Page 57 of Finding Fate

“Well, we still have a while to discuss it,” Bridgette said as she checked her phone.

Isabel growled in frustration. Her mother was impossible.

“Alright, Isabel,” the tech broke in at their pause. “Does your bladder feel full?” She nodded. “Good, that’ll just make this go easier. Now, I’ll need you to place your feet in the stirrups.”

“Feet in the stirrups?”She had known they were going to do an ultrasound, but she hadn’t realized that she would be asked to spread her legs. Modesty really was going out the window.

“Uh, should I be in the room for this?” Tucker suddenly felt very awkward and wondered if Annie should have been the one to come back instead of him.

“Of course you should be in here,” Bridgette answered irritably, her voice tinged with bitterness. “Don’t be shy now. It’s not like you haven’t seen my daughter before.”

“Do you want to come stand up here by me, Tuck?” he heard Izzy ask.

He didn’t miss the shakiness of her voice and realized that she was probably just as uncomfortable as him, if not more so.

“Alright,” he answered and got up to approach the table uneasily.

He watched as the tech Miranda put on a pair of gloves. He made sure to stand very close to Izzy’s head. Even if he knew what she looked like, this wasn’t something he wanted to see.

Isabel tensed a little as the tech pressed the gloved fingers of one hand between her legs and the other hand against her lower abdomen. She felt extremely awkward and was aware that Tucker felt the same way. A fact that did not help her relax.

“That wasn’t so bad,”Tucker thought to himself in relief when the tech pulled away. But all relief left him when he saw what was coming next. She had pulled out a long, thin device covered in a protective wrapper and a huge glop of clear gel. “Please don’t tell me she’s going to put that thing in Izzy.”

“Everything looks good so far, Isabel. Now I’m going to use this to help me see what’s going on inside, and hopefully, we’ll be able to see how far along you are.”

Isabel nodded nervously and grabbed Tucker’s arm to brace herself for the cold intrusion. She felt him take her hand and was glad that he was there beside her for this, no matter how embarrassing it was.

The woman’s eyes were on the screen of the large machine for a bit as she moved the long device around slowly. Tucker wondered what she could possibly be looking at for so long.

“You’re doing great,” the tech reassured her. “From what I can see here, I’d say you’re right at eleven weeks. That puts your due date right around March 12th.”

“Eleven weeks?” she asked, puzzled. “Don’t you mean nine? We had sex nine weeks ago. Not eleven.” She was dating Wesley eleven weeks ago, so that couldn’t be right.

Tucker waited for the doctor’s response, sure she was about to say she was wrong. Izzy hadn’t let Wesley touch her. He’d walked in on the proof of that. Thank God.

Their tech laughed a soft chuckle. “No. I mean eleven. We count from the date of your last menstrual cycle, hon, not from the day you think you conceived, and this ultrasound machine uses measurements to help us get a pretty precise date.”

“Can we see the screen?” Bridgette asked, getting up from her seat.

“Sure,” the tech replied, tilting the monitor in their direction. “It’s not much to look at yet, but if you look here,” she said, pointing to the screen, “you can see the sac, and this little thing right here is the fetus.”

Isabel leaned forward a smidge, bracing herself against her elbows to get a better view of the screen. There, in black and white, was a small spot in the middle of what looked like a bubble. “That’s our baby?” she asked incredulously.

“That’s it,” the ultrasound tech replied. “Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”

“We’ll be able to hear that already?” She was still reeling from the fact that she was looking at her little baby spot.

“Of course.” The woman reached up to press a button on the machine. A few seconds later, they heard a loud, fast-paced thrumming.

“It doesn’t sound much like a heartbeat.”Tucker thought when he realized that was what he was hearing. The sound was strange to him, and he felt guilty when he watched Izzy’s eyes well with tears, and Bridgette grab her daughter’s free hand.

Why wasn’t he having the same reaction? It was his baby, too.

When Izzy looked up at him, he stayed focused on the screen, doing his best to look fascinated. He couldn’t let her know he wasn’t feeling the same thing she was. Even after looking at proof that his baby was there, he still didn’t have that attachment that Izzy felt. Maybe he was still in shock about the whole thing, and he’d react differently once it passed?

Isabel crawled down from the exam table slowly when they were done, her little baby spot pictures she’d been given in hand. She was still stunned at what she had just experienced. Her baby was alive inside her. It was amazing. There was no way her mother or anyone could talk her out of keeping this baby.

“Okay, you should be hearing from the lab next for your bloodwork, and then they’ll show you back to the main waiting room.”

---