by Sam Mariano
If that didn't happen soon, she was going to start crying again and she would probably end up yelling at the poor nurse because Julie was finding her chirpy attitude a little bit annoying.
The nurse finally left them alone, and Julie was relieved not to have such a happy person in the room.
But as soon as the small amount of relief was gone, her awful sensation of worry and guilt came back.
A mirthless smile curved Julie's lips upward just a little, and she said, "Can you imagine how relieved they're going to be? Off the hook and didn't even have to pay for it."
"Stop talking like you already miscarried," Aaron said gently. "It could be any number of things, Julie. And don't think about them—they're bad people, not you, and they were able to have a kid."
"I don't want to lose it, but I don't want to tell myself everything will be okay and then have the doctor tell me I already lost it," she said.
Aaron looked conflicted, and then he confessed, "I really want to make you feel better, but I don't know what to do. I feel very helpless right now."
"Can I have another hug?" she requested.
Nodding, Aaron walked over to the bed and wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back as she leaned into his shoulder, numbly looking at the ground.
There were no tears, which was a minor relief. She felt like her whole being was encased in some sort of bubble just then, and she thought perhaps shock was setting in, numbing her to everything.
The doctor came in then, a slight smile on his face as Aaron released Julie and backed up. The doctor then greeted Julie and Aaron, consulting the clipboard.
"So, Julie, tell me what's going on," the doctor said, pen poised above the clipboard.
"Well… I'm pregnant, and when I got home from work today I was going to eat a bowl of cereal, but I went to the bathroom first and… I was bleeding."
He nodded. "Are you experiencing any abdominal pain or cramping?"
"No," she said, shaking her head.
"Okay," he said, scribbling on the clipboard. "And I don't have any information here on your pregnancy, so you're going to have to fill me in. How far along are you?"
"I'm… not sure, a few weeks? Maybe seven or eight?" she said, shrugging.
He nodded. "And was this the first time you've experienced bleeding in your pregnancy?"
"Yes," she said quietly.
"And you didn't experience any sort of trauma prior to the bleeding?"
"No."
"Were you doing something that was physically demanding, perhaps overexerting yourself?"
"No, not at all," she said, shaking her head. "I slept, worked for a few hours and then went home. Nothing out of the ordinary."
He jotted down on the clipboard. "Did you have sexual intercourse prior to—”
"Nope," she said, not even bothering to let him finish.
He half smiled and wrote something else down. "Okay. This is your first pregnancy, isn't it, Julie?"
"Yes."
"Do you smoke?" he asked.
"No."
"Do you use drugs of any kind?"
"Definitely not."
"Any history of bleeding disorders in you or your family members?"
"Not in me, and not in my family that I'm aware of."
"Okay," he said, writing on his clipboard. "So you weren't having any sort of physical discomfort to accompany the bleeding?"
"No, I didn't know anything was wrong at all."
He nodded. "All right. I will be right back in just a minute, while I'm gone I would appreciate if you could change into the hospital gown, and when I come back we're going to check your heartbeat. Before you leave I want you to get a blood test and a urine test, just so I can run a few tests and make sure everything is on the up-and-up. But first I'm going to go ahead and give you a sonogram, see if we can find a heartbeat."
"Okay," Julie said with a nod.
The doctor stepped outside and Aaron shifted uncomfortably. "Um, I'll just step outside there…"
"You can just turn around," she said. "I mean, it's not that big of a deal. I'm really not worried about you seeing my panties right now."
Aaron nodded and just turned the face the wall while Julie slipped out of her clothes and into the hospital gown, folding her clothes in half and laying them across the bottom of the bed.
"You can turn around now," she told him. Aaron turned around and sat down in the chair, elbows resting on his knees, his face as tense as hers had been before.
They sat there in utter silence for a good two minutes, not really know what to say, not really feeling that words were appropriate.
Although it was a side thought, Julie wondered what was going to happen to her little arrangement of temporarily living with Aaron if she lost the baby. The only reason she had been staying with him was because she was pregnant, so if she lost the baby, where would she go?
She had almost forgotten about Jack. It seemed like it had been forever since she talked to him last, and she hadn't exactly missed him.
Honestly, in that moment, she didn't care where she lived. The thought of losing her baby made her so damn depressed that she didn't frankly give a damn if she lived in a box underneath a bridge.
She would have no more Poppy Seed, so it didn't feel like it mattered.
Her mouth curved down sadly on that thought, and she closed her eyes, trying to just clear her mind.
The doctor came in then, wheeling an ultrasound machine in with him and offering a little smile. He got the ultrasound machine all arranged, then he came over and listened to Julie's heart using his stethoscope. After that he examined her abdomen, but he must not have found anything unusual.
"Everything seems normal," he told her. "We'll just get you set up for the ultrasound and make sure…" he said, trailing off as he got out a tube of some kind. "Since you’re still so early, we’ll have to do an internal ultrasound, and if we don’t see anything, there’s still no need to panic,” he explained, putting the jelly from the tube onto a long, phallic-shaped medical device. It was more than a little awkward when he slipped the device between her legs and guided it as he watched for some sign of the baby on the screen.
