We stop for Kyle to look at a hospital directory and I'm slightly mollified that he doesn't seem to know the route to his cousin’s office. Reassured that he's not found himself in this position before, with a random woman he's knocked up.
We walk in silence, not touching, much in the way you'd imagine two people who don't know each other all that well might walk beside one another. Kyle's dressed for work in a suit and tie. I'm dressed for a day of blogging in a pair of leggings and a T-shirt that says “I’m here for the drummer.”
I like the tie.
I like him.
I think.
Dammit.
This is all so confusing. My life has been turned upside down since the moment I met him and I don't know up from down anymore. Also, I'm moody as fuck, which isn't helping anything.
We find the office Kyle's looking for in what appears to be a medical office wing of the hospital. I'm not paying all that much attention because I figure this is more his thing than mine. Once inside Kyle steps up to the receptionist while I take a seat. It's just past nine in the morning and there are already two other women in the waiting room. One is visibly pregnant and alone, sneaking quick glances at Kyle as he sits beside me, and I imagine what she's thinking. That I'm lucky. Lucky that my husband/boyfriend/partner cares enough to accompany me to my appointment.
If she only knew.
Don't be jealous of me, I want to tell her. I'm here with my one-night-stand baby daddy who wants to put a ring on it like it's 1965.
Nothing to be envious of here. Move along.
The door beside the receptionist opens and a tall hot guy in a white lab coat is calling out to Kyle with a huge grin. Oh, fuck my life, that's Kyle's cousin? When he said his cousin was a gynecologist I was picturing an old pudgy dude in his fifties or sixties. Kyle's doctor cousin is hot. Worse, he's forties hot. You know the type? Still super fit with all their hair, but über-confident in their skin and like they know a thing or twenty?
I trail behind Kyle, the door to reception closing behind us as the two men do a bro hug before they simultaneously turn to me.
"Doctor Miller, but you can call me Luke," his cousin tells me, extending a hand with another big smile for me. He doesn't seem put out by this little impromptu visit in the least, which puts me at ease. It only occurred to me as we walked in that I might be viewed as the slutty enemy here. Which is unfair, of course. But life is often unfair for women.
"Daisy," I tell him, relieved at his ease of manner.
Then we're in an exam room and Luke is prepping me for a blood draw. I guess he's doing it himself as opposed to handing us off to an underling. Family perks, I suppose. He's quick and has an excellent bedside manner about him. Kyle is chatting away with him about his wife and kids and it sounds like they're close, which surprises me, but I'm not sure why. I've already pieced together how close Kyle is with his sister, but I guess I can't shake wanting to write him off as some kind of an asshole playboy.
"Okay, and from you all I need is a cheek swab," he tells Kyle, holding up what is essentially a Q-tip on the end of a long stick.
"You have got to be kidding me," I blurt out. They both turn to look at me, seemingly confused by my outburst. "I have to get poked with a needle but all he's got to do is get a cheek swab? How nice for him." I scowl while Luke swabs Kyle before thinking of something else. "Hey, does your lab test for STDs?"
"We can. Sure," Luke answers easily. Again, like this is all no big deal. No judgment.
"Good." I smile. "Test Kyle for everything."
Kyle just huffs and rolls his eyes at me like I'm being ridiculous, but hey, I'm not the one who showed up with a beat-down old condom. Also we didn't use anything at all the other night, so as long as we're running tests to prove things, I don't think I'm being unreasonable.
As a side bonus, it's a huge turn-on when a man folds up his shirt sleeve, right? Kyle's shrugged out of his suit jacket and is folding his up and... damn these hormones to hell.
"Do you want to see the baby?" Luke is done with Kyle, Kyle already rolling his sleeve back down and slipping his jacket back on. I wasn't expecting this, it was a bit too early for a standard ultrasound when I saw my own doctor so we opted not to do it.
"Um, just the regular kind of ultrasound, right?" I question. "I'm far enough along for that?"
"Yeah. You won't even have to get undressed. Just slide your shirt up enough to expose your abdomen. If you want?"
Yes, I want! The idea of seeing it—the baby—in all its grainy glory suddenly has my heart beating very fast. I nod my head in agreement, a quick glance to Kyle and then back to Luke. "Yes," we both say at same time.
"What's the other kind of ultrasound?" Kyle asks when Luke's left the room to grab what he needs. I'm on the table with the horrible crinkly paper beneath me, a blanket spread over my lap.
"Um…" God, why is pregnancy so embarrassing? I'm barely even pregnant, which means there's bound to be months of embarrassing things ahead. Or maybe it wouldn't be embarrassing if I knew Kyle better, but the situation is what it is. "The other kind is internal." I make a weird gesture with my hand as I say it, which helps nothing. "Basically they have to stick a wand inside. Like a skinny dildo." Kyle's face is blank, but he blinks a few times, taking that in. I think he handled hearing I was pregnant better than the visual I just gave him. "And your hot cousin is never going to see my vagina. Mmkay?"
"Hard no on that," Kyle agrees with a shake of his head and then our eyes meet and we're both trying not to laugh.
Luke returns with the sonogram machine on a rolling cart and then before I know it he's squirting cold gooey gel on my stomach and we're doing this. I'm not showing yet, my stomach still flat, which just makes this all the more surreal. Unbelievably surreal as Luke flips on the machine and I stare at the goo on my stomach and oh, my God, my heart is racing. I'm having a baby. An actual baby, which no longer feels so abstract. It's no longer just a positive test if I can see it, hear the heartbeat. I'm going to be a mom. In real life. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Forever.
I bite my lip and when Kyle takes my hand, I let him. I'm anxious as hell but I'm sure I'm not meant to be so I squeeze his hand harder than is likely necessary. I'm scared. I'm excited. I'm overwhelmed.
I'm also not used to being such a feely person.
Luke begins by pressing the ultrasound thingy against my stomach. Why is medical equipment so weird? How does this thing even work? I mean really, it's just a plastic thingy attached with a cord. It's probably—
Oh. My. God.
There it is.
There's my baby.
Right there on the screen, floating around in my uterus. The office fills with the sound of the baby's heartbeat. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Like water sloshing around in a bucket. A tiny, tiny bucket. One just big enough to hold a raspberry or a strawberry or whatever-sized berry the baby is this week.
"Oh, my God, I'm pregnant. I'm really pregnant. I knew I was, I knew I was pregnant. But now there's a picture." I glance from Kyle to Dr Luke and back to the monitor. "I'm having a baby and I'm not ready and it still looks like a little blob that could just as easily be a chipmunk instead of a baby but I know it's going to turn into an actual baby that I have to push out of my vagina because it can't stay inside of me forever." I think I'm squeezing Kyle's hand very hard, but it must not be bothering him because he's not objecting, instead rubbing soothing circles onto the back of my hand with his thumb.