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I nodded. “I agree. I love her, man. I’m waiting until the time is right, and then I’m marrying her. I don’t care what happens. Even if we lose the baby and there’s no reason to stick together, I want to be with her.”
Joe smiled and shook my hand.
“I couldn’t be happier for you.”
I headed home to collect Rena, and we headed to the medical center together. She was nervous, I could tell. We were both preparing ourselves for the worst.
When we went to see Rena’s gynecologist, she was just as worried about Rena’s weight gain as the rest of us were. She suggested we do an ultrasound to find out what was wrong.
Rena undressed and put on the little gown they offered. She lay down on the examination table, and her stomach protruded, looking even larger than usual.
“Let’s have a look what’s going on in here,” the gynecologist said, squirting jelly on Rena’s stomach, making her gasp. Rena looked nervously at me, and I squeezed her hand. Whatever happened, it would be okay.
Zoe had been over the moon when she’d found out Rena was pregnant. We had gone to Boston together after we’d broken the news to Rena’s parents, and we told Zoe. She was so excited that her girls would grow up with cousins, saying that we would arrange play dates with the kids. Rena had laughed and beamed about it. I had gotten the feeling that because of Zoe’s excitement, Rena had become excited, too.
Rena was nervous about the pregnancy, often. The baby grew in her stomach, but she was the one who struggled the most to wrap her mind around it. She was in a different place in her life than I was, and maybe that played a role. Since Zoe had found out, she called Rena often on the phone to chat about the pregnancy. She flew to Chicago now and then to take Rena out and pamper her, and through the course of the past couple of weeks, they had become very close.
I was glad for Rena that it had turned out so well, meeting her sister. Zoe was a great person, and I liked that Rena had friends who would be there for her.
I had met some of her other friends, too. Holly was a sweetheart as well, but I didn’t get the idea that she approved of our relationship. I wasn’t too worried about that. It was hard to be rejected, and there would be people out there who didn’t think our age difference was right. I didn’t mind. I knew what I felt for Rena and what she felt for me, and as long as we went back to love, we could get through anything.
The gynecologist moved her probe around Rena’s stomach, frowning at the screen. Her face was pinched in concentration.
“Is something wrong?” Rena asked. She was as curious as I was.
“I can’t say something is wrong, per se,” the gynecologist said. “But I’m trying to figure out what I’m seeing.”
That didn’t sound good, and Rena tightened her grip on my fingers.
“Did you have this baby conventionally?” she finally asked.
Rena and I glanced at each other. “Well, it wasn’t exactly planned,” I offered.
“The condom broke,” Rena admitted. “Does that count?”
“So you had normal intercourse? No fertility drugs?”
“Not at all,” Rena said. “Why do you ask?”
The gynecologist glanced at me and then at Rena.
“At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Usually, it’s tough to find the limbs if we don’t quite know how the baby is positioned, but today it’s like I’m watching a baby mash-up.” I would have chuckled if I didn’t think something was seriously wrong. “I finally figured out what it was.”
She turned the screen toward us so we could look. All I could see were gray shapes on a black screen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There’s more than one. In fact, there are four in there.”
“What?” Rena and I both asked.
“There has to be some mistake,” I said. “Four babies?”
The gynecologist nodded. “It would explain why she’s so big, of course. It’s very rare for someone so young to have so many babies at once, naturally. Were you a multiple?”
Rena nodded. “Triplets.”
The gynecologist smiled. “That explains it. It’s still nothing short of a miracle, but it makes sense at least. You’re lucky. Some people have to be pregnant four times to get the same result.”
