Never Say Never: Gravel Hill Boys Book Two

11. Madison

Expectant mothersin a variety of ages, sizes, colors, and shapes filled the posh waiting room. Each was accompanied by a partner, which was exactly why I’d put off this visit until I was prepared to go solo.

“Madison Enright?” A nurse wearing a sunny smile and brightly colored scrubs patterned with sunglass-wearing guinea pigs and cupcakes stood in the doorway holding a chart and scanning the room.

Guinea pigs? Really? My gynecologist must’ve been kidding when she referred me here.

I wasn’t ready for this. I rose with every intention of leaving when she called my name again.

“Madison?”

A woman who looked about to give birth to a MINI Cooper tugged on my sleeve.

“She’s calling you,” she announced loudly, as if I were not only pregnant, but hard of hearing.

“I beg your pardon?” I responded in my frostiest tone.

“She’s calling you,” she repeated, pointing at the nurse. “Here she is!” Then she smiled up at me as if she’d done me a favor rather than foiled my escape.

“How do you know my name?” I demanded.

“You told the receptionist when you came in.”

The woman sitting across from her nodded. Good grief. The acoustics here must rival the Kimmel Center.

Head erect, spine straight, I snugged my bag against my shoulder, issued a cool but polite “thank you,” and followed the woman sporting cartoon vermin into the inner sanctum.

Once I’d disrobed and slipped into a floral hospital gown—sans guinea pigs, cupcakes, or other nonsense—the woman returned. Babbling cheerfully, she checked my vitals, drew a few vials of blood, then handed me a cup and sent me off to the restroom.

Paper crumpling, I settled in against the raised back of the examination table and rested my eyes. I hated having to see a new doctor. I’d been with Dr. Chava forever. Finding out that she only handled gynecology and didn’t take maternity patients had been an unwelcome surprise. I’d always thought gynecology and obstetrics went hand in hand, like milk and cookies.

Great. Now I wanted a cookie. Maybe I could hit the Rittenhouse Market on the way home. They carried my favorite salted caramel cookies. Each cookie was almost four hundred calories, but I deserved it. I was eating for two after all. Ooh…maybe cheesecake. My mouth watered, and my stomach rumbled, despite the spinach and egg white omelet I’d had for breakfast.

I was considering peanut butter pie when the door swung open and in walked the obstetrician. Older than me, but not by much, she was far younger than I’d expected, with shiny blonde hair blunt cut just past her shoulders, dark brown eyes, and a wide, friendly smile. She had to be half Dr. Chava’s age, which meant she also had half the experience. She looked more like someone I’d run into on the tennis court instead of a medical office.

“Good morning, Madison. I’m Celeste Abernathy.”

First name basis already? Seems a bit informal.I shook her outstretched hand.

“So we’re pregnant, are we?”

“I’m not sure about we, but I know I am.”

She cocked an eyebrow at my bitchiness.

“Sorry. I’m a little overwhelmed.”

Her smile was a notch dimmer than when she’d first greeted me. “Understandable. Pregnancy is life changing, that’s for sure. Let’s have a look, and then we’ll talk.” She guided me into the stirrups, then lowered the back of the exam table and had me scoot my butt so far to the end of the table, I was certain I would fall off.

I gritted my teeth as she cranked open the speculum and cringed as she slid it inside.

“So, Madison, you didn’t indicate when your last period was on your patient history. Are your periods irregular?”

I tried not to squirm. “They can be.”

“Do you recall when your last period started?” She asked while poking around in my business.

“I don’t remember, but I know exactly when I got pregnant.”

“Don’t tell me.” She winked. “Let me guess, and we’ll see how accurate I am.”

Was that what I was here for? Party games?

Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth twisted as she poked and prodded while I took in the charts on the wall showing babies from barely recognizable embryos to no-way-in-hell-is-that-coming-out-through-my-vagina.

