Page 62 of Once Upon A Small Town Secret
“And right there…” She stills in place. “Little fetal pole.” A tiny crescent appears at the edge of the ring, a sliver so small I can see it.
My hand finds Ben’s and squeezes it.
He slips his fingers between mine.
“Let’s measure.” On the screen, numbers pop up in the corner, completely meaningless to me, yet suddenly more important than any number in my life. “Crown–rump length is measuring about six weeks and two days by ultrasound, which is right on target with your dates. Let’s see if we can catch some activity.”
Her tone doesn’t change, but the room does. My vision narrows on the screen as the image shifts again.
“There,” Dr. Montez says gently. “There we go.”
A sound leaves my throat that I don’t recognize. Ben’s hand is gripping mine fully now as he leans in to see.
“I’m going to measure it,” Dr. Montez says while she does some stuff I don’t understand. “About a hundred and fifteen beats perminute.” She glances up and smiles at the screen. “Hi there, tiny person.”
My eyes burn. I blink, and tears spill anyway. I lean my head against Ben’s arm. We don’t look at each other, our eyes fixed to the screen.
“There it is,” Dr. Montez continues, pointing at the little blob on the screen. “No signs of anything where it shouldn’t be. No obvious bleeding. Everything looks where I want it for six-ish weeks. I’ll print you a couple of pictures.”
I let out the shaky breath I’ve been holding. My legs tremble.
“Okay?” Ben asks so quietly I almost don’t hear it.
“Yeah. I’m okay,” I whisper back.
Dr. Montez snaps a few images with deft clicks, then eases the probe back. She hands me a little wipe pack and pulls the curtain again. “You can get dressed. Take your time. I’ll step out and print these, and then we’ll talk next steps.”
“Thank you,” I say, the words croaking out of my dry throat.
She smiles. “You’re welcome. Be right back.”
The door shuts gently behind her. The lights brighten. I sit up and stare at my knees. The plastic crinkles, the kind of sound that’s going to be linked to this memory for me forever now, whether I want it to be or not.
Ben lets go of my hand only when I move to get dressed. He steps back to the chair and faces the poster about fetal development like it’s suddenly the most fascinating thing in the world.
I clean myself up with the wipe, slide my underwear back on, then jeans, fingers fumbling only once. My hands shake again when I tug the T-shirt over my head. When I’m decent, I sink back onto the table and let my feet find the footrest. The paper sighs.
He clears his throat. “Was that… good? That was good, right?” He looks at me then, searching my face like the answer is written there.
“It was good,” I say, and this time the words aren’t grainy. “It was… everything it was supposed to be.” My voice breaks at the end. I press my fingers to my mouth and close my eyes.
A second later, his palm is on my back, between my shoulder blades, warm and comforting. I take one long breath and then another.
The door opens with another soft knock, and Dr. Montez returns with a strip of glossy printouts. She hands them to me with a small flourish like she’s presenting a magic trick. “There you are,” she says. “One gestational sac, one yolk sac, one fetal pole, one nice little heartbeat. Congrats.”
The grainy images feel delicate in my hands. The tiny ring. The smaller crescent. A text arrow someone added that says “Baby” as if without it I wouldn’t know.
Because I wouldn’t.
“Due date?” I ask, because I need something concrete to put on the calendar in my head.
“Based on your last menstrual period, you’re looking at…” She swivels the monitor so I can see and calculates a date in mid-Spring. “That can shift a few days this early, but it gives us a working date.”
Then she continues as if our lives didn’t just change in an instant. “Okay. We’ll get the labs today. Let’s talk symptoms and safety. You mentioned nausea and fatigue. I recommend vitamin B6—twenty-five milligrams up to three times a day—and doxylamine at night if you need it to help you sleep. It’s the active ingredient in Unisom, but get the tablets, not the gels. Half a tablet at bedtime helps a lot of people. Ginger, as you’ve discovered, can help. Simple carbs in the morning before you even sit up. Keep crackers or pretzels on your nightstand. Small, frequent meals. Don’t let your stomach get empty. Plenty of fluids.”
I nod. Some of this I’ve read at 2:00 in the morning in a rabbit hole I couldn’t stop myself from falling down. Hearing it from a calm voice in a lab coat makes it more rational.
“What do you do for work?” she asks.
