“Do what you gotta do.” As she fastens the last tab on his diaper, Angel picks up Hayes and turns to face the nurse. “Where would you like him?”
“On scale please.” She points to the tray like looking scale on the counter behind us. “Let’s get him weighed and measured, then you can put him back on the exam table.”
Still feeling a bit nauseous, I park myself in the chair I was using before and watch Taren and Ace who have now moved on to playing with plastic dinosaurs. I suddenly get very warm and a little dizzy, so I close my eyes and lay my head back to rest against the wall.
“Are you okay?” The nurse asks.
“Oh my god!” Angel exclaims.
I sit up fast, too fast if I’m honest, and look around the room to see what’s wrong. “What?”
“You’re pregnant.”
“No I’m not,” I deny, shaking my head. Again, not a good choice, so I rest myself back in the chair again. “I probably ate something my stomach didn’t agree with. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“Yes, you are.” Looking at me like I’m the crazy one, Angel lifts Hayes from the scale and props him on her hip. “Don’t try and lie to me.”
I fold my arms across my chest and stare her down back. “How do you know?”
“Umm, hello? I just did this.” She playfully bounces the baby in her arm. “You just did this a year and a half ago too. Think about the amount of babies born in the last two years. That damn clubhouse has something in the water. It’s stupidlycontagious. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t get knocked up sooner with how your hubby looks at you.”
“When was your last menstrual cycle?” I forgot the nurse was still in the room for a second.
I try to think the last time I had my period but can’t remember. I pull my phone out of my pocket and open the health tracker app and scroll back on the calendar. I haven’t entered anything since the middle of November. It’s now the beginning of February.
“Well, shit.”
“Why don’t you go give a urine sample and we’ll find out?” The nurse opens an upper cabinet and pulls out a specimen cup. “The bathroom is down the hall to the left. Write your name and date of birth on the label, pee in the cup, screw the lid back on, then put the cup in the silver cabinet in the wall by the sink. We can have an answer for you by this afternoon.”
“That soon?” I question. When I came to the doctor when I realized I was pregnant with Krew, it took the clinic an entire day to call me back.
“If you want to wait here thirty minutes, we can let you know positive or negative before you leave,” she replies with a smile and a nod. “We’ll then call or text with an estimation of how far along you are. Then you can schedule a follow-up appointment with your OBGYN to bring you in for an exam and maybe even an ultrasound to get a due date calculated.”
“Go pee in the cup.” Angel grabs it from the nurse and forces it into my hand as I stand. “The pediatrician still has to come in and see Hayes, so we’ll be here for a bit yet. That’ll give them plenty of time to run the test.”
One foot out the door, I spin back around. “Should I call Whiskey first?”
“Nah,” she waves me off. “You can surprise him with the results if it’s positive. His birthday is coming up.”
I’m hit with a wave of déjà vu as I step into the bathroom and lock the door behind me. It was just about this time two years ago that I was in this very building, doing this exact same thing, so why do I feel like I have no clue what I am doing?
Fumbling with the cup, I almost drop it in the toilet because my hands are shaking so hard. I manage not to and finally get it set down on the counter. After I pull my pants up, I screw the lid on, wash my hands, and slide the cup into the box in the wall.
After washing my hands a second time, because my scrambled brain cells weren’t working enough to tell me not to wash them before touching the cup again, I look at myself in the mirror. Do I look or feel any different?
Now that I think about it, my boobs are a bit tender. And I know I haven’t lost all the baby weight from having Krew, but my pants have been fitting a little more snug lately. I also have been hungrier than usual. How could I not have noticed the signs?
I’ve been hoping for this for a year already. Krew was an unexpectedly fast blessing. Whiskey and I had only been together for almost three months when I got pregnant with him. This time it has been a year and a half with no over obvious signs, until now, so I started to wonder if something was wrong.
Once Krew turned six months old, and we decided to really start trying for a second baby, I took a pregnancy test every month like clockwork. It became almost like an obsession and I had to force myself to stop. All the negative results were starting to feel like torture and I cried for days as month after month passed me by. I could feel my heart breaking a little more and more each time the words ‘Not Pregnant’ showed on the tiny screen. After the last test six months ago showed the same result, I refused to buy any more.
I can’t help but smile back at my reflection as I rub a small circle over my belly. If there really is a baby growing in there, I am going to be over the moon with happiness. I really hope thistest comes back positive. Angel was right. This would be a really great addition to the birthday gift I already have for Whiskey. Now the question is, how am I going to keep this to myself until I know the results?
Knowing that standing here isn’t going to make anything happen any faster, and that I’m supposed to be here to help my sister with her crazy monkeys, I hurry back.
Just as I step out of the bathroom, and make my way down the hall, the doctor comes around the corner from the other direction. He is a different pediatrician than I have for Krew, but I have seen him here before in passing.
“I hear we may be having another baby on the way,” he says with a smile as we walk in the exam room. “You see Doctor Stanley, right?”
