“Excuse us.” Becki stood and took my hand. She spoke with a smile, but there was a definite undertone of annoyance in her voice.
Once in the room, the nurse did all the vitals then told Becki to strip from the waist up and handed her a hideous hospital gown. The door shut, and Becki whipped off her top and bra and then slid her arms through the way-too-wide arm holes.
“You’re not picky, are you?”
“Huh?” She turned in two full circles, looking over her shoulder as she tried to find the other string to tie her gown shut.
“You didn’t even know her name.” I shook my head, feigned disappointment, and grabbed the ties she couldn’t find and tied them.
“What the hell, Calon? Just talk. I’m too nervous to translate your riddles.” She huffed and sat up on the exam table. Her feet swinging with nervous energy.
“I just meant, you didn’t know that nurse for longer than a couple minutes and you took your bra off with no hesitation. Never mind, it was a joke.” I stood and walked over between her knees, I reached down and placed my hands firmly on her calves to stop her legs and calm her nerves. As I rubbed the tense muscles in her legs, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she moaned. It was a familiar enough sound that my dick did a little jump, thinking it was go time. Unfortunately, the sterile smell of a doctor’s office just didn’t do it for me, so Walter quickly went back to sleep.
“I guess I’m just easy like that when I’m pregnant.” She smiled and leaned forward until her forehead touched my chest. She breathed in a very slow, deep breath.
“What are you thinking?” I ran my fingers through her hair and realized how much it had grown in four months of pregnancy. It was surreal that we were just shy of being half way to the due date. Not finding out until Becki was already three months pregnant cheated us out of the full nine months to prepare.
She looked up at me and smirked. Staying true to her promise to always answer that question truthfully, she let it all out. It came in waves of emotion, one right after the other.
“What if I’m not good enough? What if I really can’t do this? What the fuck are we doing? Calon, I don’t even know how to change a diaper, and I skipped school on the day they watched the birth video in sex ed, because I had no interest in watching some woman’s crotch stretch its way into oblivion.” She sucked in a couple sobs and wiped her nose with my shirt. Yuck. I just let her talk it out and wisely didn’t complain about the snot. “I don’t want my crotch to stretch to oblivion. When we have sex after this baby you’ll have to tie a two-by-four to your ass to keep from falling in the giant cavernous void that once was my vagina.”
I tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t. I howled with laughter and wrapped my arms around her. I rocked her back and forth until she realized how freaking hysterical that visual was, and then we both laughed together.
“Everything will be just fine, Becks. Please, don’t worry unless we have something to worry about.” By the time the doctor came in my t-shirt was soaked with all kinds of fluids that found their way out of Becki’s face in what had only been about five minutes.
“Hi there, Becki and…” The short, dark-haired woman looked through some paperwork and tried to find my name.
“Calon. Nice to meet you.” I put my hand out for her to shake, and then she shook Becki’s hand, too. It was nice to still be unrecognizable.
“Nice to meet you both. I’m Dr. Daily. So, Calon and Becki, we’re having a baby. This weekend marks the end of your fourth month, and your baby is about the size of a banana.” She held her hands up to show the average length of a fruit I’d never considered would be used to measure a human. I got a cold nervous feeling in my chest. I had no idea how big our baby was, but seeing her hands a good six or seven inches apart, made it even more real than just noticing the small bump that used to be Becki’s flat, toned stomach. The doctor began the appointment by firing questions at Becki. I stood beside her and held her hand and rubbed her back.
“Have you felt any movement? Would feel a little like gas bubbles.”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I didn’t know I should be feeling anything yet, so I guess I could have. I’ve had tons of gas bubbles lately.”
“That’s normal. Just a couple weeks from now, there will be no doubt what is a kick and what is a bubble. You’ll be able to feel your baby’s every move.”
“You haven’t gained a whole lot of weight, just slightly over five pounds. Are you eating well balanced meals? Three or four of them a day?”
