Loyal

Chapter 72

Vera's POV

            When the ultrasound technician comes back into the room, I'm already on the bed, my feet int he stir ups. Bare from the waist down, I can feel the coolness of the cushion under my backside. It's foreign and it makes me apprehensive. My whole body tenses as soon as she comes close. 

            "Okay, I'm going to need to raise these stirrups," she says, her voice a little too sing-songy for my liking. I hold onto the sheet she gave me to cover myself. I don't see the damn point of it; she's going to see all my goodies anyway. Goodies. Peanut butter cookies sound so good right now. This baby is making me crave peanut butter like a MF. I feel my eyes start to water as I think of it. This baby. My baby. It's the first time I've actually really thought of this baby as truly mine.

            "Thank you," she says, after I place my feet back into the stirrups. I hate hospitals, always have. Everything is so damn cold; it makes me feel like I'm an experiment in a laboratory, waiting for someone to stick a knife into me.

                        "Is this going to hurt?" I ask, without thinking. My voice is shaking more than I would like it to.

            "The ultrasound?"

                        "No, the procedure."

            "Some women say it just feels like you're having severe menstrual cramps, but it all ends within a matter of seconds. But then again, everything is different from person to person." I watch the woman as she puts a condom over a microphone shaped instrument, and smoothes a blue goop over it. Within a matter of seconds, my baby's life will be over.

            "Okay, I'm going to need you to lie back and relax." I follow her orders and lie back onto the cold cushion, completely exposing myself to her-my legs wide open. "You're going to feel my hands, and then pressure."

            Before I can prepare myself, the tool she covered is inside of me. It's uncomfortable, foreign, and hard. She pushes from side to side and takes pictures for the ultrasound. I wince at every snap I hear. It ends sooner than I think, and she pulls the probe from me. I don't even know when I started crying, I just notice the tears when they fall to my side against the cushion I'm lying on.

            "Would you like to see the images?" She asks gently. I manage to get up, and wipe tears away with the back of my hand.

                        "The images? You mean, I can see them?"

            "If you'd like."

            I hesitate for a second.

                        "Yes, I'd like to see them."

The images print from the computer beside the technician, and she examines them before handing me one.

            With one shaky hand, I take it from her. 

            There, on the paper before me, is a sonogram image. In the black darkness of the page, there is a round shape within my womb. A tiny little person, who will have a beating heart, hands, eyes, feet. I cover my mouth with one hand, trying to stop the sound of a horrifying sob from coming out, but it escapes anyway. My vision blurs with tears, and I'm in the arms of the technician. 

            "I'm fine, I'm fine," I say, through heavy sobs. This little baby, this tiny little thing, is mine. It's my baby. My love. That's when it hits me. Why the fuck am I here? I had been told that I could never have a baby, and now that I have one I'm trying to give it up? I look up in realization at the ultrasound technician.

            "I'm so sorry you had to go through all of this trouble. But, I'm not going to go through with this," I say slowly, realizing the weight of my own words. The ultrasound technician begins to talk, but I can't hear her because I'm putting on my clothes. I'm having a baby. A baby.

            As soon as my shoes are on, I grab my purse and shove out of the ultrasound room. I slam the door open to the waiting room in a frenzy. The women waiting in there give me bewildered looks. The woman behind the glass window stands up to get a good look at me.

            "Are you okay?" She asks.

                        "I'm fine.." I say slowly, straightening up. In a rush of emotions I run through the waiting room and out to the parking lot. Unlocking the door to my car I jump into the driver's seat, my hands shaking. 

            "I'm having a baby, a baby," I say to myself, before erupting into a wave of tears that crash over me in a storm of emotion.