My eyes absorbed the dingy, gunmetal gray walls. The ceiling looked like Styrofoam, like that stuff they use in elementary school classrooms. I stared until my eyes crossed and my vision grew blurry, trying to ignore the fact that my legs were spread apart, and my feet were in stirrups.
“You’ll feel a slight bit of pressure, and this might be cold,” Rachel warned, inserting the ultrasound camera. I pinched my eyes shut, feeling violated even though this sort of thing was supposed to be standard.
“Okay, I can see the baby now. Let me snap some pictures, and I’ll be able to tell you if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“I d-don’t w-want to know this time.” As a child, I’d developed a horrible stutter. But in my teens, I had been lucky enough to work with a speech therapist at my local high school. The embarrassing stutter was all but gone by the time I met Martin. Then, it had started up again.
Rachel, a local midwife, was crouched on a stool between my legs. The camera probe didn’t hurt, but it reminded me of Matthew, my little boy.
I’d spent the first twenty weeks of my pregnancy counting down the days until I could find out the baby’s sex. And when I learned it was a boy, I was ecstatic.
I loved the baby in my belly right from the start. They say you can’t feel the baby move until you’re at least sixteen weeks along in your pregnancy, but I swear I started feeling Matthew kick around week ten. He was an energetic baby, always flipping, waking me up at night. He gave me indigestion. It was weird, but we had this connection only shared by us…Martin couldn’t touch it or take it away, even if he tried.
Then Matthew died when I was twenty-two weeks along, less than a week after learning his sex. And lying here now, in this awful, stuffy room, I felt like I was betraying Matthew, as well as Martin.
“It’s a girl, Nova. A girl!” Rachel squealed. She pointed at the ultrasound machine next to her bed. We were in her cramped apartment, which should have felt less clinical and safe…but it didn’t.
For the next few minutes, she pointed out the baby’s head, heart, and hands. But I didn’t hear her, not really. All I could think about was Matthew, my sweet little Matthew. Why couldn’t it be him in my belly?
Now I couldn’t even pretend it was him, reincarnated, because the baby was a girl. I hadn’t even realized I’d wanted this baby to be the new-Matthew in my belly until Rachel gave me this news…
Martin will be thrilled to find out it’s a girl.
My stomach churned, not from the baby but from the realization that she would have it so much harder in life because of her sex.
Martin would have mistreated his son. But a girl?
He’s really going to fuck her up…
For the first time since finding out I was pregnant again, I placed a hand on my stomach and really considered the future with this new baby.
Will this one last, or will I lose it again? And if she does make it out of the womb, will she be better off even though her father is a monster?
“Please d-don’t tell anyone I was here,” I said, using a towel to wipe up some of the watery gel between my thighs from the probe.
Rachel pushed the machine back and leaned on the edge of the bed. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she said, softly, “Does he really believe the last ultrasound caused the miscarriage? I could talk to him, explain…”
“N-no. Please, Rachel. He knows I came to see you to get measured, b-but I promised no ultrasound.”
“I understand.” She smiled, encouragingly. “Congratulations on your little girl. I’m excited to deliver this baby.”
I smiled and nodded, but I couldn’t look her in the eye. If this baby made it to term, she wouldn’t be delivering it. My little girl would have to come into this world all on her own, with only me as her guide.