Page 124 of Tell Me What You Want, Or Leave Me

When a girl says my name, I get up and follow her to the office. The doctor is a woman a little older than me. She smiles and invites me to sit down. After filling out the forms, I open my bag and drop the four pregnancy tests and their corresponding positive lines on the table.

She looks at me and chuckles. What’s so funny?

“Could you tell me the date of your last menses?”

“I haven’t gotten it this month. But I remembered I just stained last month. But...but...I just started taking the pill again a week ago...and...maybe that wasn’t such a great idea...but I...”

The doctor sees how nervous I am.

“You’ll be OK,” she says.

I nod.

“Try to remember the date of that period when you only stained.”

“I think it was September twenty-second.”

She grabs a colored spinning wheel.

“Your due date would be June twenty-ninth.”

Oh God...this is real!

I answer all her questions as best I can. Then she asks me to lie on a table to get an ultrasound. After lowering my pants, she puts gel on my belly and spreads it around.

I pray to all the saints that there’s nothing inside me. But suddenly the doctor stops moving the ultrasound wand. “Here’s the heartbeat, Judith, and, because of the size, I’d say you’re almost two months along.”

I direct my eyes to the screen and see something. Because of its irregular shape and movement, it reminds me of a jellyfish, a medusa.

I think I’m going to have a heart attack!

I can’t speak...

I can’t blink...God, I’m drained!

I can only look at that moving blob that seems to say “Danger!”

Since I’m not speaking, the doctor stops moving the wand, and, after pressing a few buttons, we get a piece of paper. When she hands it to me, I see it’s a photo. I get excited in a way I never thought possible. I assume that jellyfish shape is a baby, and apparently, like it or not, I’m pregnant!

Before leaving, she makes an appointment for me for a month from now and gives me some pamphlets. I must take folic acid, among other things, and there are some tests I need to do next time.

22

Two days go by, and I still haven’t heard a word from Eric.

I’m broken...

I whimper and whine and think about how happy Eric would feel if he knew.

I don’t tell anyone else. I swallow the problem and try to draw strength from God knows where so I can deal with the painful and disconcerting emotions I’m going through. Of course, my neck is raw.

I take folic acid each morning, and I get scared the first day when I go to the bathroom and see something black, very black, coming out of me. But then I remember this is a possible side effect. For God’s sake—disgusting!

I don’t go out. I spend the day on the couch or in my bed, dozing like a bear, and when Simona comes in and tells me Björn’s on the phone, I almost vomit.

She attributes my discomfort to what’s happening with Eric and doesn’t ask. Good thing, because I don’t want to lie to her.

“Easy, everything will be OK,” she says when she hands me the phone.

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