Page 107 of Rival Hearts

“I only had unprotected sex like two weeks ago,” I said. “And I’ve been on the pill for years. I didn’t think…” I couldn’t talk for fear of crying again.

Doctor Rowe frowned and shook her head.

“Honey, you’re further along than two weeks.”

“What?”

“You look like you’re about four weeks along already if the dates of your last period are accurate. Maybe even longer since we can’t be completely sure.”

I shook my head. “That can’t be. What about all the birth control?”

“They’re good but not completely foolproof,” Doctor Rowe said sympathetically. “There is a one in a million chance that something like this can happen. Believe it or not, you’re not the first person sitting in my chair with a case like this.”

I shook my head. “I’m always so careful.”

“I hear you,” she said. “But sometimes these things happen.”

I groaned. I hated she was right, but it looked like there was less and less denying what was going on.

“I don’t suppose a blood test will help?”

“Help how?”

“You know, to see if there’s a chance it was a false positive or something?”

Doctor Rowe thought about it, nodding slowly.

“We can do a blood test, and it will tell us a lot of things that will help to know, but that will take a while to come back. How about we do a sonar? I’ll see what’s going on in there, and we can take it from there. Will that help?”

I nodded. Maybe, if I was lucky, the pregnancy test really had a false positive. There still was that possibility, right? Even if the doctors kept telling me it wasn’t probable.

I didn’t have to undress and put on the johnny. Instead, the doctor just asked me to pull down my pants far enough, and she pressed the wand against my stomach with the jelly on it. I gasped when it was freezing cold.

“Sorry,” Doctor Rowe said, and she moved it around, looking at the screen.

She nodded slowly, looking around a little more, and then she glanced at me.

“Do you want to see?”

I nodded.

She turned the screen a little, showing me gray shapes on a black background.

“This is your uterus,” she said, pointing out the shape. “And this over here is the placenta. And that right there…” She moved the wand a little. “Is the baby.”

I stared at the screen, the little tadpole-like blob that didn’t look like a baby at all.

“I’m pregnant,” I said softly.

“Yeah,” Doctor Rowe said, smiling at me. “Congratulations, Mama.”

I looked at her, trying to smile, but my eyes filled with tears again.

“Thanks.”

She handed me a paper towel to wipe off the lubricant on my stomach, and I fastened my pants again. She drew blood for the tests we had to do. In her office, she wrote me a script for prenatal meds and something that would help with the nausea before she sent me home.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, honey,” she said. “It’s going to be fine. Come see me again in two weeks, and we’ll see what those tests tell us and if there’s anything we need to be worried about. Until then, take it easy if you can, and remember you have all kinds of options, okay? You’re going to be okay.”