Some Things Never Change [SHAWN MENDES]

February 20, 2021

I was sitting in my Tesla outside of Ceci's apartment building as I waited for her to come out. We were going to dinner at her parents' house tonight where we would be breaking the big news. My mind wandered to the doctor visit we'd attended two days ago.

Ceci sat on the examination table nervously swinging her legs as the nurse asked her questions.

"Date of your last period?"

"December 18th," she answered.

She typed that into her tablet. "Alrighty...that puts your due date at September 24th. New Year's, eh? Champagne consumption results in a lot of September babies."

I felt my cheeks grow red with embarrassment. This nurse was able to accurately deduce an awful lot from that one answer.

She rattled off several more questions about Ceci's medical history which was fairly uneventful other than her emergency appendectomy in middle school. I'd had mine removed a few years before she did, and our matching scars were just one more thing that connected us.

"Have you had any morning sickness?"

"I feel a little off when I wake up, but some tea and toast helps. I haven't actually thrown up," Ceci told her.

"You're lucky. I was ill for months with my firstborn. Dr. Morton will be in shortly. She'll probably want to do a transvaginal ultrasound, so please change into this," she said as she handed her a folded gown.

"What's the thing she might do?" I asked after the nurse left.

"It's just a sonogram, but they have to do it vaginally since it's so early."

"Oh. Okay. Would you like me to leave?"

She gave me a sharp look. "You've seen it before. Many times."

This was true.

"Turn around. I'm going to change," she said as she hopped off the exam bed.

"So I can watch whatever she's going to do down there but I can't see you change? Where's the logic in that?"

"Not everything in life is logical."

"That's the most un-Ceci thing I've ever heard you say," I said with a laugh as I turned to give her privacy.

A few minutes later, the doctor joined us. She asked a lot of the same questions the nurse had, as well as a couple new ones about diet and exercise. Then she proceeded to do the ultrasound. Turns out I didn't see anything because she worked under the gown.

"So there's the embryo," Dr. Morton explained as she pointed to the screen. "It's implanted nicely and the size matches up with your dates."

Most of the screen was a fuzzy gray area. In the middle was a dark circular shape, and inside that was a lighter gray lima bean shaped blob.

That blob was our baby.

"Everything looks good?" Ceci asked.

"It looks perfect, though until you get to twelve weeks, there's a ten to fifteen percent chance of miscarriage. I'm not saying that to scare you, but I think expectant parents should be aware of that possibility."

I let out an loud involuntary gulp. "There's that high a risk?"

"Yes, but you've made it eight weeks so far and everything is fine, so you don't need to become overwhelmed with worry," the doctor reassured me.