by Zoey Derrick
I notice that as she asks these questions she isn't very doctorly – if there is such a word. She's talking to me like I'm a person, not a patient, and I warm up to her a little bit more.
"If I don't smell it in raw form, I'm okay, though mixing it into pastas or soups makes it easier for me to eat," I tell her.
"What about vitamins, have you been taking them?"
I nod. "Three times a day.” Partly because Mikah is insistent about them, but I leave that part out. “The one in the morning makes me a little nauseous, but it doesn't last for very long.”
Her cell phone rings. I don't expect her to answer it, but she picks it up. "Dr. Alston." She listens for a moment. "Hi, Mikah." Oh, fabulous. He's checking up on me. "I don't see why that would be a problem, but have you asked Vivienne?" She pauses again. "Well, she's right here. Want to ask her yourself? Alright, hang on."
NINETEEN
She reaches across her desk to hand me her phone. "It's Mikah," she mouths.
I take the phone from her, shaking my head in disbelief. “Hello."
"Hi, sweetheart. Look, I wanted to be there but I can't. I'm still in Phoenix taking care of stuff, but I'm wondering if it would be alright if I video conference in on your appointment?"
What? "Why?"
There is a pause on the other end of the line. I'm about to say hello again when he pipes up. "I really wanted to be there to support you today, and I can't, so...well...I was hoping this would be okay."
I take a deep breath - not in anger or frustration, but at the fact that this is one of the many signs he’s shown over the last couple of weeks that there is more than friendship between us. His persistence in making sure I’m well taken care of extends to the baby, and I don't want to deny him this.
"It's fine, though I have no idea how-"
"Don't worry about it, Dr. Alston knows. Hand the phone back to her and I'll see you in a minute."
"Ohhkaaay." I hand the phone back to Dr. Alston, my stomach flip flopping with excitement at the idea of seeing Mikah. Sure, I'd talked to him on the phone last night, but it’s not the same. Speaking of which: Why didn't he bring this up last night?
"Sure, okay. Call me back in about ten minutes and we should be ready." She pulls the phone away from her ear and presses a button. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"
"Yeah, it just took me by surprise. I talked to him last night and he didn’t mention anything about wanting to be here."
She shrugs. “I'll set him up so that he can't see much more than a little bit of you and the monitor. I'd like to do another ultrasound, just to check on progress. After today, we will wait a couple of months for another one."
I nod, a little excited at the prospect of seeing my baby again.
"Did you open the envelope I gave you last time?"
"Envelope? What..." I think back for a moment. "Oh, you mean the one where you wrote down the baby's sex?"
She nods and smiles wide, hopeful.
"Um, no," I say shyly.
"Do you really not want to know?"
I think about it for a minute. What are the reasons to not know? Other than the surprise when it's born? "I guess I kinda forgot about the envelope. I haven't seen it since you gave it to me. But yes." I smile wide. "Yes, I want to know."
Dr. A., in a very uncharacteristic manner, starts clapping excitedly. I can't help but laugh at her reaction.
"Come on, let's have a look." She stands, comes around her desk, heads toward a door next to the main door into her office and opens it.
I stand hesitantly, not sure where she's taking me.
"I have a private ultrasound and exam room in here."
Oh.
I follow her into the room. This room is a little bit more clinical, but it’s still decorated in the light tans with red as an accent color, and it looks nice. There are a couple of monitors near the head of a short bed that has stirrups coming off of the end.
"I'm going to step back into my office. I would like you to remove your pants and underwear." She hands me a blanket, similar to the one that was on my hospital bed. It is far from warm, but it beats sitting here naked. "Climb up and cover yourself with this when you're done. Once we're done with Mikah and the ultrasound, I'd like to do an internal examination, if that's alright."
I nod and she turns to leave.
TWENTY
After just a minute or so I hear her knock. "You all set?" she asks through the door.
"Yeah," I call back, and she comes in.
