Stained Glass Eyes and Colorful Tears

23

I have my regular scheduled prenatal appointment today. It's something I've grown to really look forward to each time I have one, I like watching the baby grow and evolve in my tummy. It's also nice to know the progress and get peace of mind over the health of my baby. It hasn't been moving at all and it always worries me, but at every appointment I'm told that the baby is doing just fine and some take longer to move, and some rarely move if anything, so I do my best to keep my worries at bay, but they do come out often.

Right now, for example, I'm waiting in the exam room for my scheduled appointment. I've been sitting in the chair for the best ten minutes, and at this point all my worries are starting to come out. Is the baby still alive? What if there's something wrong with it? What if something happened and I never even realized? Can you call it neglect when the baby is still in the womb? If I can't even take care of it when it's safe in my tummy, how will I be able to take care of it when it's born? If it's born?

The fears start piling up higher and higher, and just when I think I'm officially about to lose it, the door to the exam room opens and a peppy looking nurse waltzes in.

"Hi!" she says cheerful. "Alia, right? I'm Angie, nice to meet you. I hear we're doing a prenatal check up today."

"Yes, that's right." I say as I muster up my most confident smile. I think she can see right through it.

"Will the father or any supporting members be joining us today?" the nurse asks me as she shuts the door behind her then takes a seat in front of the computer. She clicks her mouse a couple of times all over the computer, most likely pulling up my file.

"Um no." I say, feeling my cheeks get warm.

It's stupid but whenever I go to one of these appointments alone, I feel like a pregnant teenager who's been hiding it from her parents and the boy that knocked her up. Every single time I have to say that I'm alone here, I truly feel like I am alone. I know that it's been my choice to keep this a secret from Tony, and I tell my mom and Jaime that they don't need to join me, so I know it's my fault, but it still sucks all the time.

When I pictured getting pregnant before, I always pictured it being under good terms with Tony. It wasn't even a thought in my mind that we wouldn't be in a good place. To me, I would get pregnant, Tony would be overjoyed and want to come to every appointment with me, I would give birth and we would live happily ever after. In no part of that scenario did I imagine Texas or hiding the pregnancy for him, or even living with Jaime for that matter. But here we are, right?

"That's no problem!" the nurse says cheerily as she puts on her gloves. "How far along are you now?"

"Oh, uh, three or four months?" I say, not quite sure. Pregnancy brain seems to have kicked in early for me, I can't remember anything even if I tried to.

"We're moving into the second trimester!" she replies. "Is this your first?"

"Yep, my first." 

"And do you have support in place?" she asks me.

That's a loaded question. Do I have support? Yes. Do I have the support I want? Obviously not, and, again, it's my fault. The constant reminders aren't fun, though, especially after the whole shindig at Jaime's place the other day. I could've killed him when he pulled me aside to try and talk me into telling Tony about the pregnancy.

Sensing my hesitation, the nurse turns around on her little swivel chair and comes closer to me, putting a soft hand on my arm.

"It's okay if you don't have a support system right now, many women don't. No matter what, this is a good thing and you're going to do great." she says with a warm smile.

I muster up the best 'thank you' that I can without crying, then sit there stone faced in the chair. We go through the typical questions that we have to go through for these checkups, spanning over the period of twenty minutes. Finally, the nurse gets up from her chair to grab the jelly and probe. I do my duty of rolling my shirt up for her. I still haven't gotten use to the cold jelly on my stomach, and I don't think the baby has either because I feel it jump.

"Looks like you have an active little one in there." the nurse jokes with me, but I'm hardly listening.

I've never felt the baby move before. I've thought I felt it move once or twice, but now that I've actually truly felt it, I know I'm feeling it for the first time. In the back of my mind I wish for the hundredth time that I had Tony beside me to feel the excitement I'm feeling. I wish he was here with his hand on my tummy feeling the baby move inside me.

I continue to think about this while the nurse performs the ultrasound. The heartbeat sounds strong and everything on the screen looks good to my untrained eye. The nurse assures me that all is moving well in my pregnancy.

"And would you like to know the sex of your child?"

"Oh." I say, caught off-guard again.

I've never really thought of it before. The whole pregnancy I've kind of been in my head about it, wondering about the if's and but's of the situation, but I've never thought about what sex the baby would be.

"Some first time parents prefer not to know." the nurse continues. "It's entirely your choice."

I consider it for a second. Would it make a difference if I was having a boy or a girl? Whenever Tony and I would talk about having children we never had a preference to which one we would have at all. We said as long as the baby was happy and healthy that's all that matters. But actually being here and having that chance to find out is way more tempting than I'd dreamed of it being.

"Yeah." I say after a few seconds of contemplating. "I'd like to know."

"You're sure?"

I nod at her. "I'm sure."

The little probe goes back onto my tummy as the nurse turns the screen back towards me. The little baby is on the black and white screen, moving oh so slightly.

"You see here?" the nurses asks me as she moves the probe more to the left side of my tummy.

"Yeah." I say softly, in awe of the baby in me.

The nurse moves the probe over a little more, giving me a clearer image of what it is I'm actually looking at.

"Oh!" I say, excitedly. "Wow, it's a..."

The nurse turns and grins at me. "Yes, it is. Congratulations."