"No."
"Were you doing something that was physically demanding, perhaps overexerting yourself?"
"No, not at all," she said, shaking her head. "I slept, worked for a few hours and then went home. Nothing out of the ordinary."
He jotted down on the clipboard. "Did you have sexual intercourse prior to—”
"Nope," she said, not even bothering to let him finish.
He half smiled and wrote something else down. "Okay. This is your first pregnancy, isn't it, Julie?"
"Yes."
"Do you smoke?" he asked.
"No."
"Do you use drugs of any kind?"
"Definitely not."
"Any history of bleeding disorders in you or your family members?"
"Not in me, and not in my family that I'm aware of."
"Okay," he said, writing on his clipboard. "So you weren't having any sort of physical discomfort to accompany the bleeding?"
"No, I didn't know anything was wrong at all."
He nodded. "All right. I will be right back in just a minute, while I'm gone I would appreciate if you could change into the hospital gown, and when I come back we're going to check your heartbeat. Before you leave I want you to get a blood test and a urine test, just so I can run a few tests and make sure everything is on the up-and-up. But first I'm going to go ahead and give you a sonogram, see if we can find a heartbeat."
"Okay," Julie said with a nod.
The doctor stepped outside and Aaron shifted uncomfortably. "Um, I'll just step outside there…"
"You can just turn around," she said. "I mean, it's not that big of a deal. I'm really not worried about you seeing my panties right now."
Aaron nodded and just turned the face the wall while Julie slipped out of her clothes and into the hospital gown, folding her clothes in half and laying them across the bottom of the bed.
"You can turn around now," she told him. Aaron turned around and sat down in the chair, elbows resting on his knees, his face as tense as hers had been before.
They sat there in utter silence for a good two minutes, not really know what to say, not really feeling that words were appropriate.
Although it was a side thought, Julie wondered what was going to happen to her little arrangement of temporarily living with Aaron if she lost the baby. The only reason she had been staying with him was because she was pregnant, so if she lost the baby, where would she go?
She had almost forgotten about Jack. It seemed like it had been forever since she talked to him last, and she hadn't exactly missed him.
Honestly, in that moment, she didn't care where she lived. The thought of losing her baby made her so damn depressed that she didn't frankly give a damn if she lived in a box underneath a bridge.
She would have no more Poppy Seed, so it didn't feel like it mattered.
Her mouth curved down sadly on that thought, and she closed her eyes, trying to just clear her mind.
The doctor came in then, wheeling an ultrasound machine in with him and offering a little smile. He got the ultrasound machine all arranged, then he came over and listened to Julie's heart using his stethoscope. After that he examined her abdomen, but he must not have found anything unusual.
"Everything seems normal," he told her. "We'll just get you set up for the ultrasound and make sure…" he said, trailing off as he got out a tube of some kind. "Since you’re still so early, we’ll have to do an internal ultrasound, and if we don’t see anything, there’s still no need to panic,” he explained, putting the jelly from the tube onto a long, phallic-shaped medical device. It was more than a little awkward when he slipped the device between her legs and guided it as he watched for some sign of the baby on the screen.
Aaron stepped back a little, turning away and clearing his throat.