Aaron stepped back a little, turning away and clearing his throat.
Julie didn't realize she was holding her breath until the doctor smiled and pointed to a small spot pulsing really fast on the screen. "There we go. Mommy, Daddy, say hi to your baby."
"He's okay?" Julie asked, breathing again, suddenly feeling like she was going to cry and certainly not even realizing he had just referred to Aaron as the baby's daddy.
The doctor nodded, still smiling. "It's a strong heartbeat. You’re still early, but as of now, everything looks fine to me." He glanced up at Aaron, who was moving closer to the screen to get a better look. "See how fast the heart's beating?"
Aaron nodded, but he seemed completely transfixed as he watched the monitor. "Which part's the baby?" he asked the doctor.
The doctor pointed out a small spot on the screen and said, "The baby's right here. He's not very big right now, only about a half inch… here, he's… 1.39 centimeters."
Julie was amazed as she watched the little heart beat on the screen. "So the baby's okay?" she repeated softly.
The doctor nodded patiently. "If I were you, I wouldn't worry myself over it. Bleeding or spotting in early pregnancy can be fairly common. I still want you to keep an eye on it during the next few days, give us a call if anything more severe or painful happens. We'll make a follow-up appointment for you to come in next week just to make sure the little guy or girl is doing okay."
"Thank you so much," she said, still smiling softly at the screen.
"That's what I'm here for," he told her, pushing a button and printing out a picture, then he grabbed it and gave it to Julie. "There you go, a first picture."
Julie took the picture and looked at it, feeling too many different emotions to properly process any of them.
"Now, I do want you to take it easy
," the doctor told her as he extracted the ultrasound wand. "Don't overexert yourself, make sure you rest, try to stay off your feet a little more if you can, no heavy lifting." Then he directed at Aaron, "Dad, make sure she listens to me."
Aaron merely nodded, peeking over Julie's shoulder at the picture.
"It's so tiny," Julie whispered, looking over at Aaron.
"I guess it's not the size of a bagel yet," he replied.
Julie cracked a smile. "I must not be eating enough."
"Well, I'm going to wheel this thing out of here. I'll let you get dressed and then head on over to the lab so they can get some blood from you, and like I said, just give us a call this week if the bleeding worsens."
"Yes, sir," Julie said with a nod.
The doctor smiled at both of them as he wheeled away the ultrasound machine. "You three have a nice evening."
Julie didn't move to get up yet, she just placed one hand on her stomach and looked at her picture of the teeny tiny baby.
"Is it possible to love someone this much when you can't even see their face?" she asked him.
"Of course, it's your baby," he responded, but she could swear—despite her preoccupation—that she detected a little bit of sadness in his face.
Then she realized that while for her looking at the little miracle growing inside her body was completely amazing, for Aaron—who knew he could never experience what she had just made him witness—it was probably a less than joyous occasion.
She felt a sharp pang of sympathy for him then, but by the time she was done with the thought his face was already clear again.
"Do you want me to hold your picture for you while you get dressed?" he asked.
"Thank you," she said with a nod, handing it to him and standing up, grabbing her clothes and pulling them on.
Aaron went with Julie over so that she could get her blood test, and then he went to get the car while she went in and got a pee sample for them.
He was waiting for her outside the hospital doors by the time she made it out, and she got in quietly, still looking at the picture.
After a couple minutes, she said, "Thank you for taking me."
He shrugged. "No big deal."
"I didn't mean to flip out and make you leave work for a false alarm, I was just scared, I didn't think that was supposed to happen unless you were miscarrying."
"It's fine, Julie. I had no problem taking you."
"Well, thank you anyway," she said. "And thank you for going in with me so I didn't have to go through that alone."
Aaron merely nodded.
For the rest of the ride home she didn't say too much, she just looked at her picture and daydreamed about her baby.
She had never cared less who the father was than she did in that moment. She was just grateful that her little poppy seed was okay, and as Aaron drove them home she sat there in the car imagining different versions of their life together.
When Aaron got her back to the apartment he instructed her to eat something and then go to bed because the doctor said she needed rest, then he left to close up the store and told her he would be back later.
She hadn't really planned on going to sleep so early, she had only agreed to appease Aaron, but as she was lying in bed with her picture on the pillow next to her, she drifted off to sleep.
---
Later that night when Aaron came into the bedroom she heard the rustle of a plastic bag and she stretched out, yawning.
"Did I wake you up?"
She smiled a little as she rubbed her eyes. "No, you're fine."
He flipped the light on and she squinted, shading her eyes from the offending light. Aaron put the bag down on the bed and she made out rectangular shapes inside.
"What is that?" she asked, frowning little.
Pulling them out of the bag, she saw that he had books. "These are for you to read tomorrow and the next couple days. The doctor said you need rest, so I will expect you not to leave this bed tomorrow unless it is to get food or go to the bathroom. I got you a baby name book so you can start looking through those if you haven't already, and I wasn't completely sure what books you would want, so I just got a variety."