“We don’t usually conduct an ultrasound on your first visit, but since my best guess is that you’re between ten and twelve weeks, I’d like to get in there and confirm what I’m seeing.” She tugged off her latex gloves and as she washed her hands, she scanned the calendar taped to the cabinet above the sink. “Does that sound about right?”

My heart was racing. Had I expected to come here today and learn that despite a half-dozen initial pregnancy tests and a random number of follow-up tests—all positive—she was going to tell me that I, in fact, wasn’t pregnant and just needed to cut back on the cake and cookies?

My eyes welled, and I fanned my face to keep the tears from falling. I was a hormonal nightmare. Nodding, I choked out the date that completely derailed my life. “March 17.”

A wide grin bloomed across her face. “Bingo! St. Patrick’s Day.”

If she says anything about someone getting lucky, I’m walking out and calling Dr. Chava immediately.

Dr. Abernathy—I refused to cross boundaries and call her Celeste—tugged a few paper towels from the dispenser and dried her hands. “You hang tight,” she said, patting my knee. “My tech will be in to run an ultrasound in a few minutes, and then I’ll be back. Sound good?”

Did I have a choice? “That’s fine,” I said, grateful to have had the sense to allow extra time for this visit before I needed to meet with a potential new client—a celebrated actor originally from Philadelphia, who was about to launch a new line of flavored and limited-edition vodkas with its main distillery in Delaware. Landing this account would be a huge coup for my firm and I was determined to succeed.

I was rehearsing my pitch in my head when there was a light tap on the door. Before I could respond, it swung open and a woman in lime green scrubs covered with llamas pushed a robotic-looking contraption into the room, nattering away while all I could do was squint and bite my tongue. Whoever designed those garments should be shot.

“Are you ready to see your baby?” the woman gushed.

“Isn’t it more of an anthropomorphic blob right now?” From weepy to bitch in under three seconds.

Her face blank, the tech blinked a few times. I’d bet there weren’t a whole lot of prospective mothers coming in with attitudes like mine.

Prospective mothers?Jesus, that was me. I was a prospective mother. Cue the waterworks. The backs of my eyes prickled and burned. I pressed my fingers to the inner corners of my eyes to keep the tears from falling. I was a hormonal nightmare. A hormonal nightmare with an important meeting and no time to reapply my makeup.

“I’m sorry.” I fanned my face. “I’m not trying to be a bitch. It just slips out sometimes.”

Her smile was brief and tentative. “No worries,” she said, maneuvering the ultrasound machine into place.

My back ached, and I shifted in the stirrups.

“Can you raise the end of the table so I can get out of these stirrups and stretch my legs? This is an uncomfortable position.”

“Sorry, no. I need you just the way you are.”

My eyes grew when she pulled out what looked like a long, skinny sex toy and slipped some sort of condom over it. My knees leaned toward one another as she lubed the wand.

“What’s that for?”

“This is a transducer. I’ll insert it into your vagina where it will release sound waves that will project a real-time visual image of your pelvic organs onto this screen. I’ll also take still images of what I see for Dr. Abernathy to review.”

“I thought you would just squirt some stuff on my belly and rub some microphone-looking thing over it.” It was difficult to squirm in the stirrups, but I gave it my all. “I’m not sure about that. It looks painful.”

“Not painful. I promise. At its worst, you may feel some discomfort, but far less than you would getting a pap smear. Okay?”

I nodded without conviction as she pressed a few buttons on her machine.

“Ready?”

I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth.

“Mmmph.”

She chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

There was no pain when she inserted the transducer. Honestly, my initial thought was that it reminded me of Connor’s pencil dick. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. This poor woman would think I’d lost my marbles for sure. Eventually, I released my breath and tried to relax.

“Attagirl,” she said. “Nice, easy breaths.”

More clicks. She adjusted the wand and clicked a few more buttons.

“There we go.” There was a smile in her voice. I cracked one eye open.

“Would you like to see your baby?”

My other eye cracked open. She shifted the machine so the monitor faced me. I didn’t see the blob of cells I’d expected, and given that I would’ve gotten pregnant around eleven weeks ago, what I saw didn’t resemble a peanut either.

