Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“What? No, we agreed not to. Too much else going on without that as well. The lawyers haven’t even mentioned it yet,” she said, shivering slightly.
“Are you okay?” I asked, moving closer to the bed. “Where is Stan?”
“Working nights,” she grimaced. “And to be honest, no, I think I’m coming down with something.”
I went to her and felt her forehead. She was burning up.
“You have a fever!” I said, pulling the duvet off her and pouring her a glass of water from the bathroom. “How long have you been like this?”
“I don’t know, a few hours?” she said, and clutched her tummy. “I think I have a stomach flu; you should stay away.”
“This isn’t like stomach flu,” I said, watching her as she began to shake more violently.
“I feel really strange,” she said. It was as if she zoned out a little, and I thought she was going to faint or fall asleep.
“All right, let’s get some clothes on. We are going to get you checked out.”
The trip to the hospital seemed to take ages, with traffic heavy on the road and Beatrix drifting in and out of sleep. When we got there, I was relieved to find the emergency department relatively quiet, and the triage nurse seemed to share my concern. Still, the wait was long, and I paced the floor as she dozed on a gurney, murmuring in her sleep. Doctors came and went and took samples of blood and urine, reassuring me that it seemed like some kind of infection and that once they had figured out where, they would come back to us. An hour later, they hooked her up to an IV drip with some fluids and antibiotics. The doctor tried to rouse her, but they weren’t getting anything sensible from her and decided to let her rest.
“She has a mild kidney infection,” the doctor told me. “It should respond quite quickly to antibiotics, but of course, these things can become worse more quickly during pregnancy, so we think it’s best to administer the meds via IV overnight. Do you have an overnight bag for her?”
“Pregnancy?” I repeated. “My sister isn’t pregnant.”
The doctor stared at me. “She is, but it isn’t on her notes. Do you mean that she doesn’t know?”
“I don’t know – I don’t think so,” I said, rambling. “I mean, they wanted to start a family, but they were postponing it… I think she would have told me…”
“Okay, what we will do is talk to her when she is more lucid – the fluids will help with that – and maybe get a scan done so that we can see what’s going on, okay?” she disappeared and I went back in to see Beatrix, who had her eyes open and was staring at me.
“Is it me?” she asked in a small voice. “Am I pregnant?”
I put my arms around her and rubbed her back. “Let’s see what the doctor says when she comes back, all right?”
It was another couple of hours before we were whisked away to a scan room, and a combination of painkillers, fever meds, and fluids had helped ease the fever, so Beatrix was at least aware of what was going on. I waited outside while they got her ready and then they called me in. I had been trying to get hold of Stan since we had arrived, but with no luck. It felt wrong that he wasn’t here. I held her hand as our eyes adjusted to the dark and we watched the pattern of gray shapes across the screen.
“Okay, so there’s baby,” the sonographer said, pointing to a flashing blob on the center of the screen. “Little heart beating away.”
“Oh my god,” cried Beatrix, tears flowing down her face. “Oh my god!”
“Little legs wriggling, and just up here, arms, and let’s see if we can get a better angle and see the face…” she rearranged Beatrix’s belly in a way that made me wince, and Beatrix gasped at the image on the screen. It was, faintly, the outline of a face.
“I thought I was just fat!” Beatrix cried. “I took a test, it was negative. They are always negative!”
“Well, there is nothing negative on this screen,” the sonographer beamed. “Everything looks fine!”
“It’s amazing,” I breathed. “It looks so clear…”
“Well, baby is measuring at just under ten weeks…” she added.
“Ten weeks!” we exclaimed in unison, and the sonographer laughed. She printed off some pictures and turned the lights on, and the nurse who popped her head in said they were ready to take Beatrix up to the ward where she could stay until she had had more fluid and antibiotics.
We sat and stared at the pictures, alternating between tears and laughter, and I didn’t leave until Stan arrived and I had seen the look on his face change from concern to relief to shock and delirious happiness as she told him all that had happened since we had arrived. He hugged me and thanked me for being there with her, and we all cried and laughed some more, and then I left them holding one another tightly.