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“Gina…” I say slowly. “What is in the Fertile Goddess Brew?”
She senses my dread and is quick to reply, “Nothing crazy! No! Just organic raspberry leaf, nettle, a tiny bit of mint, and some Saint John’s Wort.” She smiles. “Don’t worry, the name is more marketing than anything else. I could change it. Do you not like it?”
I am trying to speak with a gentle, soothing tone instead of shouting at the top of my lungs like I want to. “Saint John’s Wort can decrease the effectiveness of birth control pills. Did you know that?”
She scrunches her brows. “I thought that was a myth.”
I offer a tight, slightly deranged smile. “No. It’s absolutely not a myth. Believe me.”
Something in the way I stress the last two words makes her narrow her eyes. Then she sees my crackers and the way my free hand is pressed firmly against my abdomen, and her jaw drops.
“Are you…?”
I nod. “Pregnant. Yes.”
Her hand covers her mouth.
“Who?”
I look over at the wall, at Connor’s young face gracing the page of that calendar.
Gina, to her credit, whispers, “Oh shit.”
Fertile Goddess is yanked off the menu at the coffee shop that morning. I worry about other women who might have been drinking it too, but at least on that front, there’s nothing to worry about. I was her only guinea pig, she explains. Oh, well, that’s a relief. I’m not mad at Gina. I can’t be. She’s part of this tiny crazy miracle. Had I not been drinking her tea these last few weeks, I wouldn’t have had an accidental pregnancy. It’s laughable, really.
I walk out of the coffee shop with a plain raspberry tea in hand and head into the hospital, wondering how life can turn on its head so quickly. I’m grateful that work, at least, remains constant. My surgeries run on time. Medical students and residents flit around, staying busy. Lois pays me no special attention and Connor has an exceedingly busy day, which means I don’t see him at all. I eat lunch alone down in the hospital’s atrium. A meal that usually consists of a salad with lots of lean protein has morphed into chicken nuggets and French fries. Sorry, little gummy bear. I’ll shove something green into my mouth at dinner time. Right now, the idea of a vegetable makes me want to gag.
In the afternoon, I’m on the schedule to work the adult outpatient burn clinic. As a surgeon, this isn’t my favorite job, but I don’t have a choice. Every other month, my name makes it onto the schedule and I show up, prepared to treat burns that are more often than not caused by the most ridiculous mishaps.
My first patient is a man in a navy suit, stained black around the crotch. He’s holding an ice pack to his groin and winces when I tell him I’ll need him to change into a robe so I can do a thorough exam. Poor guy. He spilled hot coffee on his lap, and throughout the entirety of our encounter, he shouts about how he’s going to sue every coffee manufacturer in the country. I wish him good luck and diagnose him with superficial second-degree burns.
Next, I encounter Earl and Jimmy. Both of them have bandages plastered across their face and arms. They’re sitting right beside each other, and even though I try to interview Earl first, Jimmy tells me it’ll just be easier if I do them both together.
“Sort of like a tag team,” he says with a wide smile that showcases a nice row of stained teeth. When I ask them what happened, this is how they explain it.
Jimmy: “Well we were out camping and we had a little fire goin’. Earl wanted to make it bigger.”
Earl: “Don’t go blamin’ this on me! You thought it was a good idea!”
Jimmy: “Anyway, he siphoned some gas out of his truck and—”
Earl: “Damn bonfire blew up like a supernova!”
Jimmy tilts his head up. “Singed my nose hairs and beard clean off.”
“Ah, yes.” I nod. “I can see that.”
At this point, Jimmy passes me a bottle of pills that rattle around. “Anyway, I didn’t really think we needed to come in, but my wife insisted. Can’t we just take these damn things?”
He’s holding out a bottle of hair, skin, and nail vitamins, the stuff you can find on shelves at every convenience store in America.
“Got ’em from my wife,” he adds proudly.
I check their temperatures (high) and their wounds (dirty) and then instruct two nurses to cart them down to the tub room to get their wounds debrided. As stupid as their story was, they’ll both be fine. They only have superficial second-degree burns.
My next patient is a young woman with a Band-Aid covering the skin above her right eye. On it, she’s drawn a fake eyebrow. “Curling iron accident,” she explains.
