Chapter 31
My new life in this unfamiliar suburb is taking shape. My barren days, my aimless routines, the inconsequential minutiae of my precious moments, the sense that I’m waiting for something to happen, the dread growing heavier like a deepening pit.
I’ve had to familiarize myself with the area: Which grocery store do I like best? Which coffee shop makes the best iced lattes? We need things, so many things, for the house, and I order what I can online, preferring to stay in when I can, leaning in to my newfound seclusion.
I had to find a new gynecological practice, too—my former doctor, the one I’d seen since I was in law school, is too far away for the appointments that will gradually increase in frequency until they’re weekly, at least. And I needed to find a doctor with privileges at the hospital closest to our house.
When this baby comes, I won’t want to be an hour from the hospital where I plan to deliver.
When I arrived for my first appointment with my new doctor, a cheerful nurse walked me back to the exam rooms. I wrote my name on the side of a plastic cup, then peed into it, wiped drops from the rim, washed my hands.
My heart fluttered, and I sat on the edge of the exam bed, feet kicking like a little girl’s.
The doctor bustled in, blue-and-white dress swirling around her calves.
She confirmed that I am, in fact, pregnant, and she was smiling, but she didn’t congratulate me.
There was a tiny part of me that felt relieved, another part disappointed—a dichotomy that dizzied me, head spinning, as she asked me if I had any questions and whether I’d been feeling okay.
I told her I wasn’t, not really—the nausea, the vomiting (usually when I’m trying to brush my teeth), the crushing fatigue (a physical weight that flattens me even as my thoughts race, wired and troubling).
She offered suggestions to help me deal with the nausea, but nothing I hadn’t tried, and my stomach sank.
I used to be so alert, productive, polished. Now, every day, I feel like a melted-wax version of that shiny and poised woman I once was.
I left with instructions to have my blood work and genetic testing done, and an appointment scheduled for the following week.
I left the building, sliding doors gliding crisply open, numbness burgeoning, a sort of distance, like I was hovering in the wings, observing a stranger proceed through her life.
As I walked back to my car, I placed a palm against my abdomen, testing it out. I felt silly. I felt nothing.
Now, a week later, it’s time to see our baby.
“I’m so sorry, Klara,” you told me when I shared the appointment date and time with you. “I have a closing that morning. I wish I could move it, but I can’t.”
“It’s fine,” I told you. “There will be plenty more appointments.”
I’m surprised that I’m disappointed that you won’t be there. I want you to see the baby. I want you to see what you’ve done.
I’m ten weeks and three days pregnant as I sit in the waiting room, hands tucked beneath my thighs.
I’m nervous, a little ashamed to be here alone.
Everyone else in the room is here with a partner.
A little girl with dark pigtails plays on the floor nearby while her parents look on, each of them with a palm resting on the mother’s belly.
A nurse appears in the doorway, pink scrubs, welcoming smile. “Klara Martin?” she calls out.
I stand and move toward her.
“Right this way,” she says, but she’s looking over my shoulder.
I turn, and there you are. Hair mussed as though you sprinted all the way here from DC, but your blazer is immaculate, stiff shirt collar peeking open.
“Sorry,” you say, stepping forward, a hand to my lower back. “I was afraid I wouldn’t make it.”
I blink into your face, and you’re grinning. “I got someone to cover my closing. I couldn’t miss this.”
The relief crushes me, and I know that’s what you wanted.
That’s why you did it. There probably was no closing.
You probably got here when I did, waiting in the parking lot until the time of my appointment.
You wanted me to think you couldn’t be here, but you knew all along that you would.
It’s like the day you rescued me with my own umbrella.
You look like a hero, don’t you? I’m starting to know better.
The nurse asks me to remove my shorts and underwear, and I slide onto the chair.
“First baby?” she asks conversationally as she squirts gel onto a probe.
“First baby,” you confirm, speaking before I can. You’re beaming.
“This may be a little cold,” she tells me, pushing the probe inside. She squints at her screen, flips a switch, and black, white, and gray swirls to life on the screen across from us. The thumping whoosh of a heartbeat. You grip my hand.
“There it is,” she says. “There’s the heart.”
I watch the flicker on the screen, and I feel something. Warm and heavy and irrevocable. I feel changed, and I try to push it away. No, I think. Not yet.
You’re laughing, giddy, your grip tightening. “She looks like a baby squirrel,” you say.
“A frog,” I insist, and suddenly, I’m laughing, too. I can’t help it.
“Congratulations,” says the nurse. She seems relieved by the departure of my frigid aura, by our now-shared joy. “I’ll print some pictures for you.”
She clicks her mouse, presses her keys, taking measurements, snapping photos. She prints a glossy roll of them, and you take them, holding them against your chest.
We are moved to an exam room, where we wait for the doctor.
“I can’t believe it,” you say, holding the roll of pictures close to your face. “Can you believe it?”
I shake my head, my mirth, the surprising happiness, beginning to drain away. This is real. This is happening, and I’m still stunned. How did this happen?
The doctor knocks sharply on the door, then sweeps into the room.
“Everything looks great,” she says, settling onto the stool in front of her computer.
“And I have the results of your genetic tests. There were no abnormalities, and I’ve released them to your chart, so you can review them in the app if you choose.
But they do reveal the sex of the baby. So if you don’t want to know, I suggest that you don’t open them. ”
I hear the inhale of your breath, see your mouth open.
“No,” I say firmly, cutting you off. “I don’t want to know.”
You look at me, an expression I know so well, but you don’t argue. You won’t with the doctor here. But I can tell that you want to know.
This is mine, something inside my body. Something I can control. I don’t want to know. And how could you deny me this choice?
“Anything else?” the doctor asks, eyes volleying between us.
“Nothing,” I tell her, every question I’ve had over the past week forgotten, unreachable. “Thank you.”
We leave the exam room, those pictures trailing from your right hand, your left pressed into the small of my back, just a little more firmly than feels right.