I text back that I’m at the doctor’s office. He wants the address and says he’ll pick me up here, so I text it to him just as the nurse calls my name. I get up and follow her into the little room. This is a follow-up visit. I’m here to pick up birth control. I should have gotten on this months ago, but work got crazy busy and Jude was moving. I needed to help with that, and then he was on the road a lot, and I got the flu at one point, so it just never happened. We were fairly careful and using condoms…mostly, but we’re both ready to not have to be careful.
Dr. Kane walks in and smiles at me. “Hi, Zoey. How are you feeling today?”
“Great.” I smile. Dr. Kane has been my doctor since I moved to San Francisco. She’s the one who broke the news about my angry uterus. “Just here to grab that prescription.”
“For the birth control.” She nods and sits down on the little stool, my file open in her hands, and wheels over so she’s right in front of me. “As you know, since you admitted you’d been a little less than careful with your boyfriend and you’ve had some breast tenderness and irregular periods, I wanted to do some tests before I gave you the prescription.”
“Irregular periods are nothing new,” I remind her, because it’s been that way my whole life. And, although I’m not going to admit it to her, I think the tenderness in my boobs is probably from so much sex with Jude. The sisters are never left out of the action…and there’s a lot of action.
“Yes, well…do you still want children?” she asks quietly.
The question throws me off, but it shouldn’t, because she knows I was trying with my ex-husband. “Yes. Jude would make a fantastic father, but we’re not in any rush. And he knows I might not be able to.”
“You’re able to,” she replies, and at first I think it’s a pep talk. She tried really hard to make it clear when she first told me about my issues that it wasn’t infertility. That I could still conceive normally, but it would probably just take longer than usual. But there’s something in her eyes that makes my heart feel like it’s been electrocuted. “Zoey, you’re pregnant.”
“I’m what?”
“You’re pregnant,” she repeats as clearly as the last time. “I’m not sure how far along, but if you hop up on the table we can do an ultrasound and figure this out.”
I don’t speak. I don’t move. I don’t even breathe until my lungs start to scream and then I gulp in a breath. Dr. Kane leans forward and takes my hand. “I know this is unexpected. I assume you and your new boyfriend aren’t trying?”
“No.” I can’t get my heart to stop thumping or my eyes to stop watering. I’m scared but not upset. I mean…a baby? Jude’s baby? “What about my angry uterus?”
She laughs because that’s not a medical term, and I sound like a moron. “It was happy that day, I guess. Now if you’re okay with it, why don’t you hop up and we’ll do the ultrasound.”
I nod because I don’t know what else to do, but my whole body is numb.
Twenty minutes later I am in the elevator heading down to the lobby. I would have been done ten minutes earlier, but I turned into a blubbering mess, and the doctor wanted to counsel me while I used up all her tissues. She actually asked me if I wanted to keep it. That’s not the issue here, and I made that clear. It’s too soon, it’s crazy and it’s in no way planned, but I want this baby. Jude’s baby.
I think he’ll want it too. But I’m still scared to tell him.
The elevator doors open, and I step into the lobby and he’s all I see. He’s sitting by the entrance, looking down at his phone. I didn’t expect him to be here yet and definitely not out of his car. I can’t tell him here in a public lobby of a medical building. I was hoping I’d at least get to do it in the privacy of his car. If I were a stronger woman, I would wait till we got home tonight, but…I am not that strong.
He glances up, sees me and gets to his feet. He’s grinning his typical Jude grin, and I wonder suddenly if the baby will have his smile, and then I laugh. But I’m crying. He is a foot away and sees the clusterfuck of emotions on my face with the tears and the giggling and he immediately looks terrified. “Oh my God, what’s wrong?”
He pulls me to the leather bench he was just sitting on and gently eases me down to sit on it. “Is it your parents? Is it Morgan? Did something happen?”
I shake my head. “The doctor told me…”
Every ounce of color drops from his face. His left hand is cupping the side of my face and I can feel the warmth drain from it. “Are you…sick?”
Oh God. I’m such an asshole. With what he’s gone through with his dad, I shouldn’t scare him. “No. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I just…we should have been more careful. I didn’t think my uterus would like you.”
He looks completely baffled. I pull the picture the doctor gave me out of my pocket, but before he even looks at it, his face goes white again. “Are you saying… Did I… Are you…?”
I hand him the image. He takes it with a shaking hand. I know he’s not seeing anything but swirls and blobs. That’s all I see when I look at it, but Dr. Kane swears one of those blobs is a baby. A healthy seven-, possibly eight-week-old baby. My voice is a squeak when it comes out. “Adam and I tried for a year and nothing, but somehow you and I take a few chances and…”
I drop my hand with the picture onto my lap, and he grabs my face in his hands, using his thumbs to brush the tears off my cheeks. “I love you.”
I nod. “I love you too. I just…I just don’t want you to feel trapped.”
He hugs me fiercely, then pulls back and looks me in the eye. “Trapped? Are you kidding me? Baby or no baby, I don’t want to go anywhere. You’re stuck with me, Zoey. I’ll be honest, I’m a little terrified, but I’m definitely more happy than scared. Shocked but happy.”
I hug him again as a small wave of calm emerges in the sea of panic inside me. He pulls me to my feet and holds my face again. “This is unplanned and crazy, but it’s us, Zoey. We’ll be fine.”
“You can still get your own place,” I whisper. “I mean, you’re welcome in my place if you want to stay, but you don’t have to.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been giving my Realtor a hard time about everything she shows me,” he replies as we start toward the exit, his arm wrapped snugly around my shoulders. “I’ve never had any intention of getting my own place.”