“I was so sick at the beginning when I didn’t know I was pregnant. I lost a lot of weight over the first couple months, so, technically, I have probably gained almost fifteen if you count the weight I put back on after being sick.”
“Well, that’s good. Good.” She flipped through some sheets of paper in Becki’s file and mumbled under her breath as she read through numerous typed pages. “I see here that you’re a vegetarian. You really want to focus on your iron intake if you’re not consuming meat. Iron-rich foods are legumes, soy-based products, spinach, prune juice, and iron-fortified cereals. I saw that Dr. Webber wrote you a prescription for a high iron prenatal. Are you taking those?”
“Yeah. They’re fu—freaking huge, but I take them.”
“Yeah, they are pretty big. Sorry about that.” She chuckled.
“I see some charts have been faxed in from HealthOne in Los Angeles? Do you live in Knoxville or LA?”
“Well, we’re back and forth. Calon’s in a band, and we have a tour running on the West Coast. We’re home until the end of January, and then we fly back out for the rest of the tour. This is the first time we’ve been back since Halloween, which is when I saw Dr. Webber. I went to an OB in LA last month, because I didn’t want to go a whole two months without being checked. But, I did hold off on an ultrasound until now because I assumed I’ll have the baby here and wanted the big tests to be done by the doctor who would do the delivery.”
“Perfect, Becki. Well, let’s get you prepped to see this baby. Do we want to know the sex of what you’ve got cooking in there?”
Becki and I looked at each other and nodded. We were anxious for the ultrasound, and it showed in our deer-in-the-headlights expressions. Everything Becki had just said hit me like a whirlwind. She was thinking more about the details of this pregnancy than I was. It wasn’t that I was ignoring it. I had no idea what was going on inside of her so much so that I didn’t even know what to ask. Since this was the first appointment I’d actually been to, I was learning way more than I expected.
“Look, you two. People do this pregnancy thing every day. You’re fine. Let’s just relax.” She rubbed me on the back and tilted the exam table back. “Okay, Miss Becki, make yourself comfortable and pull the gown up right under your breasts.”
“Oh shit. I didn’t think I’d be this nervous. Calon, come here.” It was then that I realized I hadn’t moved from the end of the table where I’d first stood since when we came into the room. I took a couple quick steps until I was right next to Becki, who was scared out of her mind. I took her hand in one of mine and rubbed her hair with the other.
“Now, this jelly should be warm, as long as my warmer is working.” Dr. Daily took what looked like a bottle you’d find condiments in at a picnic and squirted a mound of warm clear gel onto Becki’s stomach. She typed in some information from Becki’s chart on a keyboard just under the screen, flipped a switch to turn on what looked like a tiny TV, and reached for the wand. She then made eye contact with each of us, and with a smile she said, “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
She pressed the wand around in the jelly and moved it around Becki’s belly while staring at the screen, which, to me, looked like a scribbling of chalk on a blackboard. All I could see was white sketchiness on a black screen. I hoped that wasn’t our baby, because it looked more like a pancake than a person.
“Is that the baby?” I said it louder than I needed to, but I was freaking out, because I couldn’t make heads or
tails of what I was looking at.
“Actually, Calon, that’s Becki’s bladder. Isn’t it just lovely?” She smiled, and Becki and I laughed. Dr. Daily knew what she was doing when it came to helping patients relax.
“What’s the whooshing noise?” Becki asked, but I had barely noticed it as anything other than a humming of the monitor, but then the musical part of my brain tuned into the syncopated rhythm of the sound. It was even and regular.
“It’s the heartbeat. A healthy heartbeat.” She looked up at us and smiled. Without warning, my eyes filled with tears. I looked down at Becki, who was looking up at me, and tears rolled down over her temples. Our baby’s heartbeat.
The white shapes on the black screen changed quickly as the wand slid around Becki’s belly. All of a sudden a large black ovular shape appeared in the center of the screen and in the center of the black was a white shape. It didn’t look like anything at first, but when Dr. Daily started pointing to the screen and telling us the parts, I felt my knees go weak.