Smiling up at him, she said, "You got me books?"
"Yes. You need to rest, and I figured if you have a way to pass the time you're more prone to listening. I got Jane Eyre, The Lovely Bones, some shopaholic book Leigh liked, The Jane Austen Book Club, The Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead… because that one was on clearance and I thought you might be feeling academic-minded. Anyway, I'll put these over here, you can look at them tomorrow—and when I pop in at any given time you better be in bed with your feet up, or you're in trouble."
"Can we arrange for people to fan me with a giant leaf and feed me grapes, as well?"
"Now that's pushing it. The doctor didn't give me direct orders to do that, so you're going to have to get your own grapes."
Technically, the doctor had given "daddy" orders, but she kept that remark to herself.
"I work tomorrow," she reminded him. "But after that—”
"No, I already covered you."
Frowning at him, she said, "It was a four hour shift!"
He shook his head, stubbornly folding his arms across his chest. "You're not working tomorrow, you are resting."
Sighing loudly, she muttered, "I could have handled a four hour shift. I need the money, Aaron, I can't afford to not work, lying in bed eating Bon Bons all day."
"Don't worry about money, you need to worry about Poppy Seed right now."
Hearing him call the baby by her nickname made her grin, and she forgot she was frustrated at his high-handedness in calling her off.
He was being so damn cute, even if he was being bossy.
"Now I'm going to take a shower," he said, putting the bag with the books down by the nightstand and turning the light back out.
While Aaron showered, Julie picked up her ultrasound picture and looked at it, wondering if Aaron would have a problem with her putting it on the fridge. She didn't know the rules, she didn't know how Aaron felt about things, and she had no idea what his reaction would be if she flaunted her pregnancy. Since the baby was Matt's and he hated Matt, she wasn't sure that it would make him very happy—a daily reminder of Shannon?
She didn't know.
As her thoughts drifted around, she began to get the uncomfortable feeling that the "Do Not Open" box's life expectancy was growing shorter.
But then her mother's words came back to her, the words about Matt being the baby's father…
He was technically the father, but who was leaving work to take her to the emergency room when something could have been going wrong with the pregnancy?
Granted, she hadn't given Matt the chance to come to the rescue, but would he have even come?
As much as she wanted to say he wouldn't have, she suspected if she would have called Matt, he would have come to help her.
What surprised her was how easily Aaron had. And of course the fact that he spent the evening supporting her, holding her and trying to comfort her while she cried and freaked out over the baby that wasn't even his.
And then having the doctor mistake him for the father and say all that stuff to a man who can't even have children…
Not that she minded. Honestly, she had no problem sharing those experiences with Aaron. There was something about him—despite his occasional grumpiness—that she just seemed to inherently know she could trust.
When he finished his shower he came straight in and climbed into bed with her, moving around to situate himself and then—with less hesitation than before—he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
She was a little more than surprised by the extra pull, but she wasn't arguing.
"Did I thank you?" she asked.
"About 43 times," he replied.
"Okay, just making sure," she said, smiling a little as she rested her cheek against his T-shirt—wishing he wasn't wearing one so she could rest h
er face straight against his chest.
"Can I ask you a question?" he asked.
Since normally he was all silent and mysterious, she welcomed straightforward questioning. "Absolutely."
"Am I the first person you called to take you to the hospital?"
Translation: Did you call my brother first and use me as a last resort?
"You're the only person I called," she verified quietly.
He didn't say anything, he merely nodded.
"Can I ask you one now?"
"I suppose it's only fair," he said reluctantly.
"Would it bother you if I hung the ultrasound picture on the fridge?"
That must not have been the question he was anticipating, because his eyebrows shot up a little and he half-smiled. "No, that won't bother me at all."
"Okay, good," she said happily. "I just wanted to make sure, I wasn't sure how you would feel about it… you know, considering."
"It's not your baby's fault that Shannon cheated on me with my brother," he stated plainly.
"I know that, I just… I didn't want to do anything to make you uncomfortable. You've been so incredibly… good to me, and I don't want to repay your kindness by rubbing anything in your face."
He shook his head, but he didn't say anything, so she still felt uncertain.
But she didn't argue, because somehow even though she had been napping, her eyes felt heavy and she was really tired again.
Plus she felt really comfortable snuggled up against Aaron's chest, his arm fastened securely around her…
Safe wasn't even the right word for it, but she couldn't think of a word to adequately describe how she felt in his arms.
Instead of wasting any more time trying to think of a word to describe the indescribable, Julie closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep.
That night while she slept, her dreams were filled with imaginings of her future family, Julie with the baby—only the baby was a toddler in the dream—in their yard, playing in a big mountain of golden leaves.
"Here comes Daddy," she told the toddler in her dreams, grinning as she and the baby stood by the pile of leaves.
Then Daddy came swooping in, picking the toddler up and causing him or her—the baby didn't seem to have a specific gender, she just knew it was her baby—to shriek with glee as he playfully "tossed" the baby into the pile of leaves.
