Page 92 of Pregnant in Pennsylvania

Holding my hand.

I don’t want to let go, but…I can’t let myself think this is normal. I just need the support in the moment.

The problem is that whenever I need someone to support me, Jamie has been there, since the first day we met.

We reach room four, and I sit on the hospital bed, and the nurse takes my vitals and tells me the doctor will be right with me.

The doctor finally arrives about forty minutes later and after asking several questions he begins to poke and prod my neck, has me roll it this way and that, checks my pupils and has me follow his finger up and down and side to side, and asks me more questions.

When he’s finished, he sets his computer tablet aside and frowns at me. “I’d like to have an X-ray on your neck, just to err on the side of caution. It sounds like it was a rough crash, and your neck is pretty well tweaked.”

“Okay.”

He asks a few questions about allergy to medication and such, typing my replies into his tablet.

“Okay. I’ll get someone from radiology in here as soon as possible, get your neck scanned, and see what we see.”

“Sounds good,” I tell him.

“Great. I’ll be back in to talk to you once we get the scans back.”

Another wait, and then a young woman from the radiology department comes in, and she has more questions, most of them straightforward, and most of which I’ve already answered at least once.

“Any allergy to medication?”

“No.”

“Any family history of cancer or high blood pressure?”

“No.”

“Are you pregnant or is there any possibility you could be?”

I blink. “Um. No?” I wasn’t expecting that question. “Why?”

The young woman eyes me. “Standard procedure. We wouldn’t X-ray you if you were pregnant unless absolutely necessary.”

“I’m not pregnant.”

She smiles. “It can’t hurt to be sure. A quick urine test and we’ll have you under the X-ray in no time. Okay?”

I shrug, nod. “Sure, I guess.”

I glance at Jamie, but his expression is carefully blank.

So…I follow her out of the room and to a bathroom, where she gives me a quick rundown of clean-catch procedure and I procure the sample.

I return to the waiting room…and wait.

And wait.

Finally, after about forty minutes, the doctor comes back in—not the nurse, not the girl from radiology, but the actual attending ER doctor.

He stuffs his hands in his lab coat. Adjusts his stethoscope around his neck.

Smiles at me.

At Jamie.

“Congratulations, Mom and Dad.”