Page 52 of The Regrettable Mistake

I reached over and caught a tear that dripped from Steph’s cheek just as there was an abrupt knock on the door. “Come in,” Steph called out.

“Are we ready to check on your little one?”

“So ready,” Steph informed him. The new nurse glanced at me curiously before offering a shy smile, but after that she shifted her focus to the doctor.

“Any cramping or bleeding?” I sat straight up and grabbed hold of Steph’s hand when the doctor asked that question. As my wife shook her head, the doctor offered me a quick smile. “These are standard questions we need to ask, especially since Stephanie had an episode with bleeding before.”

“Okay,” I muttered.

My wife squeezed my hand, as if to reassure me. I didn’t deserve to be reassured of anything. The doctor helped Steph roll her shirt up and tuck it above her stomach, then he pulled out what looked like a seamstress’s measuring tape and started to measure from as low as he could possibly go on her belly without touching her pussy to all the way to the top of where her belly started to swell out.

I was mesmerized as he moved the measuring tape and did the same from side-to-side. Each time he called out numbers to the nurse who plugged the information into her tablet. Then he reached over and grabbed something that looked like a tiny microphone attached to a speaker and moved it around her belly until a racing, pulse of a noise beat out through the speaker. Looks like the little one is sitting at 148 beats per minute,” Dr. Peterson called out. The nurse jotted that down on her tablet as well.

“Wait, is that the baby’s heartbeat?”

“Sure is. Nice and strong, too.”

“Isn’t that high?”

“Not for the little ones. If it was at a human adult level, we’d be worried. Your little one is right on track.”

Dr. Peterson handed the wand thing back to the nurse who tucked it away in a cabinet and then he patted Steph on the leg. “Unless you have any questions, we’ll see you again in four weeks. I’ll probably do another ultrasound at that appointment just to check on things, since you did have a scare earlier on in your pregnancy. From what we saw today, everything seems to be going well.”

The minute the doctor left, I reached over and touched Steph’s belly. Her hands came down on top of mine. “I’m sorry that I’ve denied you this. It wasn’t right.”

I shook my head as I marveled at the beautiful sight. “You have nothing to apologize for, Steph. My own actions caused you to not be comfortable having me around. I understand that. Thank you for allowing this today.”

“Ollie,” she sighed my name and I shifted my attention from her still-exposed belly up to her eyes. “You’re making it very hard to remain aloof.” Her stomach let out an awful growling noise then and we both chuckled as I helped her pull the shirt back down and then assisted as she got down off the table.

“Would you let me take you to lunch?”

“I can’t very well lie and say I’m not hungry.”

“If you don’t want to be seen with me, we can pick something up and go…” Where the fuck could we go? I lived with my parents for the time being and Steph didn’t want me to know where she lived, even though I did.

“How about, for the sake of not having our meal interrupted by random strangers who think they deserve more of our story, we grab something and go back to my house.”

“Perfect,” I announced as she moved behind the screen to get her pants and shoes back on. I wanted to do a fucking celebratory dance that she would allow me to come to her house. It was a huge step forward for us. I was under no delusions, like last time with Julia. I knew that Steph granted me access for our child’s sake. Not mine. Not because she wanted to get back together. It was purely because she wasn’t a selfish person that she asked me to come to her appointment and then her house.

After Steph got her next appointment card, she took a picture of it and then handed it over to me. “I can come again?”

“Yes. I think you should be there for the rest of the appointments.”

“What about when you go into labor?”

“You should also be there to meet your son or daughter when they’re born,” she agreed on a bit of a sigh.

“If you’re not comfortable with that, I don’t have to be there.”

“It’s fine, Ollie.”

“No.” I stopped Steph outside of my car. “I mean it. If you aren’t comfortable, then I don’t have to be there. As much as I want to, it will be a hard day for you, no matter what. I don’t want to add to your stress.”

Steph smiled up at me and I realized it was probably the first smile I’d seen on her face in months. Maybe even since the night she got pregnant, considering it was only days after the last time we slept together that I screwed everything up.

“Thank you for taking my feelings into account, but I want you to be there.”

“You hate me, though.”

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