Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Ana
Ana hated going to the doctor. Not irrationally, just not her favorite way to spend time.
Self-care meant good medical care, but there was something about the sterile feel of medical offices that made her uncomfortable.
Plus, they reminded her that she was mortal.
The strange waves of nausea and dizziness that had started at the hotel weren’t fading. After the excitement of being with Dennis, she’d taken the train to Gloucester, uncharacteristically falling asleep for the final fifteen minutes. Her mother had commented on how “ragged” she looked.
A good night’s sleep was all she needed, she’d thought.
Or maybe she caught some exotic subtropical illness from Dennis? If so, it was worth it.
Maybe.
But the fatigue and mild nausea wouldn’t go away, so here she was, ready to be done with this ridiculous bug. Reluctant to cancel any of her clients, she’d re-booked today’s two appointments, clearing her schedule.
“Ana?” Peggy, the nurse practitioner Ana had been seeing for the last two years, poked her head into the waiting area.
“Come on back.” At this practice, pediatrics was separated from adult patients, but on the long walk back to the farthest exam room, Ana caught a peek of small children with runny noses playing with colorful bead toys.
She smiled reflexively.
In the exam room, Peggy began going through the preliminaries.
“Can you describe what’s going on?”
“It started over the weekend. I was at a work conference, and when I started drinking and eating, I lost my appetite.”
“Any specific stressors in your life?”
Ana worked to explain how run down she felt, the ball of lead in her stomach not helping matters. Somatic stress was certainly a possibility, as she knew professionally.
But this felt different.
Then Peggy asked the question Ana hated most.
“Could you be pregnant?”
“No,” Ana said sadly.
“Haven’t had sex in more than six weeks?”
“Oh–well, yes, I have. But I can’t be pregnant.”
“You used protection?”
“Yes. Condoms.”
“Anything else?”
“No. But with my gynecological history, I doubt–”
“Let’s run a urine test just in case.” Peggy smiled. “Standard procedure.”
About to argue, Ana stopped herself. Harris had been adamant about not wanting kids, and Dennis, well… she’d just slept with him three days ago. She couldn’t possibly…
Peggy pointed to a small bathroom down the hall.
“We have dip strips in there. Just follow the directions on the laminated poster on the wall.”
“I do it myself?”
“Sure. It helps.”
“Helps?”
“Patients can have their first reaction in private.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” Sadness washed over her. When she was seventeen and went for her first gynecological exam, the doctor had stopped the exam rather abruptly. Telling her to dress, he left the room and within minutes, came back in with her mother.
The doctor explained what he saw: a unicornuate uterus.
A rare condition, the abnormality meant that Ana had only one ovary, one fallopian tube, and half a uterus. Her mother had freaked out, but the doctor had stayed calm. The finding made other issues make sense, especially Ana’s irregular periods.
The chances she could successfully conceive, carry, and deliver a child were low, but there was hope.
Hope that Ana had deliberately stuffed into a box to deal with later.
In the bathroom, she located the urine strips, followed the clean-catch instructions, and set the test down to wait for the five minutes required. Bathrooms, by nature, weren’t interesting, but this one seemed designed for pregnant folks.
A comfortable chair in the corner, a basket of magazines, and lots of general information about reproductive health.
Her phone buzzed as she waited.
Brie.
How are you feeling?
Like crap.
I’m sorry. Maybe that guy gave you something? The flu is going around.
Dennis didn’t give me the flu.
Heard from him yet?
No. But it’s not even been three days.
Maybe he’s a stickler for the three-day rule. Doesn’t want to seem desperate.
Dennis doesn’t strike me as the type to follow someone else’s arbitrary rule.
You really like this guy! Just text him!
I will when I feel better. How did the cake tasting go?
Brie was newly engaged. She met her fiancé, Martin, when they both attended sommelier training. Martin was a chef at one of Boston’s most famous tapas restaurants, and the couple had plans to open their own farm-to-table restaurant and grocery store.
Someday.
The cake was fantastic. I had no idea vegan baking was so advanced, Brie replied. Mom and Dad still can’t believe I’m marrying a guy who will never take a bite of their cheese, but hey.
He’s still wonderful even if he doesn’t eat dairy, Ana replied, startling when a knock on the door interrupted her texting.
“Ana? Everything okay?”
Peggy, calling through the bathroom door.
Right, pregnancy test. Time’s up.
Dropping her phone in her bag, she picked up the little strip and looked.
Then looked again, disbelieving.
