Plus One

by Sarah L. Young

  "I don't know, but there's no way for me to do anything. And besides, he asked me if I wanted to have sex and I said yes. And he kept asking me over and over again. And I kept telling him yes because I didn't care, and I thought that it might make me feel better. It was my choice. I wasn't too drunk to give consent, I promise. Nothing that he did to me was without my permission. He didn't do anything wrong, I swear it."

  "Well, I still don't like it," he said, visibly beginning to relax but still quite red in the face. "But if you swear that that's what happened, and that he didn't do anything wrong, and if you really don't know how old he was then I guess that there's nothing that the police could really do. But do you promise me that that's exactly how it happened? He didn't force you to do anything? And you were with it enough to give consent?" She nodded her head. I didn't know if she was telling the truth or not, but I certainly hoped that she was. I couldn't stand the thought of anyone doing that to her. It made me quite literally feel sick to the stomach.

  "Really," she told him. "I promise. And I wouldn't want him to be unfairly punished for not having done anything wrong in the first place." She looked down at her watch. "Listen," she continued. "If something was really wrong, I would have told the police. But it wasn't, and so I didn't. Besides, I have to get to class before the bell rings. Getting a detention for being tardy is probably the last thing that I need right now.

  "Emily," she said, turning to face me and the door. She grabbed her backpack and starting walking to the door as she spoke. "Can you walk me to class?" I smiled at her and took her hand in mine as I matched her pace.

  "Of course, sweetie," I told her. She blushed lightly and smiled at me as we walked out of the classroom hand in hand and into the hall. After a moment of comfortable silence in the busy halls, she turned to face me and stopped walking.

  "I have a doctor's appointment today, during the school day. I have to leave right after lunch." I looked at her, confused. I wasn't exactly sure why she was telling me this. And then it clicked, but she began to explain it anyway, just in case. "I mean a baby doctor appointment. Last night Mrs. Stanton called her obstetrician and told her what was going on and she said that she wanted to see me as soon as possible. It so happened that one of her clients, are they called clients? I don't even know. Whatever, it's not that important, well anyway, someone who had an appointment with her for today cancelled and she said that she wanted me to come in. So, I know that you have study halls after lunch, so I was wondering if you wanted to come with me. You don't have to, I just, well I thought that it might be fun to see the baby for the first time. I think that it could be, well I don't know, exciting? I don't know if you want to, but I thought that I'd let you know because you said that you wanted to be involved and everything." She looked up at me hopefully.

  "Of course, I want to come," I said with growing excitement. Technically it wasn't my baby, but in another sense, it was my baby. I smiled broadly, imagining seeing the little baby on the sonogram screen. "Of course," I repeated. She smiled broadly, too, mirroring perfectly my expression and emotion.

  "Awesome," she said, giving me a big hug. She started walking again and I followed her. "So, I'll meet you out front at, oh jeez what time does lunch start? Oh, eleven, duh. Anyway, I'll meet you outside at eleven, all right?" I nodded.

  "Sounds like a plan," I told her. We had just arrived at her first period class, but before she went into class she turned back to me. She looked deeply into my eyes, kissed me lightly on the lips, and then walked into class. Still in the doorway, she turned around to address me one last time before the school day started.

  "I love you," she said. She held my gaze for a couple of seconds, and then she walked into her room. I walked down the hall and into the gym. I got there and had walked through the double doorway when the bell rang. Then I sat down on the bleachers and waited for class to begin. I could barely contain my excitement, it was going to be torture to wait until eleven o clock.

  I went through my classes anxiously, not really paying attention at all and not caring any. I was going to see my baby for the first time today, hear the heartbeat, I couldn't wait. I couldn't believe that earlier that week I had wanted her to get an abortion. I mean she still could, but something felt different now.

