The calm in my storm. The whisper to my scream.
Then I looked up at him, the final reality coming into focus. “Josh.
You’re going to be a daddy.”
He gave me a sideways grin, tears and joy twinkling in his eyes. “Kristen…you are going to be a mommy.”
