With kind eyes, she looks at me and in a hushed tone, she says “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you right to the back. I’ll get the doctor right away. No need to make you wait out here.” She waves Reid over to us from his guard right outside of the triage door. He wasn’t allowed to come in there with me, but he refused to be more than a few feet from where I was.
She brings us into an exam room that’s obviously reserved for pregnant patients. It has a door instead of a flimsy curtain. Next to the exam table, which is equipped with stirrups and the other necessary tools, there is a sonogram machine. She hits a few buttons on the machine to power it up. When the screen lights up, she hits a few keys to enter in my information. She works behind me in the cabinets and pulls out a gown for me to wear and a sheet to place over my lap. She leaves us in the room saying that the doctor will be with us in a few minutes.
As Reid helps me out of my blood-stained pants and into the gown, I notice that his hands are shaking. I hold on to his strong forearms for balance and look up into his deep blue eyes. There’s fear in them.
He wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my head before assisting me up onto the table. He inhales the scent of my hair, and with his lips still pressed to my scalp, he says, “I’m right here, Maddy. It’ll be okay.” He sounds uncertain and afraid, but he’s feigning confidence.
We wait in a tension filled silence for what feels like forever. The doctor gently taps on the door and asks if it’s okay to come in.
She stands at the end of the exam table and quickly reviews my chart. Placing on the counter next to her, she leans against it and says, “Madeleine, can you tell me about what happened?” Her words are even and professional, but I can’t help but notice the nervousness in them. Then again, maybe I’m just being paranoid.
I clear my throat in the hopes that it will make speaking past the ball of nerves a bit easier. “You can call me Maddy.” She smiles kindly at me and I fill her in on the details – waking up in pain, the cramps getting progressively worse, the gush of bright, red blood.
After she fills in a few comments on the paperwork, she instructs me to lie back on the table and put my legs in the stirrups. She notices the look of nervousness that passes over Reid’s face. Looking at Reid, she says, “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want.”
I look up at him. He’s pale and obviously nervous. “It’s okay, Reid. I understand if you don’t want to stay.”
He reaches out for my hand and laces our fingers together. “No, I’ll stay if that’s okay?” The doctor looks at me for my approval and I nod.
Reid lightly presses his lips to our entwined fingers and then sits on the stool that is up by my head.
The doctor busies herself under the sheet and I swear, whoever invented the speculum must have been an inventor of torture devices. In my very limited experience, I can’t help but wonder why they always have to be so cold?
My little bit of internal laughter serves as a much needed distraction from her poking and prodding. I must admit that it’s quite uncomfortable having her fingers probing around inside of me while Reid is standing next to me quietly holding my hand.
She peeks up at me over the sheet, still sitting on her chair in between my legs. “Okay, Maddy. From what I can tell, your cervix is still long and closed so I don’t think the cramps you were experiencing were miscarriage related. But let’s do a sonogram just to be on the safe side.” Both Reid and I let out a collective sigh of relief in clearing what seems to be the first hurdle.
She grabs for this long wand sticking out of the compartment on the side of the sonogram machine. As she’s squirting some clear liquid on to the tip of it, she says, “Based on your last period, you’re not far enough along to do an abdominal sonogram.” She slides what looks like a condom over the wand and returns to her station between my legs.
After she slides the wand into place, she clicks around on the screen. It’s not painful as I expected it would be; it’s just uncomfortable – a feeling that I know is multiplied by the uncertainty that looms heavily around us.
Through the black and white fuzziness of the screen, an image starts to take shape. It looks like a tiny little gummy bear, but as the doctor zooms in, it becomes more focused, more precise.
I look up at Reid through tear filled eyes. “That’s our baby.” My words are barely a whisper as the tears spill over and pour down my cheeks. He moves closer to me and kisses the side of my head. He whispers into my ear, “I love you.”
I vaguely feel the doctor moving the wand around, but when she stops abruptly, I can’t help but feel the panic set in. I brace myself for bad news, but what I hear instead, is, quite frankly, the most beautiful sound I have ever heard in my life.
Choking on the sobs that threaten, I ask, “Is that…is that the heartbeat?”
She rubs her hand reassuringly on my calf and a bright smile graces her young face. “Yes, that is your baby’s heartbeat.” She turns up the volume slightly and Reid and I gaze at each other in pure joy and wonderment as the rhythmic thudding of our baby’s heart fills the room.
Clicking on a few more buttons, she prints out a picture for us and hands it to Reid. “Here you go, Daddy.” He looks at it in amazement before sliding it into his pocket.
As I sit up, I ask her, “So everything is okay then, right?” I know she can hear the uncertainty and concern in my wobbling voice. It’s just too hard to believe that we might just be in the clear.
She pulls out my chart and writes down a few notes before saying, “It seems that way. Plenty of women experience some bleeding in early pregnancy. There’s no way of telling what the cause was, but when was the last time you had intercourse?”
I can’t help but blush a furious shade of red. I shouldn’t be embarrassed to admit that I had sex just last night, but this is all still so new to me. “It was just last night. I didn’t realize we shouldn’t.” I look up at Reid and feel slightly comforted knowing that he’s just about the same shade of red that I am. This is definitely uncomfortable territory for him as well.
She finishes writing down her notes and says, “I would say that was most likely the cause. The baby looks good and is measuring nine weeks which corresponds to your last period.” She rifles through the pocket of her lab coat and hands me a business card. “Call me this week in the office and schedule an appointment for the end of the week and I’ll do another check to make sure that everything is okay. For today, stay on bedrest – no stairs, lie down as much as possible and stay hydrated. In the meantime, refrain from intercourse. If everything looks okay at the end of the week, then I’ll clear you for sexual activity.” She makes eye contact with both me and Reid to make sure we understand her.
The doctor shakes our hands on the way out and tells us to call her if the bleeding returns.
As the door clicks behind her, I lose it. Sobs wrack my body at the fear of losing this baby that I already love so much, and at the relief of knowing that things might be okay.
Reid wraps his strong arms around me and coos into my ear. “Shh, sweetheart. You’re okay and the baby is safe.” He whispers “shh’s” into my hair and caresses my back in a vain attempt to calm me down.
He pulls back from me and holds me at arm’s length. His eyes meet mine – deep blue stare into emerald green and it calms mesomewhat.