Instead, there was a head and a body. And a nose! I could see a nose, of all things. Little arms and legs moved. And in the center of it all, a heart beating steadily.

“It’s a baby,” I murmured, my own heart filling with wonder. “And it’s moving,” I pointed out, blind to her level of expertise. My eyes burned and welled when a tiny hand with tiny fingers moved to its mouth and it began to suck its thumb. “How come I can’t feel it?”

“It could be a few more weeks until you can feel the baby moving. It usually starts around sixteen weeks but could be as late as twenty weeks. Since this is your first, you may not be aware of it right away.”

I leaned forward as far as my position would allow. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

She adjusted the wand, but the image on the screen shifted only slightly. “Someone’s a little shy, so there’s no way to tell. Maybe with your next ultrasound we’ll have better luck.”

Shy? But I had things to do. How could I decorate a nursery if I didn’t know if I was having a boy or a girl? And clothes? I’d never purchased baby clothes.

“Can’t we poke it or something to get it to roll over?” I frowned at the image.

“Your baby is about the size of a lime and is nicely cushioned by your uterus, so a poke—which I wouldn’t do—won’t get it to cooperate.”

Dear god!I was already a bad mother; wanting to poke my baby.

“No, I guess not. Sorry. I think I’m excited is all.” I hadn’t been sure I wanted a baby. Getting pregnant was unexpected. Getting pregnant after a one-night stand with a man I had no way of contacting put me in an untenable situation. But after seeing my baby moving and sucking its thumb, I’d fallen in love. At least I was fortunate to have the means and the finances to do it on my own.

Besides, I could do anything I set my mind to. Trying to grow a business and a baby at the same time would be challenging, but I was up for it.

“Would you like a picture of your baby?” the tech asked.

“Really? You can do that?” I studied the screen and laughed. My baby was waving its hand in the air like it just don’t care.

“I sure can.” She clicked some keys and printed out three pictures. One of my baby with its hand raised, one of it where the heart was most noticeable, and my favorite, the one with it sucking its thumb.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to stave off the tears, but it was damn near impossible. I’m having a baby! A baby! I wanted to race home and hang the images on my refrigerator. I wanted to stand atop my building and tell all of Philadelphia that I was having a baby.

Well, everyone except my grandmother.

Or my father—who was in Paris.

And maybe not my mother either—who was probably living in an ashram somewhere.

The tech gathered her equipment, congratulated me, and said she’d see me for my next ultrasound, which would most likely be an abdominal ultrasound.

While I waited for Dr. Abernathy to return, I stared at the first images of my baby. I’d frame one to put on my desk at work. The other would be framed and kept on my nightstand.

Already, I was feeling maternal. Was it too early to start interviewing nannies?

There was a knock on the door and Dr. Abernathy strode in. “Everything looks great,” she announced. “You are eleven weeks and three days pregnant. Your due date is December 8.”

She went on to tell me about vitamins I’d need to take and my diet moving forward, including foods to avoid. No caffeine. No alcohol. I loved my coffee and I enjoyed an occasional glass of wine to unwind, but I would happily abstain for the sake of my baby.

My. Baby.

Lost in my own head and thinking about how my life was about to change, I only half listened as Dr. Abernathy spoke. Her smile was warm and friendly. It was the same as when we’d first met, but it felt different. I felt different. I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t stressing about options. It felt as if I’d grown into a different version of myself over the past forty minutes. More mature somehow. The woman who would walk out of this bougie obstetrical practice wasn’t the same as the one who’d entered.

I was still a kick-ass business woman, but I was going to be a mother now too. I vowed in that moment to be nothing like my own mother. Or my father. My child would grow up in a loving home, and even if I was the only parent, it would never feel like it was missing anything because I would love it enough for two people.

The doctor wrapped up her chat and told me she’d see me in a month. As I was getting dressed, I glanced at my watch and noticed I was running late for my meeting.

Not a very auspicious start to doing it all.