Chapter Twenty Three
Paige
The exam room is too clean, too white, too bright. I sit on the edge of the table in a paper gown with my clothes folded on the chair beside Ben, and I try not to think about how my feet don’t quite touch the footrest.
The paper crinkles every time I shift, loud and awkward, like it’s ratting me out for being nervous.
Ben sits in the single chair by the counter, elbows on his knees, hands folded so tightly his knuckles have gone pale.
He keeps glancing at the door and then back to me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he looks away.
He’s wearing a plain navy T-shirt and clean jeans and looks like he shaved by feel in the dark.
The shadows under his eyes are worse up close.
There’s a square machine on a rolling cart in the corner, covered in a blue drape. A box of long, plastic-wrapped wands sits in a tray beside it. I don’t stare at them, but I’m aware of them anyway.
The nurse already went through the questions. Last menstrual period. Nausea. Vomiting. Any spotting. Any pain. Medications. Allergies. Past surgeries. She took my blood pressure and didn’t comment, which I’m choosing to interpret as fine.
I gave them a urine sample in a tiny cup with my name scrawled in Sharpie and washed my hands for way too long, the kind of washing you do when you’re stalling. Then she handed me the gown and said the doctor would be right in.
That was four minutes ago. Or forty. My sense of time is wrecked.
“You okay?” Ben asks quietly.
“No,” I say honestly. “But also… yes?”
His mouth does the thing it does when he wants to smile and thinks better of it. He nods like he understands. “You want me to wait in the hall when she—” He clears his throat. “When they do the exam?”
I consider the blue drape and the covered machine and the fact that my thighs are goosebumped even though I’m sweating. “No. Stay.”
“Okay.” His hands uncurl, and for a moment, I let myself really look at him.
The line of his jaw. The worry there he’s trying not to let me see in his eyes.
The way his knee bounces once, then stills because he catches it, and how he props his heel against the chair leg to keep it from doing it again.
The way he runs his hand through his soft hair, the light strands catching the sun through the window next to him.
The clock on the wall ticks steadily. Every so often, a cart squeaks by in the hall, then fades.
I press my palms together and then flatten them on my thighs. “What if it’s too early,” I whisper, not sure who I’m asking. “What if they don’t see anything and I have to sit here while she says all the maybes.”
Ben’s chair creaks softly. The next thing I feel is his hand covering mine, warm and careful. He doesn’t grip. He doesn’t make it a capital-M Moment. He just sets his hand over mine to keep me from drifting.
“Then we’ll listen,” he says. “And if we have to come back in a week, we come back in a week.”
The words soothe me in a way I didn’t even realize I needed. The living, breathing fear that’s been in my belly since that night with the cinnamon rolls ebbs away for a moment.
There’s a soft knock on the door, and I call out for them to come in.
A woman in a navy coat and clogs smiles at us. She’s in her fifties, maybe, with a streak of silver at her temple and quick, bright eyes. “Paige?” she says, like she’s known me for years. “I’m Dr. Montez. Nice to meet you.”
I shift my hands free so I can shake. “Hi.”
She glances at Ben. “And you must be…”
He moves his hand back to his knees, all polite edges. “Ben. Hoffman.”
“Nice to meet you, Ben.” There’s no judgment in the way she says it. “So—first visit. Congratulations.” She settles on the rolling stool and clicks the mouse to wake the computer. “I see you’re somewhere around six weeks based on your dates. How are you feeling?”
“Nauseous,” I admit, relieved I don’t have to pretend. “And tired. And like my body is not my body anymore.”
“Mmm.” She nods, the sympathetic kind of nod that makes me want to cry because it’s so ordinary. “Classic first trimester. The nausea often peaks around nine weeks and gets better by twelve to fourteen. Not always, but often.” She glances at the screen. “Any vomiting? Able to keep fluids down?”
“Some vomiting. I’ve been able to keep fluids down, though.” I flick my gaze to Ben. “That ginger drink you made the other night didn’t make me want to die.”
“Keeper,” she says brightly, and then keeps going. “We’ll talk options before you go. Vitamin B6, doxylamine at night if you need it, a few other tricks. You said no spotting or cramping so far?”
“None.”
“Good.” She scrolls. “Your pressure was lovely. We’ll get bloodwork today. Basic pre-natal panel, blood type and Rh, rubella and varicella immunity, HIV, hepatitis, syphilis. We’ll send urine for culture. When was your last Pap?”
