He laughed when I stuck my tongue out at him. My doctor, Dr. Frog, came in moments later. Her smile was wide and she showed all of her teeth. “Pril, congratulations! You are pregnant.” She glanced over to Tafari. “Is this the lucky daddy-to-be?”
I nodded. “Yes, this is. This is Tafari Seasons.”
He smiled, stood, then extended his hand to her. “How are you doing, Doc? It’s nice to meet you.”
My insides shivered. I loved when my man semi code-switched. He still had the Geechie accent, but he cleaned it up a bit. He only did it in professional settings.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Seasons. I’m glad that you could come today.” She shook his hand.
She took a seat on the doctor’s stool. “Let’s talk about this pregnancy, Pril. Now, we’ve been here a few times before.”
“Am I going to lose my baby?” The question came out like word vomit. It was the question that had been consuming my mind for days. The fear had found a plot of land, built a house, decorated it, and moved into it on the front lobe of my brain.
Dr. Frog looked at me with a softened smile. “You know I don’t know that either way right now. But what I do know is that there is a possibility that you have a healthy pregnancy. There are many women with endometriosis that have gone on to have babies. Like I’ve always done in your earlier pregnancies, we’re going to watch you closely.”
Tafari cleared his throat before he stood, then came over to stand next to me. “What does that mean? When you say that we’re going to watch her closely. What will that entail?”
“Mr. Seasons, I’m so happy that you asked. What that means is check-ups more often. I’m going to want to do more ultrasounds to check how the pregnancy is going. As Pril already knows, she is considered high risk. Saying that does not mean that something will go wrong, but we want to keep an eye on her and the baby.”
“Is there anything that she shouldn’t be doing? Like should she be in the bed or something?” Tafari asked. He side-eyed me as his way to silently warn me that he would keep me in bed if he had to.
Dr. Frog chuckled. “No, she doesn’t need to stay in bed, but she does need to take it easy. She can work as normal, but I need her to rest. I want you to cut the number of appointments you take by three a day for now. Can you do that?”
My doctor knew how hard I worked as a nail technician because she was one of my clients. I generally took appointments as early as eight in the morning and as late as nine at night. Before I could respond, my loving man responded for me. “Yeah, she can do that. She will do that.”
Dr. Frog loved to hear that. Her cheesy ass smile said as much. “Now that we have that squared away, let me do a little check. I do want to do a vaginal ultrasound just to see how far along you are if that’s alright.”
I let her know that it was fine. While she did her check, she went over what could occur during my first trimester. She mentioned that spotting or cramping could happen. I knew all of this, so she more so went over it for Tafari’s benefit. He listened intently and asked questions. When he asked about sex, she told him that it was fine as long as I was comfortable.
We were able to hear our baby’s heartbeat during the ultrasound. So many emotions ran through me when I heard it. Fear, excitement, anxiety, joy, and hope were all tossed in theair. I wasn’t sure which one would hit the ground and settle there. I prayed it was joy.
Some TimeLater
Let’s Tell The World . . .
Twenty-two weeks!I made it to twenty-two weeks in my pregnancy. Although grateful, it didn’t come without some concerns. The first concern that was checked heavily was where my bean decided to implant. With the scarring in my uterus, my bean implanted lower than normal. It was what they called low-lying placentas. There were levels to the low-lying placenta and mine was marginal.
The risk of low-lying placenta was that it could cover your cervix which was a bad thing. The marginal placement meant that it didn’t cover my cervix, but it was close. Dr. Frog watched me closely. All of these appointments put me on edge.
Usually, pregnant women went to the doctor once a month until around their twenty-eighth week, then it increased. I’ve been to the doctor twice as much because my bean wanted to chill on the low side of the uterus. There were concerns about possible blood flow issues through the umbilical cord that could affect my bean’s growth. Dr. Frog continued to assure me that I was good, but she just wanted to make sure.
My anxiety was more of an issue in my first trimester than my body. Tafari and my mother helped me keep it at bay. I loved them so much.
Now that I was in my second trimester, there was a host of new concerns it seemed. The light spotting and sharp pains that I felt sometimes were my biggest concerns. The pain was tricky because it felt like the same pain that was caused by myendometriosis, but I was pregnant now. How could I really tell the difference?
The pelvis pressure wasn’t all that bad, but I appreciated that my doctor took every concern I had seriously. She never downplayed my concerns or fears which was important to me. Dr. Frog was a woman of color, and she understood how the medical field could be to marginalized women.
Now that we’ve made it to twenty-two weeks, it was time to tell everyone. Hiding my pregnancy was something that I couldn’t do much longer. I honestly thought that my best friends knew I was pregnant, but they didn’t want to say anything until I did. They had been there for all of the losses that I’d been through. They were there to see the firsthand devastation.
My last miscarriage, Derrick was out of town and didn’t think to come back. It wasn’t like he was somewhere that he had to take a flight to get back to me. His ass was in Columbia, South Carolina and he drove there. I had to convince Nicole not to drive up there and fuck his ass up. She didn’t bother him while he was out of town, but she gave him hell when he returned. Let’s just say that he had an experience with car vandalism.
In hindsight, he never said anything about it. He probably thought it was his now wife and didn’t want to bring any attention to it. The car was vandalized at his office, and he just came home with a rental. His excuse was that he had car trouble. I knew that it had been vandalized, so I left it alone.
“Baby, you look gorgeous,” Tafari complimented. His arms wrapped around my waist from behind, and his hands landed on my belly. That was his hands’ favorite place to be.
Today, I wore a dress that accentuated my belly. “You don’t think it’s too tight? I could change.”
He kissed my neck. “There ain’t nothing wrong wit’ what you got on, Pril. My bean got your skin glowin’ and shit. You ready ta let everyone in on our lil secret?”
