Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“Are you kidding me? She’s practicing for her career as a professional soccer player in there,” I reply with a laugh.
Dr. Taylor joins in my laughter. “Well, that’s a good sign.” She does her thing, taking the appropriate measurements, and uses the Doppler to listen to Sophia’s heartbeat. “This is one of the last times you’ll hear it with this device. Soon, you’ll have her in your arms,” she says as she helps me clean up the gel. I watch as she grabs the blood pressure cuff once more and places it around my arm. She pulls out her stethoscope and squeezes the bulb, paying close attention to the reading. “Well, it’s down a little, but it still concerns me. If you start to feel lightheaded or not right, I want you to go to labor and delivery. Where’s Harrison?”
“Oh… he… well, something came up.” Tears burn my eyes, but I blink them away, refusing to let them fall now. I’m terrified that if they start, I won’t be able to stop them.
She nods. “Well, I want you to have him drive you to the hospital if you don’t feel right. High blood pressure at this point in your pregnancy isn’t a good sign, especially with gestational diabetes. It could be a sign of gestational hypertension or preeclampsia. I want to be proactive, all right? I’d like you to stop by tomorrow morning and have your blood pressure checked by one of the nurses.”
“Okay,” I reply, my heart hammering in my chest.
“I’m going to check and see if you’re dilating yet,” she informs me, pulling out the stirrups and helping me get comfortable. Comfortable. Sure. My doctor has her hand up my crotch.
“You’re starting to dilate. I’d say a comfortable two centimeters and thirty percent effaced,” she says with a smile as she removes her fingers and pulls off the gloves. “You’re progressing quite well. I just want to keep monitoring that blood pressure.”
What else could possibly go wrong?
After checking out, I make my way to the parking lot to my car. It’s the last day of the year and the snow is starting to fall. I’ve never really minded snow, but now that I’m waddling through the parking lot, trying to be careful, well, the snow is just a nuisance. As soon as I get inside my vehicle, I crank up the heat and feel the first tear fall.
He’s never missed an appointment.
He’s been late once or twice, but he always made it. What the hell happened? Angrily swiping away my tears, I check my phone once more to see if I missed a call or message. There’s nothing on my screen. A part of me wants to drive to the gym and let him have it, but a bigger part just wants a hug. And maybe some rocky road ice cream.
So that’s what I do.
I stop at the grocery store, buy a tub of ice cream, and head to my sister’s house. When I pull into her driveway, I check my phone again to see if Harrison has sent me anything, but there’s nothing. Turning off the ringer, I throw my phone into my purse and grab the ice cream.
Before I even approach the door, she has it open. “What are you doing here? Wait, is that ice cream?”
I push past her as I state, “I just left the doctor. Yes, it’s ice cream. Help me eat it.”
Her eyes follow me as I grab two spoons from the kitchen—and not those regular sized spoons either. No, I grab the large, barely-fit-in-your-mouth spoons. “Uhh, Gwenny? I didn’t think you were supposed to eat ice cream,” she says hesitantly.
I scoop a huge bite of rocky road ice cream and reply, “I’m not. But Harrison missed our appointment and it was either eat ice cream or cut off his balls with a wooden spoon.”
“Ouch,” she says, coming over to the counter and grabbing the other spoon. “Sounds painful. Why’d he miss?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, shoveling more cold goodness in my mouth. “He didn’t show. I watched him put it in his calendar after last week’s appointment. He marked the entire three o’clock hour off so that he didn’t miss, but whatever.”
“Uh-huh, whatever. Obviously, you’re a little peeved.”
“A little.” I shrug.
“How’d the appointment go?” she asks, taking a much smaller bite of ice cream.
I plop down on the stool and use my spoon to draw a flower into the ice cream. “Not good. My blood pressure was high, but that’s probably because I was upset about Harrison missing the appointment. We got a call at two this morning about the alarms going off, and then he had trouble with his security code. They had to reset the whole system.”
“They’ve had a lot of trouble these last few weeks,” Gabby adds, setting her spoon down. “You’d think someone was trying to sabotage them.”