“Well, this is unexpected.”
“Tell me about it,” I said with a laugh. “But it’s good. Hopefully.”
“It’s okay to be nervous,” she said with a nod. “But your sonogram looks great.”
I closed my eyes as my shoulders slumped.Thank God.“How far along am I?”
“Well, I’m hoping you can help me with that. I noticed you didn’t put a last period down in your chart, but that’s pretty normal, considering your PCOS.”
“I have no recollection of an actual period. I did have somebleeding right after, um—” I squirmed in my seat. This woman had practically put her entire hand up my vagina, but somehow talking to her about my sex life still felt awkward. “Right when I probably got pregnant.”
“I would say that was implantation bleeding then. So, you remember the last time you had sex?”
“I do.”Vividly.“And it was the only time I’d had it in ... a while.”
I couldn’t look her in the eye. This was actually my worst nightmare.
But Dr. Anderson didn’t seem bothered. “Tell me the date, please.” I did so, and she wrote it down. “All right then, I’d say you’re sixteen weeks. That matches what we saw on your ultrasound.”
“Sixteen weeks. That’s ... a lot of time not to know.”
“We’ve seen it go longer, but we can make up for lost time.” She gave me a smile. “Is the father here?”
The only thing I could do was shrug. “Not today. He doesn’t even know. I should be telling him soon, but I have no idea how he’ll react.”
“Well, we can make it work either way.” Her voice was level and calm. It was exactly what I needed. “Let’s talk about what you’ve been up to the last three months and what we need to do now.”
“Yes, please.”
I listened intently, trying my best not to get overwhelmed. There wassomuch I couldn’t do now, like eat deli meat or sushi. I had to limit my caffeine and make sure I took care of myself.
That one worried me. Taking care of others was easy. But me? I sometimes felt like I didn’t know how to do that.
“That should be all,” Dr. Anderson said. “Now we just need to schedule your glucose test.”
I blinked as I tried to remember when that was supposed to be done. “Isn’t it a little early?”
“Yes, but there’s a risk that you can develop gestational diabetes with PCOS. We just want to make sure we catch anything early. We’ll have you come back next week for that.”
I nodded my head meekly, trying not to panic. How the absolute hell was I going to manage all of this on my own? How was I supposed to deal with the words “gestational diabetes” by myself?
Jade would help, even if I refused to ask her, but I wasn’t the only one who had conceived this baby.
What was Dean going to do?
If I’d thought I was overwhelmed before, I was more so now. And I had less time than most to accept this. Three and a half months had come and gone while I had no idea what was going on.
But I would do it, even if I only had Jade.
The rest of the appointment went by in a blur. I barely remembered to take the appointment card for my glucose test before I was heading to my car.
There were so many things I needed to plan. I needed to tell Dean. I needed to figure out the right words to make sure this was done right. It was a mess I’d found myself in, and I wasn’t sure how to present it without him thinking I’d baby trapped him.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t see someone walking right toward me. I would have walked right into them if their hands didn’t land on my shoulders. I was brought out of my thoughts by dirty blond hair and a tall figure in a cowboy hat.
I knew those hands. I knew them before I even saw his face.
“It’s you,” he said. “Grace.”