"Go ahead and lie back," she says as the thing in her hand starts ringing. It's not a phone; it’s similar, but bigger, white with the Apple logo on the underside. She pushes a button and waits. "Hi, Mikah," she says and then turns the machine toward me.
"Hi, beautiful," he says to me, and I can see his smile, big and bright.
"Hi," I say, blushing at his words.
"Mikah, Vivienne has decided that she wants to know the sex of her baby. Do you want to know, too?" Dr. A. asks.
Mikah's face lights up. "If she wants to know, then I'd like to know, too." The whole time he says this, it's as though his eyes are boring into me, searching, seeking, wanting. Similar to the way he looked at me when I first met him at the diner.
"Okay then," Dr. A. says. She walks around to the other side of the bed from the ultrasound machine and places the device into a holder of some sort that is attached to the bed. "How's the view, Mikah?"
I now notice the little image in the corner of the screen that shows what Mikah can see. It isn't much, really: a little bit of my bump, but more of the machine that Dr. Alston is now standing at. She turns the monitor toward us. "This might be a little shaky on your end, Mikah."
"Alright. Viv, you okay?"
"Yeah," I say to Mikah.
Dr. A. proceeds to push my sweatshirt and tank top up so that my belly is exposed. Once that’s done, she goes for the bottle and squirts nice, warm gel along the lower half of my belly. Then she brings out the small, flat-headed wand and gently presses it to my stomach.
Everything is very quiet as Dr. Alston does her thing with pushing buttons.
I can see the baby's heart pumping wildly. She pushes another button and the echoing sound of a heartbeat fills the room.
She moves the wand around a little more and the head comes into focus. It looks similar to last time, but this time it's bigger; there isn't as much black surrounding the baby as the first time.
She points to the monitor. "There are the eyes, nose, lips and chin. See this string of pearls? That's the baby's spine." I watch as the baby moves. "Oh, I see. A little showoff." She laughs and moves the wand again. "There's an arm, and the other one is...right there." She moves her finger up on the screen, pointing at a faint, translucent white line in the background, leading up to a cluster of shorter white lines. "The other hand."
She moves her hand down further on the screen at the same time she moves the wand. "A leg," she says.
I'm starting to be able to see what she's pointing out. She moves the wand again to my right side, and I can see feet. Two of them with little tiny bones. As if on cue, the baby spreads its legs, and one foot goes off the screen.
Dr. Alston laughs. "Yup, she's quite the showoff."
"She?" Mikah and I say together. I smile.
"Uh huh. Look." She points to the apex of the baby’s thighs. There is nothing there to look at, just some more semi-transparent lines.
"There's nothing there," I say.
"Exactly," Dr. Alston says, pride in her voice. "You have a baby girl."
I smile and tears roll down my cheeks.
"A girl," I hear Mikah say through the device over my shoulder. His voice is soft, quiet, reverent.
I look over toward him and I see him staring at something. I'm assuming it's the monitor. Though he's not actually crying, I can tell by the look on his face that he is in awe.
I turn back to Dr. A., and she is back to pushing buttons. Sometimes the image freezes momentarily as she pushes
a button.
I’m about to ask what she’s doing when she says, "I'm assuming you'd like some more pictures."
"Yes, please."
After a few more clicks she pulls the wand away.
I turn back toward Mikah. He's wiping his eyes, not like he's wiping away tears, but rather like he's rubbing at them. I notice now that he looks very tired.
"How are you doing, Mikah?" I ask.
His hands come away and his head pops up a bit. "Thank you for letting me join you both for the ultrasound."
"Anytime," Dr. A. says. "I'll give you two a minute, and then I'll be back in." She walks around the bed, pulls the device out of its cradle and hands it to me.
I sit up and take hold of it.
As soon as the door clicks closed behind Dr. Alston, Mikah asks, "You okay?"
