Chapter Twenty-Nine
My work uniform of loose-fitting hospital scrubs under the three-quarters length white coat of a medical resident helped camouflage my steadily growing baby bump. If the weight gain showed in my face, then most would put it down to typical intern-year resident weight gain.
I’d just wrapped up my intern year, as a matter of fact, but still had two years of residency to complete. Which meant, basically, more of the same, except there were new interns in our program now, and I was a PGY-2, which stood for post-graduate year. It put me about a half step above peon.
Work continued to pile on the challenges, which I mostly enjoyed, like puzzles to solve. Especially as I started my emergency room rotation. I also navigated my share of scut work and long call hours. I got deft at evading the senior resident but congratulated myself too soon on my good luck.
Because we then spent two rotations in a row on the same service. That was no bueno. At least I’d now crossed the threshold into the second trimester and no longer needed to be on the anti-nausea medication. Admittedly, however, a strange smell or sight would occasionally trigger me out of nowhere.
In fact, I seemed to have developed the keen sense of smell of a backwoods bloodhound. Not the superpower I would have wished for, especially when given all the not-so-wonderful scents a hospital could offer up.
“Wow, Strong, you still haven’t gotten your iron stomach? Are you sure you’re in the right profession?” Iverson drawled one day, catching me just outside a door to the exterior of the hospital where I was literally taking a breather.
We’d just finished a morning in the ER and a patient in intake had power-projectile vomited all over the examination room. Even the orderly who had to clean it up hadn’t appeared thrilled. And me? I’m quite sure I’d gone as green as a Shamrock Shake and fought my own dry heave. Unfortunately, Dr. Iverson had walked in on that. Great timing, as always.
But instead of blowing him off, today I felt snarky in my own power. “If you’re done berating every other resident out there about their choice of profession and lording your superior stomach over everyone, know that there are many more facets to this job that make a person an excellent physician without involving the strength of their gag reflex. I’ll do rounds around you any day of the week and I’ll win. And I’ll be a professional about it because I don’t need to put down others just to feel better about myself.”
His eyes widened, mouth half open in exaggerated shock. I’d rarely found it worth it to bite back at him. But it seemed that today, he’d picked the wrong time to poke this bear. Because this bear was now secretly a mama bear and no fiercer creature existed in the wild. And she was fighting back now.
He scoffed at me. “It was just a little good-natured teasing, Strong. You should learn to take a—”
“Oh, I can take a joke. I work with you, don’t I?” My face flushed hot, and I mentally willed myself to rein in the anger. I was perfectly capable of dressing down this idiot while staying professional.
Or maybe I wasn’t, because the hormones, they were a-raging, which made it difficult to keep my emotional reactions in check.
He blinked. “No need to get like that.”
“Maybe that’s what you need to be telling yourself just about every time you open your mouth to speak to me because, quite frankly, your attitude is crappy. I’ve tolerated way too much of it as it is. But I’m hoping that, by being straightforward with you now, you’ll be smart enough to catch a clue and check yourself.”
His eyebrow arched. “Check myself before I wreck myself?”
I smirked. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He held up a hand, again in that passive I’m the victim here gesture. “Okay, okay, Dr. Strong. I see I got you on a bad day, so....” he backed away, shrugging.
“No, you got me on a good day. A day where I finally feel willing to say what I’m thinking. Be better, Dr. Iverson.”
He raised his brows, eyes bulging in indignation, and spun on his heels. I stared after him with narrowed eyes. Somehow, this wasn’t over. And now that I’d thrown down the gauntlet, that meant that the gloves were off. And the big decision loomed on the horizon. Either he’d catch a clue and take my advice, or I’d have to escalate this to a step that would be uncomfortable for both of us.
But fuck it. Why didn’t men have to worry about this shit? I’d been documenting, as my mom had advised. So, I pulled out my phone, grabbed a quick seat and typed in the date and time and a general description of the conversation—and my response.
Then I blinked back a few uncharacteristic tears of frustration. Staring up at the ceiling for a moment, I blew out a breath and tried to muster the strength to go back to the resident office to update my charts and make some phone calls to specialists.
As I sat there in the stillness of that moment, it happened.
At first, I thought it might be indigestion, or even a muscle spasm, this weird sort of fluttery feeling just to the right of my navel. It felt like butterflies’ wings and the tickle of a stiff wind in tall grass. An ephemeral, fleeting moment of existence, demanding my notice, before retreating just as quickly.
Instinctively, my hand shot to my belly. Was that...? Did I just seriously feel what I thought I felt? I was at eighteen weeks today with my belly rounding noticeably deep under my hospital scrubs.
And just when I was starting to doubt what it was, it happened again.
I blinked. Holy crap. It was the baby, finally making himself or herself known.
I pulled out my phone, wondering if I should call Adam. He’d be on the way to work right now, probably lane-splitting his way up the 73 freeway—though he swore to me up and down and sideways that he didn’t do that. Your days on that bike are numbered, mister.
I debated whether to tell him now, via text, or to wait until tonight in person. I opted for tonight, but opened another note file on my phone and wrote it down under my pregnancy milestones list.
Then I pushed out of my chair and headed back to the resident office to do my job, annoying senior resident and tiny, kicking passenger notwithstanding.