“Last year. Normal.”
“Perfect. We’ll skip that today, then. We’ll do an ultrasound first, make sure there’s a pregnancy where we expect it to be, measure crown–rump length, and see if we can catch cardiac activity. At this gestation, we use a transvaginal probe—it’s more sensitive this early. Is that okay?”
My throat is dry. I have no idea what most of those things are, but I say: “Yes.”
She wheels the covered cart closer. “Ben, you’re welcome to stay by her head if she wants you here. We dim the lights for the screen, so you’ll be able to see, too.”
He looks at me again, checking. I nod. He stands and comes to the head of the table, close enough that I can smell the faint clean scent of his soap. He doesn’t reach for me again, but the idea of his hand there is almost as comforting as the hand itself.
Dr. Montez pulls a curtain over the exam table.
“Okay, you’ll feel pressure,” she says, matter-of-fact as the machine wakes up. I can’t really see what she’s doing, but I hear the tearing of a packet. “If anything is painful, tell me and I’ll stop.”
I nod. The sheet of paper whispers against my legs as I relax my knees outward. Ben shifts closer to the wall, not looking down, looking only at my face. His jaw is tight. The muscles there twitch once, then go still.
There’s a coolness that makes my breath puff out, and then pressure, more odd than painful.
“Almost there,” Dr. Montez says softly. “Okay. You’re going to see black and white blobs for a moment while I find my landmarks.”
The lights dim. The monitor flickers into life. Static. Then… shapes.
I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until I hear my own inhale.
“Uterus,” she narrates. The probe angle changes slightly. “Gestational sac.” The black oval sharpens, lifting out of the fog like a small lake seen from far above. “There we are. Yolk sac.”
I find it, I think. It’s an even smaller bright ring floating in the black, like a tiny halo. My eyes blur. I blink hard.
“And right there…” She stills in place. “Little fetal pole.” A tiny crescent appears at the edge of the ring, a sliver so small I can see it.
My hand finds Ben’s and squeezes it.
He slips his fingers between mine.
“Let’s measure.” On the screen, numbers pop up in the corner, completely meaningless to me, yet suddenly more important than any number in my life.
“Crown–rump length is measuring about six weeks and two days by ultrasound, which is right on target with your dates. Let’s see if we can catch some activity. ”
Her tone doesn’t change, but the room does. My vision narrows on the screen as the image shifts again.
“There,” Dr. Montez says gently. “There we go.”
A sound leaves my throat that I don’t recognize. Ben’s hand is gripping mine fully now as he leans in to see.
“I’m going to measure it,” Dr. Montez says while she does some stuff I don’t understand. “About a hundred and fifteen beats per minute.” She glances up and smiles at the screen. “Hi there, tiny person.”
My eyes burn. I blink, and tears spill anyway. I lean my head against Ben’s arm. We don’t look at each other, our eyes fixed to the screen.
“There it is,” Dr. Montez continues, pointing at the little blob on the screen. “No signs of anything where it shouldn’t be. No obvious bleeding. Everything looks where I want it for six-ish weeks. I’ll print you a couple of pictures.”
I let out the shaky breath I’ve been holding. My legs tremble.
“Okay?” Ben asks so quietly I almost don’t hear it.
“Yeah. I’m okay,” I whisper back.
Dr. Montez snaps a few images with deft clicks, then eases the probe back. She hands me a little wipe pack and pulls the curtain again. “You can get dressed. Take your time. I’ll step out and print these, and then we’ll talk next steps.”
“Thank you,” I say, the words croaking out of my dry throat.
She smiles. “You’re welcome. Be right back.”
The door shuts gently behind her. The lights brighten. I sit up and stare at my knees. The plastic crinkles, the kind of sound that’s going to be linked to this memory for me forever now, whether I want it to be or not.
Ben lets go of my hand only when I move to get dressed. He steps back to the chair and faces the poster about fetal development like it’s suddenly the most fascinating thing in the world.
I clean myself up with the wipe, slide my underwear back on, then jeans, fingers fumbling only once. My hands shake again when I tug the T-shirt over my head. When I’m decent, I sink back onto the table and let my feet find the footrest. The paper sighs.
He clears his throat. “Was that… good? That was good, right?” He looks at me then, searching my face like the answer is written there.
“It was good,” I say, and this time the words aren’t grainy. “It was… everything it was supposed to be.” My voice breaks at the end. I press my fingers to my mouth and close my eyes.