I nod. "It's just all so overwhelming sometimes. I wish you were here right now," I say. There is definite sadness in my voice, but also excitement. “How are you doing?”
"I'm fine. Was just up late last night dealing with some stuff." He smiles. I can tell that he's not wanting to go into details, which is okay with me. He quickly changes the subject. "A girl, huh?"
I smile. "I guess so." I can't stop the smile from spreading wider. "I was hoping, but you know..." I trail off. I had been hoping for a girl, but I didn't want to be let down.
"So you're happy?"
I cock my head at him, puzzled by his question. “Yes, though regardless, boy or girl, I'd be happy, so long as it were healthy."
He smiles. "Good. If I'd known that you wanted to know, I would have given you the envelope."
"No, it's okay. I'd forgotten about it until she brought it up again. Besides, she seems more sure now than she was when she gave us the envelope."
"True. What else has she said?"
"Not much. We talked about my aversion to red meat." He laughs at that. "She said it was normal for me to not like everything I may have liked before. She also asked about my vitamins and if I was taking them, and that was about as far as we got when you called."
"Okay, no more red meat. Got it." He laughs, teasing. "Can I call you tonight?"
My heart pounds. "When are you coming home?" I pause momentarily at what I've just said about home.
Mikah, on the other hand, doesn't quite catch it. “Tomorrow, in the morning. Early. I think. It's been pretty chaotic around here."
"I can tell, you look exhausted."
He snorts. "Yeah, I didn't sleep very well last night."
My brows knit together. "Why not?"
"We can talk about it later. I'm going to let you get back to your appointment. I'll call you when I'm done here, okay?"
"Okay. Thanks for joining us."
"No, thank you for letting me be a part of this."
I smile a little wider. "By the way, what is this thing that I'm talking to you on?" I ask.
"It's called an iPad. It's like your iPod, only bigger and a bit more sophisticated. Do you like it?"
"It's pretty cool, though all I've done is talk to you. Not sure what else it can do."
"I'll show you when I get home. Actually, I'll ask Celeste to show you the FaceTime app on your iPod. We can video chat tonight, if you'd like."
My heart patters a bit at the thought of seeing him again when we talk tonight, and I smile wide.
"Good. Alright, I wish you luck with the rest of your appointment, and I will talk to you soon."
"Okay, bye."
"Bye," he says.
The iPad beeps twice and he's gone.
Within a matter of seconds Dr. A. is back in the room.
"Thank you. For letting him call and join us." I say to her.
"You're welcome," she says and smiles.
I hand her back the iPad and she sets it down behind her. "Shall we finish this up?"
I nod and lie back down.
TWENTY-ONE
After about ten minutes, she's done doing whatever she needed to do down there. It didn't hurt exactly, but it was very uncomfortable.
"Everything looks fine. You're closer to eighteen weeks along and everything looks great."
I sit up. "Can I ask you something?" I say and blush.
She shakes a little in silent laughter, and an all-knowing smile spreads across her lips. "Of course."
"I'm wondering..." I can't seem to find the words I want to say.
"You're wondering about sex?"
Oh, God, is it really that obvious? The idea has crossed my mind once or twice over the last couple of weeks. I nod slowly, certain I've turned cherry red at this point.
"Don't be embarrassed, Vivienne. It's a perfectly natural question to ask, and every expectant mother asks the same question. The answer is yes, you can have sex."
I let out the breath I’ve been holding. "Can I ask you something else?"
"Anything, Vivienne."
"I'm not sure I want to know the answer to this, but I have to know..."
"The answer is no. When you came in the last time, I was deeply concerned about it too, so I checked almost immediately. There were no signs of trauma to indicate that."
I feel a tear streak down my face. I’d wanted to ask before I left the hospital two weeks ago, but it wasn't something I felt comfortable enough to ask. I’d healed so fast that I wasn’t sure I would have noticed if Riley had succeeded in...
I can't even think the words.
"Thank you," I say quietly.