  At eleven o'clock I signed myself out of school (which I could do because I was a senior and because I had early dismissal) and I wandered outside. I saw a bench and decided to sit down. Just then, Lexi came out of the school building and sat down on the bench beside me. She picked up my hand and placed it on her knee and gave me a tight hug.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lexi

  After a couple of minutes of anxious silence, Mrs. Stanton showed up. She pulled up right to the bench where Emily and I were perched and rolled down the window. "Hi Lex, why don't you jump in?" she beckoned sweetly. I got into the front seat and Emily went into the back.

  "Umm, hi," she said cautiously to Emily. "Do I know you?" Then I realized that in my careful planning, I had failed to ask Mrs. Stanton if it was okay with her that Emily come with us to the doctor's office. It must have been awfully strange having some random kid wander into her car unexpectedly.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry," I told Mrs. Stanton. "I completely forgot to ask you if it was ok, but I invited Emily to come to the doctor with me. I knew that it would help calm me down, and I think that it's important for her to be involved." She looked at me, utterly befuddled.

  "Why?" she asked me. Then she turned to Emily. "I mean, no offense, but why do you need your friend here with you?"

  "No, she's my girlfriend," I corrected. "Didn't Jeff tell you that?" After a moment her face revealed at least some amount of understanding.

  "Yes, yes he did," she said. "I just, well I guess I assumed that he meant that she was your friend. You're pregnant, so I guess I assumed that you're straight. Wait, so how did—" but I cut her off nervously.

  "I'm bisexual," I told her. "I like boys and girls. Well, I like a girl right now. I love her." I looked at Emily who smiled, still slightly embarrassed for having gotten into this stranger's car.

  "Well," she said. "Please ignore the fact that this makes me sound as old as heck, but you kids these days. I'll never catch up with all of this. So, Emily, it's a pleasure to meet you."

  I laughed a little bit to myself. My parents, who by having me had entered a covenant with God that they would always love me no matter what, had pitched a fit when I had told them the very same thing. Maybe you can't judge the quality of my parents' parenting skills, but I think that you could judge their ability to adapt and change depending on what I threw at them.

  The rest of the drive was silent as we made our way to the medical complex downtown. The obstetrician's office was in a hospital. I felt a little awkward going into the hospital, given that there was nothing wrong with me, but I knew that I had to put my discomfort aside for the sake of my baby. I had to see the doctor, even if she was in a hospital. After all, I knew that in a few short months I would be here to meet my baby for the first time. The excitement from that realization was enough to give me the boost that I needed to get myself into the hospital doors.

  Once inside, I looked around. It wasn't at all like I had imagined it. There was a waiting room filled with pregnant ladies and a nurse wearing pink scrubs sitting behind a desk and occasionally calling people in to see their doctors. The three of us all waited together sitting in a row: me, then Emily, then Mrs. Stanton. Emily held tightly onto my hand. Although I had initially been excited about the appointment, excited to see the fetus on the sonogram, excited to hear the little heartbeat for the first time, things quickly turned back to fear. I could only imagine that Emily felt the same way, given how tightly she was holding onto my hand. When the nurse called my name and told me to go into exam room three, I nearly jumped out of my seat.

  "Would you like for me to come with you, sweetheart?" Mrs. Stanton asked me. I wasn't sure. She wasn't my mom, but I didn't have my real mom there with m
e. Sure I would have Emily, but it was different. A girl should have her mother with her for big moments like this. I looked over to her. She had done so much for me, it felt almost wrong to not have her come in there with me.

  "Yeah, sure," I told her. If it made her happy, I would be willing to do about anything. The nurse pointed me down a long and narrow hallway. I walked slowly down the hall and into the correct room with Emily and Mrs. Stanton following me closely behind. Once in the room, my eyes fixed on the monitor. I stood there for a moment, fixating on the machine which in a few short moments would give me my first glimpses of my sweet baby. I stood in the doorway, staring. Then I felt a gentle little tap on my shoulder. It was Mrs. Stanton telling me to go into the room.