“Here is the baby’s stomach, and when I look over here, we can see the spine.” She dropped dotted lines across the screen with her wireless mouse and typed numbers on the keyboard. “Here’s the heart and—”
“Oh my God, is that a hand?” Becki’s voice was soft, as though she didn’t want to spook the baby. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen where a tiny little hand that looked to be splayed out and pressing on the other side of the glass presented us with five perfect little fingers.
“Yes, it is, and here’s the baby’s head.” It was a perfect profile shot, and it took my breath away. There was a chair directly behind me, which I took advantage of. I sat down and pressed Becki’s hand between both of mine and tried to hold in the sobs that threatened to embarrass the hell out of me.
“Calon.” Becki squeezed my hand, but her gaze remained on the screen. I felt an emotion I didn’t know existed within me seep inside my chest. Dr. Daily did more of her measuring and typed in her numbers while Becki and I just stared at the perfect little human inside her.
“Now,” Dr. Daily’s voice startled me out of my daze, “if I get a good look from this side, you can almost make out a face. Can you see? The eyes, a little nose, a chin?” Although a little creepy and skeleton-like, I could see the baby’s face perfectly. She took screen shots. I had to let go of Becki’s hand for a moment to wipe my face.
“Calon, are you okay?” Becki giggled, reached out, and ran her fingers through my hair. She lifted my face with her fingers under my chin. She smiled, and her cheeks glistened with tears, too.
“I’m more than okay, Becki. This is the best day of my life. That’s our baby. We made that.” I sniffled and cleared my throat and thought about how glad I was that Alternate Tragedy wasn’t yet at the popularity level that would have paparazzi hanging around every corner. Here I was a six foot tall musician in a leather jacket, torn jeans, and Doc Marten’s with tears pouring out of me faster than I could wipe them away.
“So, you want to know what you’re having, correct.”
“Yes,” Becki and I spoke in stereo. She gave me both her hands, and I squeezed them inside mine.
“Okay, let’s see.” Dr. Daily spoke, but it was like everything moved in slow motion all of a sudden. “Here’s baby’s heart. You can see all four chambers. Here’s the umbilical cord, and right between the legs we should be able to find…” She wiggled the wand around at different angles, trying to get a clear shot at exactly what she was looking for. “This.” She took a screen shot while Becki and I stared silently at the screen for what felt like five full minutes. Dr. Daily made some notes on Becki’s chart and then finally looked up at us and chuckled.
“It’s a girl. You’re having a girl. Congratulations.”
That’s when I really lost it. I put my head down on the exam table, took a couple deep breaths, wrapped my arms around Becki as best I could from my seated position, and cried like a baby. A girl. We had made a tiny little human, and she was a girl. We were having a girl.
Becki called her mom to let her know the news. She had been adamant that she didn’t want anyone in the room with us for the ultrasound, not even Gracie. I saw the disappointment on Gracie’s face, but I knew she wasn’t mad. She understood. But I had no one to tell. These were the times I missed having family.
“Yes, mom, a granddaughter! We’re due May twenty-second.” Dr. Daily had left but told us to take our time. Becki threw her arm up over her face and sobbed with her mom. Her shaky voice squeaked out ‘a girl’ a couple more times before they said their goodbyes.
Dr. Daily knocked lightly then came back in carrying a load of papers to keep us informed between visits as to what was going on with the baby and what to expect.
“All right. Up until your twenty-eighth week we like to see you once a month, but then after that we will need to see you every two weeks, and at thirty-six weeks you’ll be in here every week.”
“Oh dear. That’s a lot of travelling.” Becki looked up at me, and I could see scenario after scenario cross her face.
“Well, HealthOne would be a perfectly fine practice to see for your twenty-four and twenty-eight week check-ups. You could stay in LA for those, if that’s easier. But, you’ll have to decide where you want to have this baby, here or there. Because, you were right, it would be better to see the doctor that will deliver the baby for those next eight appointments.”
