Kareela
The clinic is in a part of the city I’ve rarely ventured through, in a strip mall not far from where Thomas grew up. The waiting room is clean, but dated; most likely, it was pristine when Thomas was a boy. It’s sparse compared to what it likely would have been, with the majority of appointments still by phone, the distanced chairs, never more than two beside each other. We sit, not talking, the tension from a couple of nights ago at the harbor still sizzling between us. He’s angry and has a right to be, but doesn’t want to say it.
I almost wish he would.
“I delivered this one,” says the doctor after waving us into her office. She grins at Thomas, then gestures to my abdomen. “Maybe I’ll deliver this one, too.”
She asks me several questions, which I answer as I hoist myself on the table, knees together, ankles crossed. She asks me to lie down, pull up my shirt. “We got a new ultrasound machine.” Her smile is the wide-mouthed, bright-eyed grin of a child at Christmas. “We only had Dopplers before. This is nothing like the quality at the hospital, but you’ll get to see your baby.”
My breath catches, my throat tightens, my muscles clench.
“Really?” Thomas rises from his seat on the other side of the office, the tension on his face transitioning to that same kid-at-Christmas grin. “Today?”
“That’s right.” The doctor lifts a tube, flips off the top, tells me I should expect it to be cold.
I sit up, yank down my shirt. “Hearing’s okay,” I say. “That’s all we expected.” The doctor’s expression falls. Thomas’s brow scrunches, his lips tighten. “I mean, ultrasounds can be dangerous, right? Too many of them? So might as well save it for when we can get a good look, you know?”
Her smile returns, softer this time. “It’s fine,” she says, “really.” She lays a hand on my arm. “Where you’re not positive of your dates, and we haven’t even done a blood draw, this is an important time to do an ultrasound. If I don’t do it, I’ll have to send you to the IWK Health Center for an ultrasound in the next week or two, anyway. But if we get a good image today, you won’t need to go for another six to eight weeks. Lie down, sweetie.”
I do, wondering how she’ll possibly hear the baby’s heartbeat over mine. The machine is small, the screen maybe eighteen inches. I flinch at the cold gel, the pressure on my abdomen. The doctor maneuvers the wand for a few seconds before holding it still over what is, unmistakably, a baby.
“That’s it?” Thomas steps closer.
“That’s it.” The doctor shakes her head, smiling. “This is one of the best angles we’ve gotten yet.” She glances at me. “We’ve only had the machine two weeks.”
“The head and the nose”—Thomas points—“those are the feet?”
“You’ve got it.” She pulls her cursor across the screen, a yellow line spreading as she measures, as the feet kick and a hand waves. She must be taking a picture because the screen freezes, and she continues measuring.
“Look, , the nose? Do you see that cute little nose?”
Movement again. The doctor points to a flicker on the screen. “And there’s the heart.” She presses a button and noise fills the room, fast and loud, like the sound of a dog panting after a long run.
“Is that—” Thomas’s voice rises in alarm. “Is that all right? It’s so fast!”
The doctor laughs. “It’s fine. It’s perfect.” She records the pace, lowers the volume. “You’re measuring just under thirteen weeks,” she says. “A little off what you thought, but that’s normal, especially where you said your cycle had a bit of a range.”
I stare at the image, which twists, so it doesn’t look like a baby at all, then moves again, suddenly recognizable. Suddenly mine. I try to push the faint sound of that beating heart out of my mind, pretend this isn’t happening. Pretend I still have time to decide whether it’s real or not.
“How much time do I have?” I blurt.
“It’s listing your due date as January third.” The doctor grins. “A New Year’s baby…or Christmas, if you’re early.”
“No.” I knock aside her hand with the wand, grab the towel she tucked into my underwear, wipe, and rise to sitting. “No…how much time do I have to decide if I want to keep it?”
“Ah.” The doctor cleans the wand, nods, as Thomas steps back, tension filling his body, his expression shifting, as if I’ve just killed our child.
“My friend said fifteen weeks, fifteen weeks and, uh, six days?”
“That’s right.” The doctor sets the wand in its holder. “If you want it done in Nova Scotia.”
“And could I come here, to you, instead of—”
“No.” She goes to her desk, grabs two pamphlets, then hands them to me. “But you can ask any questions you’d like today. You are already past the point of a medical abortion, which means you’d need a procedural abortion in hospital. A D and C. Do you know what that is?”
I nod.
“It’ll be more difficult now…all around.” I can almost see the judgment in her face, hear it in her voice, but she’s fighting it—and for that I’m thankful. I refuse to look at Thomas. I’ve already seen what he thinks of this. “Even if you haven’t made your decision, with the timeline, you’ll want to move forward. Visit the Sexual Health Center, where you can talk things through with a counselor, maybe even book an appointment, to ensure you don’t miss the deadline.”
“But booking an appointment before she’s made her decision—” Thomas’s voice is tight. “That doesn’t make sense. It—”
“It makes sense if she doesn’t want to end up going to Quebec or Ontario,” says the doctor. “Which would mean travel and accommodation costs, and a lot more stress.”
“I’ll take the baby,” he says, almost yelling. “Shouldn’t I have some choice here?”
The doctor inhales, her lips in a firm line. “Thomas. I realize this is difficult, but I’m going to ask you to step outside, please.”
“But—”
“This is ’s appointment, not yours.”
He looks at me. “?”
I shrug, as if to say, She’s the doctor; she’s the boss , which is cruel and weak, but I’m afraid if I speak, my voice will break. He shakes his head, exits, closing the door gently behind him.
“Has he been pressuring you?” the doctor asks. “Is that why it’s taken so—”
“No,” I squeak, then swallow, a bitter dryness in my mouth. “I mean, not really. He wants it. He said he’d take it, that I wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it, but…”
“But you’d still have to go through another six months of pregnancy and then know, for the rest of your life, that you have a child out there.”
Emotion wells within me. “Exactly.”
“It’s ideal,” she says, grabbing her chair, rolling it over, sitting so she’s looking up at me, “if partners can make this decision together. But, ultimately, the choice is yours.” She puts her hand on my knee. “You want to be sure. Counseling, talking about your options is great, but I’m guessing you know your options. So you also need to know the choice is yours, and yours alone.”
I nod, wishing it wasn’t. Wishing someone could make this decision for me. Wishing it could just be that—a decision. That it didn’t need to feel political. That it didn’t need to determine whether I would or would not have a future with Thomas. Wishing that I was making this choice ten years from now, when I hopefully would have figured out my own shit—what I want, what I don’t, who I am, and who I want to be.
The doctor hands me another pamphlet, and I take it blindly, thinking of caring for Gran and a baby simultaneously. I try to force the thoughts away long enough to look at the pamphlet, take in the words, then thrust the paper back. “No. It’s not like that,” I say. “He’s not abusive.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell,” she says. “Sometimes it’s subtle. Emotional. It wouldn’t do any harm to give it a read.”
“No.” I hold the paper out. If anyone is emotionally abusive, it’s me, for how much I’ve withheld from him, the way I’ve lied. The pamphlet flops between us until she takes it from my hand.
She stands. “The decision is yours,” she repeats. “But you have to decide soon, . Very soon.”