  "Are you all right dear?" she asked me. I nodded, and then moved into the room. She took a seat in one of the two empty chairs. Emily claimed the other, and I was wondering where I was going to sit when it occurred to me that I was the patient. I sat on the exam table. I sized it up and, deciding that there was no way I could hop onto that table by myself.

  "Em, would you mind giving me a hand?" I asked her. She giggled. I always needed her help because I was so short. Vertically challenged, as she said. She helped me move her chair so that I could use it as a stool to boost myself up onto the exam table. The white paper lining on the table crinkled as I sat down and tried my very best to make myself comfortable. As I shifted my weight trying to find a comfortable position, I thought about all the countless women who must have done the same thing before me, all of those women and all of their babies. It gave me hope, and it made me feel like a was a part of some secret society of mothers. Then again, maybe my anxious brain was fritzing out on me. That was always a valid possibility.

  After a moment, the doctor walked in. She introduced herself warmly, and something about her made me want to give her a hug. She was a short woman with a round face, big glasses, and auburn hair tied up in a messy bun. "Hi," she said extending a small hand my way. I grabbed her hand and shook it. "My name is Dr. Lerner, but you can call me Wendy. So, Mrs. Stanton over here filled me in on the situation. The first thing that I want you to do is to not worry. I don't pressure you into doing anything that you don't want to do. This is your body, so this is your choice. Everything you do is up to you, and no one can tell you otherwise. No one can make these important decisions for you. "

  "Thank you," I told her, and I really meant it. She nodded happily and was about to say something when I continued. "I know that it's my body and that it's my choice. I think that each woman should have the final—well, hopefully the only—say as to what happens or doesn't happen to her body. Even though I believe that it would be within my rights to have an abortion, that doesn't change the fact that I don't want one. The fact that I support their legality doesn't make me eager to experience it for myself. If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer that we stay on the medical side of things. I've already made my decision." She smiled at me.

  "Absolutely," she said with a nod. "You're a very direct person, and I am too. I recognize that you want answers and you want to know that everything is okay, so I'll start the examination. The first thing that I'm going to need to do is to take some blood. You're not afraid of needles, are you?" she asked me, looking at me warily. I shook my head, confused. Why would I be afraid of needles? I wasn't a child, after all. "I had a patient this morning, a thirty-year-old woman, who saw the needle coming at her and literally fainted right there on the exam room table. She blamed it on the pregnancy, but I think she was nervous."

  She spoke while she worked, taking my vitals and then taking two tubes of blood from my arm, right near my elbow. "What is this for?" I asked her.

  "Just some tests," she told me. "There are a couple of hormones that we need to make sure are balanced in order for you to have a healthy pregnancy. But don't worry. If something is wrong, there are lots of medications that you can take to correct any sort of hormonal imbalance that you have. Okay, now comes the fun part," she said, taking out what looked like a tube of toothpaste and taking the wand from the ultrasound machine. "Oh, and I know that every OB/GYN on every TV show and in any movie says this, so you're probably sick of it even though this is your first appointment, but the gel really is cold, so be prepared for that."

  Then she took what looked like the tube of toothpaste and, laying me down on the table and lifting my shirt enough to expose my belly, and smeared some of the jelly onto it. It was cold, but not anything too bad. It was surprising was all. Then she put the wand on my belly and moved it around in seemingly random directions. After a moment, I started hearing something that sounded like "womp womp womp womp" and I held my breath for a second. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

  "I hear a heartbeat!" the doctor shouted, excitedly. I felt my eyes beginning to tear. It was my baby. I could hear my baby! Emily rushed to my side and grabbed my hand excitedly. I could hardly believe what was happening. "A very nice and strong heartbeat, might I add. This is a healthy little one." I laughed despite the tears dripping down my face.

  "That's my baby," I whispered to Emily. She nodded gently, and I noticed that her eyes were tearing up, too. I looked over at Mrs. Stanton. She was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue and smiling. She didn't even know me but the effect of first hearing a baby's heartbeat is universal. It was as if she was my own mother.