“Well, I want to have her…” Becki looked up at me and a smile spread all the way across her face. Her. “Here. I want to have her here.”
“Then you will have to either run your tour in this direction over the next two months, or you’ll need to move home without Calon for the last twelve weeks of your pregnancy. That is, if you don’t deliver early for some reason.”
“Oh, God. That makes me so nervous.” She pulled her hair back into a messy bun and rubbed her face.
“I don’t need you to make a decision now, but you’ll need to think it over and have a concrete plan before you head back on tour at the end of the month.”
“Okay.” Becki was thrown, I could tell. Neither of us was ready for this huge event to happen at all, let alone right in the middle of the tour. We had been so busy with gigs and promotional appointments that we barely had time to think more than one day ahead of the one we were living. I knew that was also a defense mechanism for both of us. If we kept our minds busy, we didn’t have time to consider all the details of this life-changing surprise. Funny that Becki and Gracie had named the tour The ‘Surprise’ Tour.
“And, tell me a little more about what you do for the band. What is your schedule like, Becki?”
“Well, I’m the manager. I have an assistant, so we divvy up the load, but it still means eight to ten hour days. I travel with the guys to interviews and appearances, and we have lots of late nights at their shows. About three to four a week, on average.”
“Here’s my concern. Those hours are not good for someone carrying a baby. You need to delegate more of your responsibilities and start making sure you’re getting at least six hours of sleep a night, if not eight.” Becki grimaced but nodded respectfully. “And about the three to four concerts a week. Some studies have shown that unborn babies exposed to loud noise over a long period of time are more likely to be born early, have lower birth weight, and some even have hearing loss at birth.
“Your baby can hear what’s going on around you. Your voices, music, loud sounds, such as car horns, and she can even startle enough that you’ll feel her jump when frightened.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?”
“Well, it’s your decision, but my suggestion would be this; I would like to see you come back to Knoxville at twenty-eight weeks, that’s in two months. I would like you to have your assistant take on enough of the responsibilities that will allow you to get six to eight hours of sleep every night.” She jotted what she was saying down on the top sheet of the stack of paper she’d handed Becki.
“What about
their shows? They don’t have daytime shows.” I saw Becki’s eyes tear up. She loved the shows. She was a live music girl.
“Let’s make a deal, Becki. You can do one show a week, but that’s it. You’ve got to start putting your baby’s safety and health above everything. It won’t be easy, but you’re a mom now.” She looked up at me. “And, Calon, you’re a dad. You need to keep an eye on this girl and help her keep the baby safe and healthy.”
“I had no idea how all this worked. I truly thought you just carried the thing around inside you for nine-months and the real responsibility came after it came out. Oh, yeah, about the coming out part. Does that hurt and will my vagina ever be the same?” Becki giggled.
“Tell you what. About halfway through that stack is everything you will need to know about what you just asked me. And, Calon, you’ll be pleased to know that you get some hands-on assignments that you may find enjoyable—if you know what I mean.” She elbowed me a little and then turned for the door. “I will look over the measurements we took today and call you if there’s anything I need to share with you. You two have a good day, okay? And, do that homework.”
“Thank you, Dr. Daily.” I was thrilled we ended up with a down to earth doctor who could joke with us but also give it to us like it was. I wouldn’t say it to Becki, but I had been concerned that she would blow off whatever the doctor told us. It didn’t appear as though she had that attitude with Dr. Daily, and for that I was thrilled.
We walked back to my apartment holding hands, both of us pensive. I risked looking like an idiot and carried Becki’s purse now that it had ten pounds worth of paperwork in it. But I couldn’t wait to lie in bed with her and read everything we needed to know about being pregnant. Part of me was sad that we didn’t know about the baby for so long, it was like we’d been docked a couple months of excitement, nervousness, and research. We really should’ve been reading up on all of this.
Above the Noise Page 21
