Illusion (29 page)

             
"Oh, I'll be fine, but thank you. Love you too."

             
He walks towards the door and stares at me a moment before turning off the light and walking into the hall. It surprisingly doesn't take long at all to fall asleep in an incredibly comfortable bed.

             
"Zoey LaRoche?" I place the magazine down and look towards Kirt. He stands with me and we follow behind the nurse with the clipboard. She points to the bathroom. "You're going to need to go in there and pee in one of those cups. Use the marker in there to label the cup before you leave your sample, and write the time please. When you're done, just leave it on the shelf next to the sink."

             
I go in and do as she says, and wash my hands thoroughly afterward. I hate peeing in a cup, it's so gross.

             
When I come back out, she leads the way towards a room. "Strip down the bottom half of your clothing, then slide this over you. The doctor should be in shortly." She hands me those weird napkin looking blue cloths, then she slides a curtain that is around the door and leaves, closing the door behind her. I do as she says, then I sit on the table-slash-bench thing.

             
Kirt holds my hand the second I'm sitting and he smiles down at me. I don't think he has stopped smiling since I showed him the positive pregnancy test. I didn't know a guy could want a baby so badly, in fact, I almost think he wants one more than I do.

             
A knock sounds on the door and I tell the doctor or whoever to come in. An older looking man, that isn't my normal doctor, walks in. "Hi, I'm Dr. Hoops, can you please confirm your name and date of birth."

             
I repeat it as he looks over his paperwork. He sets it down and does a few things, setting some instruments on a platter near where I'm sitting. He grabs a few other things and comes over. "First things first, I got to ask a few questions. When was the first day of your last period?"

             
I answer all the questions he has and he predicts me to be around seven weeks. He has me lay back and pull my shirt up, then he presses a stethoscope looking thing to my stomach. A fuzzy noise comes from the other end, and I can hear a small flutter as well as some grumbling, obviously the sounds happening inside my stomach. He moves it around for a few minutes, then he turns it off and places it down on the counter.

             
"Well, you're most certainly early in the pregnancy. A lot of times we don't hear the heart beat until around twelve weeks, so I'm not surprised we can't hear it. I wanted to check, just in case." He smiles warmly at me. "You can pull your shirt down now, but stay laying, I'm going to have to give you a quick pap smear. When I'm done with that, we'll go over your medical chart, then we'll get you into the ultrasound room to get the first view of that precious baby."

             
Kirt holds my hand but looks away while the doctor does what he needs to do. I become extremely cramped while he does the procedure and he seems to notice. "Does this hurt you? You keep tensing up."

             
"Yeah, it does actually. I'm really cramped up."

             
"Okay, just relax. I can't imagine it's comfortable, but I'm almost done." He finishes up and rubs my outer thigh. "You can place your feet down from the stirrups now and sit up. In fact, why don't you get your pants back on, I'll be right back."

             
He leaves the room and comes back in a few minutes later, once I'm already dressed and waiting.

             
"So when was your last treatment for the cervical cancer you had?"

             
"It was around eleven months ago."

             
He nods his head and writes it down. "When was your last pap smear?"

             
"About two months after."

             
"You should be getting them done every six months. It's always better safe than sorry. I don't want to alarm you, but your test is a little abnormal. I'm going to have to send you back to your primary care doctor within the next week for a further exam, just to be safe. Today we're not going to worry about that though, I'd rather discuss your pregnancy."

             
I swallow the bile rising in my throat. "Wait, if it's back, then what?"

             
"Well, I'm not saying it's back, it could be for numerous reasons. The pregnancy itself can do a number of things to your body. I'm going to have Nurse Johnson take some blood from you after the ultrasound, between that, the sample I got from your cervix, and your urine sample, we'll get everything figured out. Don't you worry any, okay? Today is a day to celebrate and make sure that baby inside of you is healthy."

             
I smile at that. He is right. I need to focus on the fetus inside of me. Kirt rubs my back, comforting me but not saying much.

             
The doctor asks me a few more things about the cancer and the treatments I went through, and different dates for different things. Once he is satisfied with my answers, he shows us to the ultrasound room. A lady with nearly buzzed off, black hair smiles warmly at me. "Hi, I'm Johanna, I'm your Ultrasound Technician. If you'll just lay there and pull your shirt up, I'll get started."

             
I do as she says while she walks over and grabs a tube filled with something that looks like lube. She squirts some on my belly when she comes back over and it's extremely warm, not like I was expecting. She grabs the wand that is connected to the computer and rubs it over the gunk before pushing into my stomach a little. That cramps me too, but I'm too excited that I ignore it. I've been cramping up a lot lately anyway, I know it's my stomach stretching and preparing itself for the growing fetus inside me.

             
She clicks a few things on the computer and moves the wand around more. I look up to Kirt with a wide smile on my face, matching his. "I bet it's a girl," he says.

             
"You want a girl?" I ask him.

             
He shakes his head fast. "I do, but I want a boy first. I need him to protect his little sister, but I have a feeling it's a girl."

             
The nurse laughs softly. "You won't find out the sex until around twenty one weeks."

