Rae lay on her back on the medical table in the dark hospital room, barely breathing so that the rise and fall of her stomach wouldn’t mess up the ultrasound scan. The computer’s fan whirred softly, and the technician hummed to herself as she slid the transducer through the cold goo on Rae’s abdomen with one hand and typed with the other.
The technician, a woman with large, dark eyes who had introduced herself as Madra, stared at the computer monitor. The glow lit Madra’s face, gliding over her dark skin. “I’m not supposed to say anything because the radiologist interprets the scans, but I see a heartbeat.”
“That’s good?” Rae asked, just to make sure that seeing it wasn’t somehow the bad part.
“That’s very good.” Madra went back to tapping keys on the keyboard.
Rae looked over at Wulf, sitting beside the table and holding her left hand, and his fingers tightened slightly around hers. In the dim light of the monitor glow in the dark room, his dark blue eyes had turned almost black, and pale blue highlights glinted in his blond hair.
“Want to hear it?” Magda asked.
“Um, yes?” Rae said.
The radiologist moused over something on her computer and clicked, and a rapid oscillation filled the air, like listening to the vibrating heartbeat of a mouse pulse in the room.
Wulf’s lips parted, and he blinked at the sound. He looked up, gazing around himself at the quick whoosh filling the air.
Just those slight movements were, for Wulf, an enormous reaction. She squeezed his fingers, listening to their baby’s heartbeat all around them while she prayed that it wasn’t for the last time.
The radiologist tapped something, and the sound fled. She checked her phone. “Okay, I’m done. Here comes the doctor.”
The door opened, and tall, willowy woman walked in, swishing her white doctor’s coat. “Hello, I’m Dr. Chen,” she said.
Madra looked up. “Nii-how.”
Dr. Chen blinked, and her mouth shifted to the side. “Nii-how, Madra.” She glanced at Rae. “Madra is teaching me Mandarin. Now, I assume that you heard that we have a heartbeat.”
Rae nodded.
“Let’s see what else we have here.” Madra vacated the seat, and Dr. Chen sat and took over scanning Rae’s stomach. The small transducer smeared the cool gel around her skin. “Yep, it’s low.”
Madra nodded. “I tagged that in some of the scans.”
“You’re right. Good catch.” She turned to Rae, still buzzing her tummy with the ultrasound probe. “This is why I came in. Madra found that the pregnancy is very low in the uterus. The placenta is partially covering the cervix.”
Beside her, Wulf shifted in his chair, and his grip on her hand tightened.
Rae resisted the urge to wrap her arms over her stomach. “And that means?”
The doctor lifted the transducer off Rae’s stomach, wiped it off, then used a fresh wipe to scrape the watery gel off Rae’s abdomen. “Placenta previa is a very serious condition. It can be caused by a lot of things or nothing, just the random chance on where the embryo implants when you first get pregnant. Sometimes, it just happens. I want to stress this part, this can be serious. If we can get you to term or close, there’s no danger to the baby. However, you could have complications. This is highly associated with very dangerous hemorrhage.” Dr. Chen glanced at a different box on the computer. “We got the bleeding stopped now, right?”
Rae nodded vigorously, almost jiggling her brain around in her head, and dragged her pajama pants up to her waist.
Dr. Chen stared hard at her, emphasizing what she said. “If you start bleeding again, any at all, get in here right away. I can’t stress this enough. It can be very dangerous to your life and health. You could bleed out and die very quickly. Got it?”
Rae nodded and glanced over at Wulf. Again, his cool expression looked like he was serious, but he seemed to be listening to the information, and that was all.
His hands told a different story. He had wrapped both his hands around hers, completely encasing her fingers in his large, strong hands, shielding her hand because that was all he could do right then.
Wulf asked, “Is this a situation where we need to make a decision?”
“Is that something you’ve considered anyway?” Dr. Chen asked.
