“Do you think it’s a thyroid problem?” Birdie prodded.
“Why would you say that?”
She poked my stomach with her tongue depressor. “You’ve gotten a little soft around the middle. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Gee, thanks, B. I can feel the sisterly love.”
She scrunched up her nose and shot me a playful smile. “You know I’m just joking around. I’d love you no matter what you looked like.”
“Even if I had a huge growth on my face that couldn’t be removed?” I teased.
Birdie made a gagging noise but managed a nod. “Sure, even then.”
She plucked a cotton ball from another jar and tossed it at me right before the doctor entered.
“Having some fun, I see?” the doctor muttered her disapproval.
I shot Birdie a warning look that told her to behave as I sat up straighter in my chair and clutched my purse against me.
“Would you mind getting on the table?” the doctor asked as she looked over my chart and typed in some notes.
I did as she asked, and she went about the process of lifting my shirt and applying some goop to my stomach, explaining that she was performing an ultrasound. Naturally, I assumed that I must have had a tumor or something equally nasty growing in there, and I was so tense I couldn’t relax even though she’d told me to several times.
“Did you find anything?” I wheezed.
A whooshing sound filled the room at a steady interval as she paused. “Yes, I did. Congratulations.”
“Excuse me?”
She shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose and glanced at me briefly. “You’re having a baby.”
A dry cough got lodged in my throat when I tried to process what she’d just said. “Inside me?”
“That’s usually where babies grow,” she mused.
I looked at Birdie, who had gone white as a sheet, and I could only imagine that I must look the same right now.
“When?”
She moved the wand around a few more times, pausing over the grainy image on the screen before she formulated an answer.
“I’d say you’re about two months along at this stage, which would explain the dizziness. It’s very common in the first trimester.”
“Oh.”
It was the only thing I could manage to get out as she cleaned me up and instructed me to sit up. I felt like my head was underwater when the doctor explained the follow-up appointment and blood tests and all the things that happened next when you were diagnosed with having another human growing inside you.
I barely heard a word of it until she sat down and examined me from her stool. “The other symptoms you described initially could be pregnancy related,” she said. “But they sound more like anxiety. Do you have any history of anxiety?”
Only every second of every day. And now more of a reason than ever, though it felt like my anxiety was about to bleed into a full-on panic attack. My heart pounded against my chest in time to the word.
Baby.
Baby.
Baby.
All I could think about was Lucian’s face at that picnic. The kid with the toy gun. He told me how he couldn’t look at children anymore because they reminded him of Dawson. My heart was sinking in my chest as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to hold it together.