The Wish(84)

*



In early March, I had to see Dr. Huge Hands again. It was to be my last appointment with him before the delivery, since Gwen would continue to supervise my care for the rest of the term. Right on schedule, I’d begun having the occasional Braxton Hicks contraction, and when I told the doctor I wasn’t a fan, he reminded me that it was my body’s way of getting ready for labor. I did the ultrasound, avoided even a glimpse at the monitor, but let out an automatic breath of relief when the technician said that the baby (Sofia? Chloe?) was doing just fine. Although I was trying hard not to think of the baby as a person who belonged to me, I still wanted to know she was going to be okay. The technician added that mama was doing fine, too—which meant me, but it was still weird to hear her say it—and when I finally sat down with the doctor, he went over a bunch of things that I might experience in the last stage of my pregnancy. I pretty much stopped listening once he said the word hemorrhoids—it had come up during the pregnant teen meeting at the Portland YMCA, but I’d forgotten all about it—and by the time he finished, I was downright depressed. It took me a second to understand that he was asking me a question.

“Maggie? Did you hear me?”

“Sorry. I was still thinking about hemorrhoids,” I said.

“I asked whether you were exercising,” he said.

“I walk when I’m taking pictures.”

“That’s great,” he said. “Just remember that exercise is good for both you and the baby, and it will shorten the time your body needs to recover after delivery. Nothing too intense, though. Light yoga, walking, things like that.”

“How about riding a bike?”

He brought a giant finger to his chin. “As long as it’s comfortable and doesn’t hurt, that’s probably okay for the next few weeks. After that, your center of gravity will begin to shift, making balance more difficult, and falling would be bad for both you and the baby.”

In other words, I’d be getting even fatter, which I knew was coming, but it was still as depressing as the idea of hemorrhoids. I did like the notion that my body might get back to normal faster, though, so the next time I saw Bryce, I asked if I could bike along with him on his morning runs.

“For sure,” he said. “It’ll be great to have company.”

The following morning, after waking up way too early, I put on my jacket and rode to Bryce’s house. He was stretching out front and he jogged toward me, Daisy at his side. As he leaned in to kiss me, I suddenly realized I hadn’t brushed my teeth, but I kissed him anyway and he didn’t seem to mind.

“You ready?”

I thought it would be easy since he was running and I was on a bike, but I was wrong. I did okay for the first couple of miles, but after that, my thighs started to burn. Even worse, Bryce kept trying to have a conversation, which wasn’t easy since I was huffing and puffing. Just when I thought I couldn’t go any farther, he stopped near a gravel road that led toward the canals and said that he had to do sprints.

I rested on my bike seat, one foot on the ground, and watched as he sprinted away from me. Even Daisy had trouble keeping up, and I watched his image grow smaller in the distance. He stopped, rested for a short bit, then sprinted toward me again. He went up and back five times, and even though he was breathing a lot harder than I’d been and Daisy’s tongue almost reached her legs, he immediately started jogging again after he’d finished, this time in the direction of his house. I thought we were done, but I was wrong again. Bryce did push-ups, sit-ups, and then jumped up and down from the picnic table in his yard before finally doing multiple sets of pull-ups using a pipe hung beneath his house, his muscles flexing against his shirt. Daisy, meanwhile, lay in place, panting. When I checked my watch after he’d finished, he’d been going nonstop for almost ninety minutes. Despite the cool morning air, his face was shiny with sweat and there were wet circles on his T-shirt as he approached.

“You do this every morning?”

“Six days a week,” he said. “But I vary it. Sometimes the run is shorter and I do more sprints or whatever. I want to be ready for West Point.”

“So every time you arrive to tutor me, you’ve already done all of this?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m impressed,” I said, and not just because I’d enjoyed the sight of his muscles. It was impressive, and it made me wish that I could be more like him.

*



Despite the addition of regular morning exercise, the pounds kept coming and my tummy kept growing. Gwen continually reminded me that was normal—she began dropping by the house regularly to check my blood pressure and listen to the baby with a stethoscope—but it still didn’t make me feel better. By the middle of March, I was up twenty-two pounds. By the end of the month, I was up twenty-four, and it was pretty much impossible to hide the bulge no matter how baggy the sweatshirt. I began to resemble a character from a Dr. Seuss book: small head and skinny legs with a bulging torso, but without the cute look of Cindy-Lou Who.

Not that Bryce seemed to mind. We still kissed, he still held my hand, and he always told me I was beautiful, but as the month wore on, I began to feel pregnant almost all the time. I had to balance just right when I sat down to keep from plopping into the seat, and getting up from the sofa required momentary planning and concentration. I still went to the bathroom practically every hour, and once, when I sneezed on the ferry, my bladder actually seemed to spit, which was absolutely mortifying and left me feeling wet and gross until we got back to Ocracoke. I felt the baby moving a lot more, especially whenever I lay down—I could also watch it moving, which was really trippy—and I had to start sleeping on my back, which wasn’t comfortable at all. My Braxton Hicks contractions were coming more regularly, and like Dr. Huge Hands, Gwen said it was a good thing. I, on the other hand, still thought it was a bad thing because my whole stomach tightened and I felt all crampy, but Gwen ignored my complaint. About the only terrible things that hadn’t happened were hemorrhoids or a sudden starburst of acne on my face. I still had the occasional extra pimple or two, but my makeup skills kept it from being all that noticeable and Bryce never said a word about it.