  "Do you want to see your baby?" Dr. Wendy offered. I nodded, a mixture of nervous excitement and pure thrill bubbling up inside of me. She turned the monitor so that I could see it, so that I could get the first glimpse of my tiny baby. I searched around on the screen, but I couldn't find anything. I didn't know where my baby was. I let out a cry.

  "Where is my baby?" I asked, shocked and horrified. Dr. Wendy just laughed and pointed to a little shadow in the lower left of the screen.

  "That's okay, it's still pretty early on," she told me, still chuckling. "Your baby is so tiny right now, only about the size of a chickpea. That's why you haven't started getting any bigger or really starting to feel the effects of the pregnancy. That's also why your baby is so hard to find on the sonogram. It's very tiny right now, but you and I can hear it loud and clear."

  "Is it a boy or a girl?" I asked her tenderly. The doctor and Mrs. Stanton shared a knowing glance and then they each tried to stifle a smile.

  "Well, it's a little early," she told me. "Sometimes at two months the baby is so small that you can't even see it, like you couldn't a couple of minutes ago. It's too small to be able to see any details other than the fact that it's there, honestly. But don't worry, we'll be able to figure all those things out soon enough as your baby develops, and we get a little bit closer to the due date." She stopped talking, but I hoped that she would continue. I wanted her to tell me more about my baby. Tell me when the due date was. I felt as if she were holding my baby in her very hands even though my baby was still a part of me. I felt as though she was the one to make sure my baby stayed safe.

  "I have a couple of questions," I asked timidly. "So, um, do you have enough time to answer them? Or do you have another patient to see soon? Because I'm sure I could find out some of the answers other ways, I just think that it might be easier, you know, if I could get an expert opinion on it."

  "Yes, of course!" she told me. "That's exactly what I'm here for. And it's kind of awful when my patients look online, actually. They always get all turned around and find some completely unreliable sources that they end up taking way too seriously and then they get all freaked out and then they don't believe a word that I say because they think that what the internet said was right and that I'm trying to con them out of money.

  "Sorry, I rant sometimes when I get onto the topic of Internet medical advice. Anyway, what I mean to say is, yes. Of course. Ask as many questions as you have. That's precisely why I'm here, and especially in the case of first-time moms, and especially when they're so young. Please ask me all of your questions so that I can put your mind to ease. I'm sure that you've been on pins and ne
edles since you found out that you were going to have a baby." I smiled at her. The way that she spoke to me, like I was a real person and not some dumb knocked-up kid, well that in and of itself was enough to put my mind at ease.

  "Thanks, I'm so glad," I told her appreciatively. "Anyway, well I think the first thing that I want to know is when the due date it."

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she said putting her hand to her mouth in surprise. "I thought that you could have figured it out if you knew when the baby was conceived, but not all women do. From the size and the features that I can see, I'd say that the due date is roughly late May, but it depends on when your last period was and when the baby was conceived. Probably somewhere around that time, but honestly it varies so much, especially when the mom is so young. Like I said about all the other things, we'll certainly know more as the date starts to get closer and especially as the baby starts to get bigger."

  "Well, that's another thing that I wanted to know," I told her. "How big is my baby going to get, and when will my baby start to grow more and how big am I going to get and well, all of those things. Size things."

  "Yeah, of course," she told me, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Well, how big you get varies completely on a variety of factors. I mean, it really does depend on the woman, how big she was to begin with, how big the baby is, how close to the due date she is when she actually has the baby, what she eats.

  "I've heard of some women, like I said, especially young ones, who can be pregnant for months, even up to their due dates, who don't even know that they're pregnant because they haven't gained any weight or had any weird cravings. That's very rare, though. If you keep eating healthy, which I assume that Mrs. Stanton is helping you do, then you'll gain some extra weight. The average weight of a baby at birth is maybe seven to ten pounds, although it's not uncommon for them to be born smaller or bigger.