Chapter 8
Abby
Nine Weeks
“Iswear I’m about to quit my job,” Ellie says, her scowl taking up my entire phone screen. “I can’t believe I’m not there for this.”
“It’s okay, Ellie Bellie,” I say with a smile. “I’ll make sure we take plenty of videos and pictures for you.”
“We? Who is ‘we’? Nevermind it doesn’t matter, I’m just glad you aren’t going alone.”
“I asked Jack to come with me when he was at the house last week. He’s been a bit of a saint recently, actually.”
“Are you replacing me with Jacky boy? Because I will fight him in the parking lot about it.”
“No one could replace you, my love,” I say seriously. “It’s just…we spent so much time together, the three of us. Having him around makes things feel a little more normal. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“It does.” She nods her head vigorously. “It really does. Whatever helps you through this is something I am one hundred percent on board with. Even if it means being replaced.”
“Oh stop it,” I scold. “Anyway, I think he just pulled up, so I gotta go. I’ll send you videos when I have them. Be good, I love you!”
“I love you, my sweet ginger angel. I’ll be home soon.”
The call ends with several beeps just as Jack knocks on the front door.
“You didn’t need to come up, Jack Robbit,” I say as I lock the door behind me. “You could have just texted me that you were here.”
“Do you really think Virginia Robb would let me continue to walk this earth if she caught wind of that?”
“You’re right,” I laugh. Virginia, who has insisted that I call her Granny from now on, is a force to be reckoned with.
She came over this week on an evening that Jack was working an overnight shift, and I'll tell you right now, there has never been a more impressive (or intimidating) woman.
Only when I reassured her a dozen times that Jack has been nothing but a gentleman since the day I met him freshman year of high school did she finally relax into her chair.
“And don’t call me that,” he grumbles, putting the Jeep into drive and pulling away from the curb. “The day you finally let that go will be the happiest day of my life.”
“Then you better be ready for a lifetime of misery,” I say with a grin. “You will always be 'Jack Robbit' to me.”
When we arrive at the clinic, I head to the counter to check in. I had assumed Jack was behind me, but when I turn around I find him staring at a diagram on the wall that shows the stages of cervical dilation during birth.
“This is going to happen to you?” His eyes are wide, jaw agape in what looks like a silent horrified scream. “It stretches like that?”
“If by ‘it’ you mean my vagina, then yes.”
“Jesus,” he mutters. “I can’t even imagine.”
“The joys of womanhood, Jacky boy,” I say, patting him on the arm. “Come sit down before you make yourself woozy.”
Still looking horrorstruck, he allows me to guide him into a waiting room chair. We don’t sit for very long before a nurse calls me back. It’s a different nurse than I had last time, and I can’t help but wish Alisha was here again.
Feeling more at ease with this appointment, I change into a gown while Jack waits outside, calling him back into the room once I’ve settled onto the exam table. I tap my fingers on the paper with nervous excitement as Jack looks around, finding new diagrams to be traumatized by.
“Hi there, Abigail,” the ultrasound technician says in a chipper voice when she enters the room. “How are you feeling today?”
“Abby, please,” I correct. “I’m feeling good, excited to see Little One. And nervous, if I’m being honest.”
“Well let’s get this started then, shall we? This is going to be a little cold.”
She squirts a blue gel on my abdomen and begins moving the wand across my skin. After a few moments, she smiles at the screen.
“There you are,” she says to the bean-shaped image. “Let’s hear your heartbeat, yeah?”
She presses a few buttons, and then suddenly I hear it. The quick thump-thumps of Little One’s beating heart–proof that this is real, that they exist.
“Holy cow,” Jack says, looking awestruck, his usually dark slate eyes practically shimmering. “You’re really growing a human in there.”
“She sure is, dad,” the tech says, still smiling widely.
I wonder if she’s always this excited to see babies on the screen. What a lovely job that must be.
“Oh, I’m not…” Jack mumbles, cheeks tinged pink. “Dad couldn’t be here. I’m–I’m just a friend.”
“My mistake,” the tech says. “Well, friends are an important part of this journey, too. Good for you for being here today.”
“Look at you,” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off of Little One. The longer I look, the less Little One looks like a bean, and the more I can see an actual baby. Tiny, minuscule really, but definitely there. “Am I crazy, or can I see tiny arms in there?”
“Not crazy at all, you sure can. And here’s the head,” she explains, moving the wand around my abdomen to get a different vantage point. “Baby has officially graduated from embryo to fetus at this point.”
“Grow, baby, grow,” I say, pride and love swelling in my chest.
“Don’t you worry, they’ll be grown before you know it,” the technician chuckles. “Someday you’ll miss when they were this size. Particularly when you’re waddling around at 39 weeks.”
“Shh, don’t talk about that,” I scold playfully. “Let me pretend that I’ll keep this physique through the whole thing.”
“You got it,” she says with a salute. “Let me print some pictures for you, and I’ll do a blood draw, and then you can be on your way.”
“How about that?” I ask, grinning at the dumbfounded look on his face. “Little One is really in there. Heartbeat and all.”
“Apparently they’ve already grown a liver,” he muses. “And have distinctive facial features.”
“Where on earth did you learn that?”
He wordlessly points over his shoulder at a diagram of weekly pregnancy milestones, and I’m overwhelmed by affection for my dear friend. He’s retained so much of what I’ve told him, going so far as to do his own research. Of course he would commit a diagram to memory.
“Thanks for coming with me,” I say, looping my arm through his as we exit the sliding glass doors. “It’s nice to have someone to do this with.”
“Anytime,” he replies, bumping his hip into mine. “That was pretty fucking cool. I didn’t know baby heartbeats were so fast.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Pretty fucking cool indeed.”
When he drops me off at home, I immediately pin the ultrasound photos to the fridge with a magnet, snapping a quick picture to send to Ellie.
I sit at the kitchen table, not wanting to let the images out of my sight.
I pick up the book I’d been reading before Ellie called, a story about a pop star getting stranded in a small town and falling in love with a grumpy local hunk, and try to lose myself in the story, taking advantage of my giddy mood.
Every few pages though, I glance back up at the ultrasound, overwhelmed by a different kind of love story unfolding in front of my very eyes.
I love you so much, Little One. More than you could ever know.