A second later, his palm is on my back, between my shoulder blades, warm and comforting. I take one long breath and then another.
The door opens with another soft knock, and Dr. Montez returns with a strip of glossy printouts. She hands them to me with a small flourish like she’s presenting a magic trick. “There you are,” she says. “One gestational sac, one yolk sac, one fetal pole, one nice little heartbeat. Congrats.”
The grainy images feel delicate in my hands. The tiny ring. The smaller crescent. A text arrow someone added that says “Baby” as if without it I wouldn’t know.
Because I wouldn’t.
“Due date?” I ask, because I need something concrete to put on the calendar in my head.
“Based on your last menstrual period, you’re looking at…” She swivels the monitor so I can see and calculates a date in mid-Spring. “That can shift a few days this early, but it gives us a working date.”
Then she continues as if our lives didn’t just change in an instant.
“Okay. We’ll get the labs today. Let’s talk symptoms and safety.
You mentioned nausea and fatigue. I recommend vitamin B6—twenty-five milligrams up to three times a day—and doxylamine at night if you need it to help you sleep.
It’s the active ingredient in Unisom, but get the tablets, not the gels.
Half a tablet at bedtime helps a lot of people.
Ginger, as you’ve discovered, can help. Simple carbs in the morning before you even sit up.
Keep crackers or pretzels on your nightstand.
Small, frequent meals. Don’t let your stomach get empty. Plenty of fluids.”
I nod. Some of this I’ve read at 2:00 in the morning in a rabbit hole I couldn’t stop myself from falling down. Hearing it from a calm voice in a lab coat makes it more rational.
“What do you do for work?” she asks.
“I’m opening a bakery,” I say, unable to keep the pride out of it even with everything else. “Within the week, if the universe is benevolent.”
“Ovens, heat, long hours on your feet.” She flips to a checklist. “You’ll want supportive shoes, compression socks if you can tolerate them, and regular breaks to sit down—set a timer if you have to.
Avoid heavy lifting. Nothing over twenty-five to thirty pounds.
Get help for the flour sacks. Counting on Dad for that one. ”
She gives Ben a look before continuing. “Be mindful with cleaners. Lots of ventilation, gloves. Food safety is big. No unpasteurized dairy, mercury in fish. Caffeine is fine up to two hundred milligrams a day. That’s about one small coffee. No alcohol.”
My head is reeling from all the information she’s giving me. I’m trying my best to keep up.
“Umm, I already use gloves and food-safe disinfectants. Nothing unpasteurized. I don’t even like fish that much.”
“Excellent. Exercise as tolerated. Walking is great. Listen to your body.” She clicks to another tab. “Genetic screening is optional but available. Noninvasive prenatal testing can be drawn at ten weeks.”
She goes on to describe that.
I glance at Ben. He’s watching the doctor, not me, jaw set, soaking it in like he’s memorizing it for a test later. “We can talk about the screening down the line,” I say.
“Of course,” Dr. Montez says. “No rush today. We’ll give you a packet that explains everything.”
She closes the chart with a click that feels like a chapter break. “Any questions for me right now?”
I open my mouth. It’s too full of things. Most of them are not for her—how to tell my brother, how to stand across a counter from Ben and pretend we are two people who didn’t do this.
“No,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else to say.
“Then we’ll see you again in four weeks,” she says, cheerful without being over the top. “And we’re here if anything worries you. Cramping that wraps you in half, bleeding that fills a pad, fever, call us. Otherwise, congratulations again, and I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
She stands. So do I, a little too fast. Ben is already on his feet, sliding back enough to give me space. Dr. Montez squeezes my shoulder gently as she passes. It’s a small thing. It makes the room feel a little less clinical.
The door snicks shut. We are alone with the vent again.
Ben is close but not touching. “Mid-Spring,” he says softly, like he’s tasting it.
“Mid-Spring,” I repeat, then exhale. “I didn’t think I was going to cry.”
“You were very restrained,” he says, and something like a smile actually makes it to his mouth. “For what it’s worth.”
I stare at the printouts again, then tuck them into the pocket of the folder the nurse left. “I have to go to the lab.” I hear myself saying practical things like I’m practicing for the rest of my life. “Do you have to get back? You don’t have to wait.”
“I’ll wait,” he says. “If that’s all right.”
It is more than all right, and I don’t say that either. I nod. “Okay.”