             
He smiles at her then looks back at me. "That's fine. I don't care what we have, I'll be happy either way. We can have like ten of these things, right?"

             
I raise my eyebrows. "Ten? Have you been drinking? No, we can stop at like, two, maybe three."

             
"Four," he says with a wink.

             
I laugh. "Deal."

             
The nurse pulls the wand off me and after she wipes it off, places it back its spot, then she wipes my stomach, almost looking defeated about something. "Sometimes when you're so early in the pregnancy, it's hard to see the fetus. How far along did Dr. Hoops say you were?"

             
"Around seven weeks."

             
"Okay, well that explains things. Most the time I don't get to see the baby with a regular ultrasound until at least eight or nine. I'm going to have do a transvaginal one. Why don't you strip off your pants and underwear, then I'll get you started on that."

             
I jump off the bench and do as she says while she is faced in the opposite direction. Kirt laughs at my grumpy face when I sit back down, covering myself with another one of those giant napkin things, this time an ugly pink one. I tell her when I'm done and she looks at me with humor in her eyes. "Okay, don't judge this. I know this scares a lot of people."

             
She holds up a giant looking dildo attached to a long, curly wire that is plugged into the computer. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. Maybe not so much a dildo, it's not shaped as anything practically, but it has a condom over it and yeah, I'm scared. Kirt starts doing a cough-laugh, choking over absolutely nothing. I glare in his direction as he pounds on his chest to stop himself.

             
Johanna smiles warmly at us. "I know, it's a little overwhelming, but this is going to go inside you so I can get a better look at your womb. I'm going to need you to lay back then slide your pelvis forward. You can place your feet in those stirrups, then I'm going to need you to insert this just an inch or so inside of you. When it's in, let me know, and I'll do the rest of the work."

             
I do as she says and let her know when it's in me. Kirt just looks up at the ceiling with his lips pressed together. Yeah, this is one of the most awkward moments I've ever had to experience. She pushes it further in me and I nearly grunt out when I start seriously cramping.

             
"Sorry, I should have told you that you'll experience some cramping." She moves it around inside and clicks a few more things on the computer. Kirt reaches down, still not looking at me, and runs his hand through my hair.

             
She pulls the wand thing out of me and discards the condom that has some blood on it. "Uh, should I be worried?"

             
She faces me with a sad smile on her face. I don't feel good about this situation. "The blood is very normal. Why don't you go get dressed again, wash your hands over there," she points to the sink, "and I'll be right back. I have to confirm something with the doctor."

             
She slides her gloves off, then presses a few more things on the computer. A few sonogram pictures print out and she pulls them from the printer, then walks out the door. I get dressed and sit back in the chair. Kirt gives me a sweet kiss and rubs his hand up and down my spine. There is something going on and he feels it too. I don't like this. All my excitement and nerves has turned into fear.

             
When Johanna walks back in, Dr. Hoops follows behind her. "Zoey, Kirt, can you please come with me?"

             
I hop down and we follow behind him. As we pass Johanna she gives us both a smile but it doesn't reach her eyes like when we first met her.

             
We return to the room we were in the first time. "You two can have a seat if you'd like." There are two regular chairs placed against the wall, so we both sit, and he takes his little black stool. He clears his throat while he looks at us with sadness. "I'm sorry to say this, but there isn't a fetus."

             
Kirt immediately grabs my hand inside both of us his and he gives me a squeeze. I'm not sure if he is comforting me or himself. "Excuse me?" I say. "We got a positive pregnancy test!"

             
He clears his throat again and licks at his lips, obviously nervous talking about this. I'm sure it isn't easy on him, but me, this is killing me. I know it's killing Kirt too. He wanted a baby worse than me. "What are the other symptoms you had? If you don't mind me asking."

             
"Some cramping, light headed, especially in the mornings, my appetite has been off, I've been throwing up a lot, particularly in the mornings or after meals. Plus, I missed my last period, with just some light spotting."

             
He looks down where he has his hands folded in his lap before meeting my eyes again. "Have you been trying to get pregnant?"

             
"Yes," I tell him as tears start to fall. I quickly wipe them and I hear sniffling. I look over and Kirt is trying so hard to hold back his own tears.

             
"There are a few possibilities to explain all of this. One being you could have been pregnant but just lost the fetus early on, which is very common with everything you've been through. Second could be that you had what we call as pseudocyesis, or better known as phantom pregnancy. It's where you're wanting to get pregnant so bad your body gives off all the signals that you are in fact pregnant when you're really not, which has been known to give false positives too, although rare. Last being, your cancer could have come back. It's doesn't explain the positive test, but it does explain everything else. We'll get through your tests as fast as possible and get you an answer as soon as we can."

             
My body starts trembling out of control and Kirt pulls on my arm. I end up climbing onto his lap as he holds me tight to him, allowing me to just cry. The doctor goes on explaining a few things but I ignore it all. Right now, I don't care. Kirt comforts me, which makes me feel guilt ridden- I should be comforting him too. I just can't seem to do that right now. I didn't realize quite how much I wanted this baby until I was told there wasn’t one.