One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir (31 page)

John Finn, M.D., Ph. D.

By the end of the day, we were the newest patients of Dr. Bunnell. We had our first appointment two weeks before she was scheduled to perform my amniocentesis, and we both liked her just fine. As she escorted us out of the office, she introduced us to the rest of the obstetricians in the practice since the odds were just as good one of them would be delivering our baby.

O
ur insurance company sent us our
Healthy Babies
package and we got our first
Safe Beginnings
catalog in the mail. Sometimes it still didn’t feel real. We could have been somebody’s marketing-list error.

Or maybe I wouldn’t let myself think it was real. Not until after the amnio.

It’s easy to see why the amnio is a highly over-complained-about procedure:

(a)

(b)
It carries a risk
*
of miscarriage.

* Admittedly small, but it’s 100% when you’re one of the 0.3%

(c)
Your future is riding on the results.

But if you could, it’s really just a glorified shot.

I had attended my sister’s, so I knew what to expect. Lorene, of course, came with me to mine. Dr. Bunnell discussed the procedure, and then we waited while the technician found our boy. I looked into Lorene’s eyes while Dr. Bunnell prepared to insert the needle. “She’s in,” Lorene said. I hadn’t felt a thing. “She’s out.”
You’re kidding!
It had me thinking, maybe having a baby is an over-complained-about procedure, too . . .

Dr. Bunnell and the technician were laughing at the screen. “Did you want to know the baby’s sex?”

“We know—boy.”

“Definitely not! She just did three somersaults, spread-eagle.”

I forgot I ever wanted a boy, if I ever wanted a boy. I must’ve wanted a girl all along. I pulled Lorene toward me. “We got a girl!”

“A girl. A girl? Oh, no.”

“No? You said you wanted a—”

“Yes, but I raised a boy. I know what to do with a boy. What am I going to do with a girl?” Everybody in the room laughed, and Lorene started laughing, too, wiping the tears out of her eyes.

We called Steve before bed, and left a message, “It’s a GIRL! Really! We had the amnio today. It went fine. Love you!”

Lorene said, “Oh, thank God.”

“What?”

“We would have never agreed on a boy’s name.”

Three days later, 5:30 on a Friday, Dr. Bunnell called with the results of the genetic blood screen. “Negative for Down’s, neural tube defects and Trisomy 18; I wanted to let you know before the weekend. I should have the rest by next Friday or Monday, latest.”

We were at the doctor’s. A very cheery nurse started to give us the amnio results and then she stopped abruptly. “I better get the doctor,” she said. Our doctor wasn’t in. A substitute doctor gave us the results in a hurry, and before they had a chance to sink in, she was interrupted—her daughter (it was Bring Your Daughter to Work Day) needed her. We were shuffled over to another doctor, a man whom I instantly liked. Just as we sat down, he got a phone call from another doctor and the two of them were going on, laughing about a woman who was dying, admitting they shouldn’t be. Lorene turned to me and said, “What don’t you understand about the results? The amniotic sac is held on by eighteen carpenter ants. One of your ants is facing the wrong way, which is straining the other seventeen, so they will eventually, sooner rather than later, let go. You need to terminate the pregnancy.”

I
kept myself busy during my waking hours. We had a wedding to go to, our own small second “legal” wedding to plan, and the deadline (my due date) for my first picture book
Manny’s Cows
was less than six months away.

Dr. Bunnell called the house at 5:30 the next Friday with the three words I wanted to hear: “Everything is normal.” Lorene wasn’t home, not reachable by phone—she was helping a friend take prom pictures. I e-mailed Steve and thought about gifting myself a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s, now that I was officially eating for a healthy two, but I settled for chocolate.

Chocolate Finding

Snacking on chocolate can help prevent fetal complications of premature birth in women eating 3+ servings per week.

Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemiology

Lots of chocolate. Then I filled out a maternity Advent calendar for Lorene. It had been fifteen years since I had made the very first one for my friend, hoping someday there’d be one for me.

I couldn’t wait up for Lorene. My napping time had dried up once I got home from book tour, and I was usually spent by ten. I left the calendar on her pillow. She woke me with a kiss on the forehead, her hair brushing my face. I sat up next to her while she opened the little calendar windows. Then she took me to her closet, rummaged around, and presented me with a bag. A baby dress. I had completely forgotten we’d bought a little dress. Something we’d fallen in love with last spring—possibly for Meredith’s baby, possibly for ours. We hung its tiny satin hanger on the closet door of the
guest
baby’s room.

The next week we began telling people we were going to have a baby. Circle the most common response:

(a) Do you know whether it’s a boy or a girl?

(b) Congratulations! I’m so happy for both of you.

(c) When’s your due date?

T
he sun went away Memorial Day weekend, and the weather was too iffy to consider a June 1st ceremony underneath the two 150-year-old maples in the backyard. We stood in front of our fireplace. I was barefoot and pregnant in my old wedding dress, standing opposite Lorene in her old wedding dress. There were just six guests, including Henry (in Meredith’s arms). We had had our
real
wedding two years earlier; this was our legal wedding.

Jean Eldredge, a retired justice of the peace who’d known Lorene since she was one, had special dispensation to officiate. We repeated the vows we’d exchanged in Vermont, and then it was Jean’s turn: “I now pronounce you man—married—a couple!” One of our guests snorted, and we kissed. Then we all sat down to a dinner of poached salmon and Meredith’s coconut cake.