"Have you talked to anyone yet?"
I shake my head.
"It would probably be a good idea if you-"
"No, I don't want to talk to someone. I don't remember much about what happened to me, and I don't want to relive the memories that I do have over and over again while someone analyzes me. My past is my past. I can't change that fact. And I truly seem to be better about my reactions to certain things." I take a deep breath. "Andrew, the man outside, for example, doesn't scare me. Neither do Red or Connor, for that matter.
“Mikah is cautious, sometimes too cautious, but he'd figured out a lot of my triggers before. I've talked to him about it. Even a little bit about my past with Riley." I cringe internally at the name. "What happened with my mother is old history."
She is watching me carefully. "You're a strong woman, Vivienne. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently. I admire your courage and even your determination. But know that we can't always solve things on our own."
"I know, and Mikah has offered the same thing. I really just think that I've managed to process this all on my own, in my own way. Something I've always done."
She nods. "Okay then. I will leave it be, but know that I'm only a phone call away. If you need me for anything, all you have to do is call."
I smile and nod. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. How's your shoulder? And your wrist?"
I smile again at the change of subject. She knows when to stop, and I really like that about her.
"They're great. I don't have any problems moving my arm, and my wrist has been fine since I left here."
"Good. I will allow you to stop wearing the brace.” Considering that I haven’t been wearing it, until this morning, I try not to smile as she continues. “If you can, I'd recommend some light exercise, like walking. Or even yoga could be good for you. I will also allow you to return to work. However, I don't want you doing anything that requires you to be on your feet for long periods of time. So no waitressing."
Jeez, I hadn't even thought about the diner. Partly due to Mikah's vehement refusal to let me go back to work there.
"Talk to Mikah,” Dr. Alston says. “He might have something for you, if you feel it's important to work. I would like to see you back here in a month. We will start regular monthly visits from here until closer to your due date."
"Speaking of due dates?"
She reaches into a drawer behind her. "Forty weeks is total time of pregnancy, give or take a week or two." I watch as she twists and turns the cardboard wheel in her hand. "April thir
teenth."
I smile. "April thirteenth," I repeat. "I like it. But please tell me that's not a Friday?"
She laughs. "Superstitious?"
"Not really. But you know, it doesn't hurt to be cautious."
She laughs again and pulls out a calendar. "No, it's a Saturday."
"Good," I say and laugh.
TWENTY-TWO
When I emerge from the exam room, clothed and ready to go, Dr. Alston says, "All set?"
"Yeah."
She hands me a bag with a couple of things in it. "I've included another copy of the book I gave you, since you don't have the original one, and a few additional things about diet and such. To help with the lack of red meat." She winks at me.
I look in the bag. It’s the book about how the body changes with pregnancy, the one left behind at my old apartment. "Oh that reminds me," I say. "I noticed this morning that, um, my breasts are swelling. A lot. To the point of painful."
"How painful?"
"Achy, really."
"That's pretty normal. A little early, but normal. Your breasts are beginning to produce colostrum. It's a form of breast milk. It's a thicker, creamier substance that is generally higher in fat and very good for the baby when she's born. Sometimes you can begin to leak early, which is okay. A good, supportive bra or sports bra can help alleviate some of the tenderness. Even wearing one at night can help. There are some tips in that book that might help. Plus..." she says as she turns back to her desk. She grabs a couple of pamphlets and brings them over to me. "Here are a couple of good information sources on some things you can do to be more comfortable. They will better explain that part of pregnancy."
I take them and slip them into the bag. "Thank you. For everything."
"Anytime, Vivienne. Anything. I'll see you in a month."
"See you then." I reach for and turn the knob on the door.
Andrew is standing in front of the door, but he moves away quickly as I step through.
"Thanks again, Dr. Alston," I say over my shoulder.
She waves and Andrew whisks me down the hall. He reaches for his phone. "On our way," he says as we round the corner back toward the parking garage.
