Loving Dallas(57)

I can do this myself.

My mind churns through the many changes I’ll have to make, checking off each one as totally doable. I can turn my small home office into a nursery. I can explain to Mr. Martin that I need maternity leave and to reduce travel for a while. I can put a crib together. How hard can it be? YouTube should tell me exactly how to do everything that I need to.

Shouldn’t it?

The magazine I was reading had articles on antibiotics, immunizations, vaccinations, breastfeeding, and several other topics that hadn’t yet occurred to me to worry about.

Fuuuuck.

But I can do this. I can. I will.

I got this.

“We got this,” I say while patting my still-flat belly.

If there’s no one in there, well, I’ll laugh at my own ridiculousness and go celebrate with a drink. Or two.

“Good morning, Miss Breeland. I’m Dr. Lassiter.” A gentle female voice accompanying a fair-skinned woman with shoulder-length auburn hair interrupts my mental breakdown. “How are you feeling today?”

I suck in a deep breath and smile. “Great. I’m feeling great today, actually.”

“Actually? Have you not been feeling well?”

“Um, well . . .” Licking my lips, I say it out loud for the first time ever. “I’ve been feeling kind of sick, not in the mornings, though. Mostly around dinnertime. And I’m a few weeks late. I also haven’t had a Pap smear in, uh, a while. So I thought it would be a good idea to come in and—”

“How many weeks?”

“Ma’am?”

“How many weeks late are you?” Dr. Lassiter looks down at the folder she’s holding. “Better yet, just tell me when your last menstrual cycle was.”

I know the answer, but I pause like I have to do math in my head.

“My last period ended September thirteenth,” I tell her on a sigh, because I know, I know that was two months ago and anyone who is two months late and thinks they might not be pregnant is half-crazy. Or completely delusional.

Thankfully Dr. Lassiter doesn’t pin me with a judgmental frown. She just jots something down before meeting my apologetic gaze. “Taken any home tests?”

“Three,” I answer honestly.

“All the same result?”

“One negative that I probably took too soon, one positive last week, and one that didn’t have a clear result.”

“I see here that you’ve been on Loestrin for a while now. Have you taken it regularly and at the same time every day?”

I take another deep breath. Maybe this will be good practice for explaining my situation to my mom.

“I travel a lot for work from time to time. I have missed a few doses. I tried to double up to make up for a few missed pills but then I read online that it isn’t a good idea to do that.”

She nods but her mouth turns down. “If you’d just missed one day, I’d say it would be okay. Missing multiple doses, however, not so much. Let’s go ahead and run some tests and see if we can figure out what’s going on with you. If it turns out that you aren’t pregnant, though I heavily suspect that you are, we’ll look at alternate forms of birth control. Ortho Evra, for instance, which comes in a patch you change weekly or possibly an implant that lasts even longer. I typically recommend those to women who travel or have unpredictable schedules.”

“Okay,” I say meekly.

“A nurse will be in to collect a urine sample and some blood shortly.”

With that, she smiles at me once more and exits the room, slipping my chart casually into a plastic bin by the door as if she didn’t just deliver huge news with the subtly of a deathblow in a George R. R. Martin novel.

If I ever own my own gynecological practice, which is unlikely, but still, if I do, I’m going to make sure that all rooms are stocked with cupcakes and expensive boxes of chocolates. Maybe a big screen connected to Netflix or with a Nicholas Sparks marathon constantly on repeat. Because this is seriously the most emotionally draining experience of my life.

Time doesn’t actually move when you’re waiting on the results of an official pregnancy test. Or maybe it moves backward. Hell, I don’t know. But I have been sitting on this table for what feels like forever after being poked, prodded, and forced to pee on command. My boobs hurt, my back aches, and the fluorescent lights overhead are giving me a migraine.

“Miss Breeland?”

I have never been so simultaneously thrilled and terrified at hearing my own name.

“Yes,” I croak out because my voice is hoarse from disuse.

“Results are in,” Dr. Lassiter says, waving my chart at me. “Congratulations. You’re going to be a mom.”

This is the part where I’m supposed to panic. Or where I’m supposed to turn to my husband and cry while he showers me with kisses.

I do neither. I take a deep breath. Right now, breathing is about all I can manage successfully.

I’m pregnant. A human being is growing inside of me right this very second.

I mean, I guess I already knew. But there is something so final about this, so completely irrevocable that I can feel it down to my bones. Deep down into the marrow.

“Right.” I nod and try for the love of all things holy to get some moisture to my mouth. “Of course. Thanks.”

I’m still nodding. I can’t stop nodding.