Chapter Twenty-Seven
After our first checkup and the ultrasound, Adam and I decided that it was safe to start telling our friends. I started with Heath, of course, for so many reasons. First, the excuse to hang out, since our schedules didn’t allow that often these days. And also because if ever a person, besides my husband, had been through it with me, Heath had. In the true definition of “ride or die” friend, he had won the first-place ribbon. We met up for frozen yogurt on a day where I had a few hours to spare, still technically on call but unlikely to be called in.
“So, what’s new with you these days?” he asked after I’d listened to him complain about a client he was currently working with and, in turn, he’d sat through my bitching about the long hours at my work.
“Well...” I arched my brow and plunged my plastic spoon into the salted caramel frozen yogurt, stirring vigorously. “I do have some news.”
“Hmm? You finally decided to leave that bum and make a new start in life?” he smirked.
I rolled my eyes. “You love him almost as much as I do, so I don’t buy it. And anyway, you have more reason to love him because he’s the soon-to-be father of your nephew or niece.”
Heath stared at me blankly, blinking. I could all but see the gears turning in his head as he tried to puzzle that out.
I bit my lip. “What I mean is...you are going to be an uncle. Since you’re my brother from another mother.” I waited patiently for it to sink in.
After one more awkward second of him staring and blinking, he finally blurted, “I’m going to be an uncle!” He popped up out of his seat and moved over to squeeze me into the tightest bearhug—more powerful than words for conveying his excitement, that hug.
I couldn’t help but laugh, unfettered joy fizzing in my chest on warm, feel-good bubbles. “That is literally what I just said. You’re just repeating me.”
“Oh man, this is awesome.” He finally let me go and moved back to his seat and his quickly melting yogurt. Nevertheless, he ignored it and just stared at me.
“Uncle Heath—has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” I beamed at him.
He smiled. “It sounds amazing to me. So what do you want? A boy or a girl?”
I frowned and stirred my yogurt that was growing softer by the moment. “I have no idea, actually. I think either would be fun.”
His blond brows bobbed. “Or equally as tough, depending on your glass is half full, half empty status.” He grimaced. “Sorry.”
I smiled. “No I get it. It’s definitely not going to be easy.”
“So how are you going to pull off a whole pregnancy while trying to become a doctor?”
“Well, technically speaking, I already am a doctor. But the residency is so I can get my license to practice medicine. It’s doable but, admittedly, also tricky.”
He gave me a reassuring smile. “You’re the queen of doing hard things, Mia. In fact, I’m convinced you do better when things start out tricky.”
“Uncle Heath is so wise.”
“Yes, that’s perfect. I’ve always wanted to be the wise uncle. So we’ll have to indoctrinate the kid that Uncle Heath is the wise one.”
“The wise, eccentric uncle.”
His eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “Eccentric will be William’s angle. I’ll be the fun uncle.”
“The fun uncle, huh?” I arched a brow. “The Funcle?”
He belted out a laugh. “Yeah, that’s my official title now. Funcle Heath.”
I returned that wide grin, absolutely confident that he was not only up to filling the role, but he was excited about it. And the biggest relief? Not a single bit of expressed worry about my health.
That was refreshing.
After I’d returned to work, things proceeded as if my little episode had never happened—aside from a few colleagues asking if I was feeling better. Enough intern-year residents had neglected their own sleep and eating schedules to not make my particular struggle something to stand out. Thank goodness, my condition was still safely secret at work. Louisa was still out on maternity leave and the two doctors who had treated me during my episode weren’t about to violate HIPAA to spill the news.
Thanks to the anti-nausea medicine I was mostly back to my old self—if my old self got tired easier and had to go pee a lot more. But my secret being safe didn’t mean I was safe from his assholeness, Dr. Craig Iverson, senior resident.
I didn’t actually cross paths with him until my third day back—the day of my first long call of the week. It was early in the shift, and I had twenty-eight hours to go.
I was at the nurse’s station looking over a chart before dipping into a room to check on a patient. He pulled up right beside me, setting his own tablet down to enter some notes into it.
Without looking up he said. “I trust we’re feeling better?”
“Yep,” I said shortly as I scrolled down to check the latest set of vitals. I knew the patient was going to again push me to discharge her, so it was important to know what her latest panels read.
“Yeah, it was all over the floor that day. When I came in that night for long call, people were still talking about it.”
I studied the blood panels—there were still a few fields outside the normal range, but in general, showed positive improvement. I’d have to consult with my attending regarding when this patient could be discharged but things were looking good for tomorrow morning.
He was still talking. “Gonna be a long road, you know, if you faint at the sight of blood.”
My eyelids fluttered. What an asshole. “Oh, it’s not so bad,” I shot back. “I can always become a radiologist instead and read x-rays all day.”
