Little Pink Plus Sign

It's just that...

Waiting for the doctor was agonizing. My heart throbbed in my chest as tears made rivers down my cheeks. Dimitri kept whispering, "It'll be okay" in my ear, but I wasn't sure if he was trying to convince me or himself. I definitely couldn't bear to look him in the eyes for fear that they'd be full of tears, and I tried my hardest to ignore the sniffling sounds coming from him.

I felt like a failure. Carrying a child was something that anyone could do and here I had already messed it up eight weeks in. How would I tell Lissa? What would I tell my mother who didn't even know about the baby yet? How would Dimitri ever forgive me?

Distantly, I heard a nurse call my name, and I stood up, ignoring the nausea that rolled through me. I wiped my tears and tried to make my feet work. Finally, I just gave up and just let Dimitri drag me to the back. The nurse asked the usual questions, most of which Dimitri answered while I cried, then she led us back to another waiting room to wait for a sonogram.

"I'm going to need you to drink quite a bit of water in the next 30 minutes. Do you think you can do that for me?" she said, patronizingly.

"Yeah," I muttered. I really didn't appreciate her tone, but I took the stupid bottle of water from her anyway. The first of many.

After the third bottle, I'll admit, I had to pee pretty badly, but I kept drinking to spite the nurse and to keep myself busy. I still couldn't bear to meet Dimka's eyes no matter how hard he tried to catch my attention, and trust me, his attempts were getting hard to ignore.

About halfway through my fifth bottle, I felt as though my bladder was about to explode, so tiptoeing up to the nurses station, I told her I was ready. She nodded slightly and said the doctor would be ready in a minute. Only when I found out that "minute" actually meant thirty minutes did I waddle back up to the desk, keeping my legs clamped together and practically yell, "I need to see a doctor NOW."

The nurse nearly fell out of her chair, "Mrs. Belikov, please understand that Dr. Ashland is very bus —"

"Please understand that in about five minutes I'm going to pee on this floor and you will be responsible for cleaning it up. I need to see a doctor now. I need to know what's going on." My mouth shut abruptly as desperation entered my voice. "Please."

"Miss, I understand the predicament that you're in, however, I'm going to have to ask you —"

"Oh, do you? Do you understand? Really?"

Dimitri caught my arm. "Rose, stop. It's not her fault that this is happening," he said, leading me back to the chairs.

"Oh course it's not," I whispered, finally making eye contact with him. "It's mine."

"Oh, Roza, no." He took me into his lap and cradled me against his chest.

I began to sob violently, and chocked out, "Yes it is. We had the chance of a lifetime and I ruined it." Pain ran through my throat and down into my chest.

Stroking my hair, he sobbed with me. "Roza, I love you. Nothing can ever, will ever change that.  Loving you is the chance of a lifetime."

My whole body shook against his. "I love you too," I whispered barely audibly.

He rocked me back and forth until Dr. Ashland finally arrived. Smiling sadly, he took us into the sonogram room. As he squeezed out clear slime onto my stomach, we sat in the most uncomfortable silence. He began to smear it around with an instrument that looked like a remote control.

I stared at the screen, seeing nothing but darkness. He poked and prodded, testing my bladder, but all that was there was darkness. My stomach sank. My chance to have a baby was gone. It was a one in a million chance that it would even happen in the first place. I doubted that we could somehow manage it again.

 And then suddenly, a small black circle appeared, and Dr. Ashland stopped and smiled. "There's your baby."

"What? How is that possible?" Dimitri asked, stealing the words from my mouth.

"It's very common in the first trimester to experience bleeding or spotting much like you would during a normal menstrual period.  It doesn't always mean that you've had a miscarriage, although if it continues we'll need to start monitoring it as it is a concern at that point," he explained.

"Then why the hell didn't anyone tell us that?" I asked pointedly. Burning red anger flashed behind my eyes.

"Well, Mrs. Belikov," he said, setting the instrument on the table. "We don't like to offer that sort of hope unless we know for sure that a miscarriage hasn't occurred. It doesn't do well for our patients."

Humbled, I nodded once. Then sheepishly, I asked, "Can we see the baby again?"

He chuckled. "Of course." Taking the instrument once more in his hand, he pressed on my stomach again. The black dot appeared once more and I couldn't help but smile. Our baby. Dimitri's and mine. It was still there, alive and well. "Wait a minute," the doctor said unexpectedly.

"What?" I asked, searching his face. I couldn't quite place the emotion on it. Confusion. Concentration. Surprise?

Taking a big glob of the goo, he pushed on the right side of my stomach, and then on the left. "Maybe not..." he muttered to himself.

My chest crumpled. Was it all just false hope? Did I really lose the baby and this black circle was just a blip on the machine? "What is it?" I said frantically.

He continued to stare at the screen switching from left to right on my stomach. Then he stopped. Surprise filled his face.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Dimitri asked firmly. "Is the baby alright?"

Smiling, the doctor said, "Yeah, it's just that..." Then he muttered to himself. "Let me just focus this a bit."

He laughed quietly to himself with an air of disbelief. "I have never had a case of a dhampir parents having a child, and then you two come along." Then he pointed to the screen. My eyes followed his finger and landed on not one, but two black circles. "With twins."