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“Congratulations!” Amelia says, holding the wand against my stomach in one hand, while moving a little arrow around a screen. “Here’s the head,” she says, and the words seep straight to my bones.
I keep staring at the screen as she continues to point out other features: arms, spine, feet.
“I’m…” I start, but I can’t finish the sentence.
“How far along?” Derek asks Amelia, his eyebrows heavy. There’s tension in his question.
Oh my god.
He wants to know—oh. My. God.
“Based on these measurements….” she says, reading over her numbers as I squeeze his hand. “I’d put this little one at about eleven weeks.”
We’re quiet as we both mentally count back the weeks. All the way back to the end of March. He frowns again and his eyes lower. I feel Amelia watching us, and she laughs.
“So, if you want to figure out the conception date, you’ll want to actually count back about nine weeks.”
We both stare at each other, realizing exactly what she’s saying.
This baby was made in Seattle.
“I’m pregnant?” My voice feels rough and the words feel wobbly.
Amelia looks up, surprise in her eyes again. Derek blinks as well. And something like relief passes across his gaze.
“Yes. You’re pregnant,” she says.
A printer chugs to life and she pulls something off and puts it into an envelope, which she hands to Derek.
“Congratulations,” she says. Then she’s gone, and it’s just Derek and an envelope of baby pictures.
We’re both quiet for a long moment. Derek gets up and paces. He leans against the wall and then walks to another wall.
“We used condoms,” he says. A memory flashes back—a strip of plastic glowing in the dark that he’d scrounged up amid a condom drought.
“Dirk’s Dirty Dickwrap,” I say.
His eyes flicker to mine and then he squeezes them shut. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is so heavy, and the remorse that colors his features is almost too much to bear.
“You were on the pill?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. I nod at my purse. “I suppose I should stop taking them.”
“Can I see them?”
I shrug and let him fish them out of my purse, just as there’s another knock at the door. He’s staring at the little plastic case when a doctor enters.
“Congratulations,” the doctor, an older man with graying hair and a kind smile, tucks a clipboard under his arm.
“Thank you,” I say, because it’s only polite.
“Now that we’ve got this hyperemesis gravidarum under control, I think everything should be pretty smooth sailing. We’ll send you home with some more anti-nausea medication as well as a good prenatal vitamin, and as long as you can stay hydrated, it looks like you can just follow up with your OB-GYN or midwife.”
He looks between us, his eyes lighting on Derek, who is holding my birth control pills.
“Do you have any questions?”
“How…” Derek asks, clearing his throat.