A very clear positive line was showing.
Heart tripping over itself as it tried to flee her chest, every system inside her skin suddenly went haywire.
“Faulty,” she murmured. Opening the door, she held the test out to Peggy, who looked at it, eyebrows going up though her face remained neutral.
“Ana?” Peggy guided her back to the exam room like the pro that she was.
“Faulty. These tests must be expired or something. I can’t be pregnant.”
“You’ve had intercourse within the window of conception?”
“Sure, but...”
“That’s why we do the screening,” Peggy said in a calm, careful voice.
Ana knew that tone all too well. She used it all the time with her own clients, in therapy sessions.
“I’ll add a pregnancy test to your blood work.
You’ll get confirmation either way by late tomorrow if we get the draw done in the next few hours.
You can go downstairs to the lab,” Peggy checked the clock, “as a walk-in. Worst case, you have to wait two days for an answer.”
“You mean to get a negative. This could be lots of things. A cold. The flu. A weird virus that makes pregnancy tests come up with false positives. Right?”
“Well–no. But there are other causes of false positives.”
“Really?” She practically squealed with joy. “Like what?”
“A recent pregnancy. An abortion.”
Ana shook her head.
“Some medications–anti-anxiety meds, anti-convulsants. Parkinson’s medications. Some diuretics. But your medical chart shows none of those.”
“I’m not on any. But you’re saying there are lots of explanations for false positives?”
“There are. Some medical conditions can explain it, too.” Suddenly guarded, Peggy looked away.
“What kind of medical conditions?”
“Let’s not borrow trouble.”
“I’ll just Google it the second I leave,” she said with a little laugh.
“Something as simple as a urinary tract infection can trigger a false positive on a pregnancy test.”
“Oh, thank goodness!”
“Do you have UTI symptoms?”
“No.”
Biting her lower lip, Peggy finally cracked a little, giving her a more personal response. “If you are pregnant, how does that feel?”
Still laughing nervously, Ana felt a thin line of hysteria rising up in her, tangled with a hope she’d systematically killed off years ago.
“I can’t be. And if I am, the father is, well…”
“Out of the picture?”
“So far out of the picture, he’s in another country.”
One without an extradition treaty, she almost added, but prudence seemed the best option here.
“Ah. I see. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You can always retest on your way out. Or buy a test at a drug store. Some women try two different brands to check. Plus the blood test.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Why don’t we finish up and get that lab work going? I think you’ll feel better with those results.”
In a daze, she did exactly as Peggy suggested, ignoring Brie’s texts until she was down in the lab, waiting her turn behind an elderly gentleman who used a walker. As he made his way slowly into the phlebotomist’s room, she finally looked at her phone.
And teared up.
If she was pregnant, it was Harris’s. No doubt.
Which meant all hope of ever being with Dennis was now completely out the window.
No. Not true.
Assuming she was pregnant, there was no hope with Dennis.
But how could she be pregnant? The last time she and Harris had slept together was…
Damn. Long enough to be in the window of possibility. They’d used a condom. It hadn’t broken.
This was unreal.
Mind racing, she handled random partial thoughts, memories, and gut reactions like they were being shot at her by a machine gun.
How many drinks had she had since Harris left?
One. Plus the half a caipirinha with Dennis. Drowning her sorrows after the mess with Harris had been about sugar, thankfully.
Not alcohol.
But geez. Even one and a half drinks made her feel a wave of guilt. Thank goodness she hadn’t actually consumed that double bourbon she’d ordered.
Her periods were irregular because of the uterine issue, so when nothing had come two weeks ago, she hadn’t blinked.
The test had to be faulty. Had to.
“DaSilva?” A woman in scrubs held a clipboard and looked at her.
Ana rose.
As long as she didn’t actually look at the needle being inserted into her arm, or the blood filling the vials, she could handle the draw. And she did, with equanimity.
Because that’s who she was.
Even. Calm. Measured.
Not this anxious bundle of nerves that had emerged since Harris dumped her so spectacularly.
Although dumped was a bit of a stretch, since the jerk hadn’t technically broken up with her. He just ghosted, leaving her with federal officers at her front door, a ton of interrogations, and fortunately, a bulldog lawyer for a stepfather, who helped get them off her back.
Pregnant? Really?
As the phlebotomist taped a wad of gauze to the insertion site, Ana let out a small laugh, the woman smiling as well. Her name tag said Tracy.
“Don’t have too many people laughing when they get poked.”
“Just thinking about something funny.”