“No,” Rae and Wulf both said, her soprano and his bass voice in unison. Wulf continued, “But if the pregnancy is endangering her—”
“Then not yet,” Dr. Chen said. “At this point, watchful waiting is enough.”
Wulf nodded, slowly, and somehow, he didn’t even blink.
Rae asked the doctor, “So what do we do about it?”
“Sorry about this,” she said, grimacing, “but it’s bed rest. Complete bed rest. Mostly on your left side as you get bigger. And you’ll need a C-section at the end. Delivery is too risky, far too risky.”
Oh, crap. “What about college?”
The doctor looked guilty and shrugged. “I’m sorry. You need to lay down and stay there, all the time. When I did three months of bed rest with my first one while I was in medical school, I did an independent study project toward a master’s. You can try to do something like that. Now the possible good news.”
“Yeah?” Rae was really ready for some good news.
“I’ve seen a lot of cases of this. Some of them are seriously lying right on the cervix.” She slapped her hands together like a thunderclap. “Yours isn’t too bad. The implantation is farther up the uterine wall than some that I’ve seen. Maybe, possibly, this could rectify itself.”
Rae blew air out in relief. “Tell me how to do that.”
“It’s not something you can do. As the uterus enlarges, it swells up like a hot air balloon inflating off the ground. It is possible that the placenta could lift off the cervix. If that happens, we can reduce or eliminate the bed rest, but be prepared. It’s going to be at least a month of this, and it could be the entire pregnancy.”
“Yeah?” Rae looked back and forth between Wulf and the doctor.
“Yes, in addition to the bed rest, it’s all the usual precautions,” the doctor said, standing up and adjusting her lab coat. “No tub baths. No exertion. No exercise. No sexual intercourse.”
Rae asked, “I beg your pardon?”
One of Wulf’s blond eyebrows pressed downward.
Dr. Chen continued, “Nothing that will disturb your cervix in any way. Seriously. You could die. And no car trips over half an hour.”
“But we’re leaving to go to Switzerland tomorrow!” To get married, but Rae didn’t tell the doctor that.
Rae’s sister-in-law, Flicka, had been planning Rae’s religious wedding for months, ever since Flicka had gotten back from her own honeymoon. The decorations were already going up at a hotel ballroom in Montreux for the reception. Rae’s dress, which was much more tailored than she had ever dreamed that she would like, had been fitted three times and was already in Switzerland with Flicka. Private jets were being fueled the world over. Swiss florists were importing planeloads of flowers to decorate the church and the reception.
Dr. Chen shook her head. “Sorry. You’re not going anywhere. Definitely no plane flights.”
Oh, no. Despair filled Rae’s chest and closed her throat. She swallowed hard around it.
After the doctor and tech left, Rae turned to Wulf. “I am so sorry.”
His hands firmed around hers. “I can’t imagine what for.”
“For everything. For not being able to do this right. For messing up the wedding. Because now we can’t even you-know. For everything.”
“This isn’t your fault,” he insisted.
“How am I going to tell Flicka?” Rae wondered, horrified at the thought. Tears started to leak out her eyes.
Wulf closed his eyes and whispered, “I’ll tell Flicka. I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it. I can’t lose you. I have to keep you safe and I don’t know how.”
Rae tugged her hands out of his and slid her hands up his arms. “You won’t lose me.”
He leaned over her, holding her gently. “I think we should try again in a few months or years.”
The image of the baby with crystalline blue eyes and a blond, fuzzy head rose in her mind.
“No,” Rae said, and she slid one arm over her stomach. “No. I want this baby so much.”
He sighed, his breath hot against her shoulder. “I want some other doctors to see you.” He backed up, and his deep blue eyes hardened. “I’ll make sure they examine your scans tomorrow. I want to know exactly what the risk is before we make any final decisions. And we may make decisions. Several decisions.”
“I want this baby,” Rae repeated.
“There are other decisions to be made,” Wulf said, and his voice dropped to a commanding tone, “like where the very best doctors are, like what the most state-of-the-art treatments are, like how I can best keep you safe.”