With that, I scooped up my tablet and without another word to him, I pivoted and crossed the hall into my patient’s room to get on with the day. I was officially done with that dickwad and his bullshit. And his little comment was going in my little file of documentation as soon as I had a moment to do it.
My next opportunity to tell a friend our exciting news came a few days later.
April walked to my houseand we set up our laptops and notebooks on the table in the covered patio area overlooking the Back Bay, bustling with activity. Duffy boats and sailboats motored by, people called out to each other between the shore and the boats. It wasn’t the quietest place to live, and I was starting to anticipate the quiet and calm of the surrounding canyon at our new house.
Adam and I had visited a few times over the past month, walking the floors, speculating on décor, and trying out paint swatches on the wall. I’d also had a meeting there with the interior decorator and she’d helped me choose color schemes.
Due to my time limits, she was going to run with my styles and preferences as I continued to pin pictures to a shared board to give her ideas. Which suited me just fine because moving and redecorating was extremely time consuming.
It was two in the afternoon, but April let out a long sigh as she spread out her paperwork, all ready for us to work on the company vision and mission statement. “Is it too early to pop open a bottle of wine? I mean, I know we’re doing business but...it’s been a week.”
I served her a glass from the bottle we had open in the fridge and fixed myself a glass of soda water with a twist of lime. When I came back to the table, April’s brows knit as she took in my drink. “So, I’m drinking wine all by myself at two o’clock?”
I laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not judging you. I’m just not going to join you, though I’ve had a week too and I’d love to join in.”
She blinked. “What gives? Are you on call tonight?”
“No, I have the next three days off, actually and I can’t wait to sleep in late every day and binge watch at least two seasons of Ted Lasso.”
“Oh, okay.” She hesitantly reached for her glass. Just before she was to sip it, she squinted up at me over the rim. “Either you’re aware of some recent and obscure medical research that labels wine as deadly or you’re pregnant. Which one is it?”
My eyes widened in shock.
She seemed amused by my reaction, studying me closely with a head tilted to the side. “I’ve actually suspected for a while now. You looked pale and sickly the last few times I saw you. But it could have also just been due to sleep deprivation from your highly demanding job. But you definitely weren’t acting your normal self, so I pegged pregnancy as a high possibility.”
I tilted a brow up. “Well, then you’ve just spoiled my quiet humble-but-with-gratitude announcement.”
She clapped her hands together, grin widening. “Oh, I’m so happy for you two.” She popped up and came around the table to give me a hug. “Congratulations! When?”
“December twenty-fifth.”
She burst out laughing.
“I know, I know. Worst day of the year to have a baby.”
“I feel sorrier for the kid than I do you, though. What a shitty birthday.”
“I was thinking maybe we could celebrate his or her half-birthday on June twenty-fifth or something.”
“Well, whenever they happen to be born, this is going to be one lucky kid. And with yours and Adam’s genes mixed together in one human, gorgeous as fuck, too.”
I pretended to preen, batting my eyes. “Why thank you.” We both laughed and I answered a few more questions about details until we decided we needed to get down to why we were there—our business venture. And the deeper we waded into the necessary paperwork and vision and mission drafting, the more grateful I was that April was in this with me.
“This is going to be amazing.” She looked up from her screen once we’d finalized the vision statement. “A clinic especially for women and children of lower income.”
“I’ve been thinking, what with the tendency currently in our country to limit women’s reproductive rights, would it be possible to create a safe haven for women in states where their rights are limited or even nonexistent?”
April smiled sadly. “We are fortunate to live in a state that will never restrict those rights.” She shook her head. “It makes me angry and also a little hopeless that not every woman in our country is guaranteed that.”
I nodded. “Me too. And to think that those state governments are making illegal threats to arrest a woman who travels out of state in pursuit of her own reproductive rights. And some are dying from not getting essential medical treatment. So I was thinking, maybe we can have a, I dunno, what we’d call it. A stretch goal?”
April nodded. “An expansion plan, and yes, absolutely. I’d love that. Maybe we could even provide lodgings and set up a transportation fund for women who have to travel across state lines.”
I clasped my hands together excitedly. “That would be amazing.” I blinked, considering. An abortion had likely saved my life—or at the very least, greatly increased my odds of survival. And though I’d always have a mixture of emotions around it, I’d never regret exercising my right to put my own life first. To make it that much more likely for me to survive and become a mother at a later time.
To many women, such a thing was a theoretical, but to me it had been reality. And in some little way, I’d like to help others in a similar position who’d had that right torn away due to laws made by old men.
After all, this clinic, our special project, was about medical justice for those who too often didn’t receive even the most basic care—women and children.
Our little team of April, Lindsay, and me—and hopefully those who would join us as our journey proceeded—couldn’t change the world, but we could improve our corner of it just a little bit.
And for that, I was both proud and excited.