Page 58 of Mismatched

“I guess,” she murmurs.

“You... you look beautiful,” I say, resisting the urge to tuck a loose tendril of hair behind her ear.

She glances at me, and it’s hard to read her expression, but at that moment there’s a knock on the door, and a woman with red glasses and deep brown skin enters the room.

“Lydia! Nice to see you!” She greets my wife with a warm smile, which Lydia returns, and I’m grateful to see her whole demeanor improve with her doctor in the room.

“Great to meet you,” I say when Lydia introduces me.

“Well, your urine culture sure was positive, but we’ll just do a quick ultrasound and get this all confirmed,” the doctor says, approaching Lydia calmly and efficiently. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, I guess. Mostly tired.” Lydia lies back on the exam table while the doctor looks her over, pulling her gown aside at one point to examine her breasts. There is absolutely nothing sexual about anything she’s doing. But all of this is so foreign to me, I’m afraid I’ll be caught ogling, so I look away.

“All right, let’s get down to business.” Dr. Sharma adjusts the exam table and helps Lydia place her feet in a couple of metal stirrups that pop out of the end. Then she dims the lights and takes a seat on a stool in front of a small white machine. I expect her to pick up the sensor and place it on Lydia’s midsection the way I’ve seen it done in movies, but my eyebrows shoot up as she opens a condom and slides it over a long white wand attached to the machine. “Transvaginal ultrasound,” she says, apparently reading my face. “Best way to see everything in the early stage.”

She squirts a lump of lube onto the tip of the condom, then turns to Lydia.

“There will be a little pressure. Let me know if anything is uncomfortable.”

She reaches under the drape with the device, and I grab Lydia’s hand. She looks at me and squeezes my fingers, and for a second, her eyes seem scared. But then the doctor flips a switch on the machine and our attention is drawn to a loud, rapid squishing sound filling the room.

“There we are,” the doctor says, focused on a dark, bean-shaped image on a screen. She glances at us and smiles. “That’s a nice strong heartbeat.”

My mouth drops open. I refocus on the rapid rhythm, and my molasses brain finally catches up. “That’s a baby?” I look at Lydia, but she doesn’t return my gaze. She’s staring wide-eyed at the screen. “That’s our baby?”

“Congratulations!” The doctor types into the computer with one hand and adjusts the wand, appearing to take a few measurements. “My best guess... you’re around seven or eight weeks.”

“Wait. What?” Lydia tears her eyes from the image, staring at Dr. Sharma. “That can’t be right. I just had my period in early August.”

The doctor chuckles. “Technically, the first two weeks of pregnancy, you’re not even pregnant. Those are the weeks your body gets ready to ovulate, preparing for fertilization. But they go into the total count.” She pivots on her stool, taking a look at her laptop screen. “By the time you missed your period and took your test, you were already six weeks along.”

Lydia clutches my hand, staring at the blob on the screen. “But I...” Her voice trails off.

I close my eyes, transfixed by the sound. The life that has joined us in the room.

“The good news is, your first trimester is already almost over. Once you get to twelve weeks, things tend to get smoother.” Dr. Sharma presses a few buttons on the machine and it spits out two small squares of paper. Then she must withdraw the device from Lydia, because the image on the screen disappears and a hush falls over the room. As soon as it’s gone, all I want is to hear it again.

The doctor cleans Lydia up, throws out the condom, and puts the machine away, handing us each a printout of the sonogram to take home. “Do either of you have questions?” she asks, looking at us pointedly over her glasses.

Lydia doesn’t acknowledge her, just stares at the picture.

“When—” I croak, surprised by the emotion in my voice. “When will it—he—she? Be born?”

She flips the lights back on and references a calendar on the counter. “Let’s shoot for... May sixteenth.”

“Wait,” Lydia says. Maybe it’s the lights coming on, or mention of the due date, but she straightens, looking earnestly at Dr. Sharma. “What changes at twelve weeks that you were talking about?”

“Nothing, really.” The doctor shrugs. “But it’s roughly the end of the first trimester, which is when most women start to have more energy and feel better. Some people like to wait till twelve weeks to announce their pregnancies since there’s a slightly higher chance of miscarriage in the first trimester.”

Lydia’s eyebrows shoot up. “You mean there’s some chance it won’t...”

I squeeze her hand. And the doctor is quick to shake her head. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Some pregnancies do end early, and I could bore you with the statistics, but there’s no reason to expect that. Just let us know if you have any bleeding or discomfort. Otherwise, I’ll see you for your next check in four weeks.”

She reaches for the door, and I glance at Lydia, who’s staring at the ultrasound image in her hand, biting her lip. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Whether she’s excited or scared. Even I keep ricocheting back and forth between the two. I take her hand again and put myself right in front of her so she has to focus on me.

“Hey. Don’t forget. We’re doing this together.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Same way we got here.”

She sucks in a breath when I say this, cheeks coloring, and for just a moment we look at each other, and every touch we shared over the last six weeks flashes between us.

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