In the exam room, Miranda begins the exam with a look inside my ears. “Everything looks fine in there. Why do you think it’s an ear thing?”
“I’m super dizzy and exhausted. I’ve had ear infections before that’ve been like that.”
“Your ears look great. Lie back and let me check the rest of you.”
It says a lot about how lousy I feel that I nearly doze off while a friend is palpating my abdomen.
“Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”
Suddenly, I’m wide awake. “No. There’s no chance of that.”
She grins at me and glances at Austin. “None at all?”
“I’m on birth control. I get the shot.”
Miranda moves away from me and types something into the computer. “I show you overdue for a shot by six weeks.”
“What? No way. That’s not possible. I get alerts on my phone.”
“Unless you get the shots somewhere else, you’re overdue. Our system is fully automated to alert patients, but as you know, we don’t have the staff to follow up with people who don’t show up.”
“You will when we open the new place,” Austin says, though his face has been flat with shock since Miranda said the word ‘pregnant’. As the clinic’s primary benefactor, he’s tuned in to the many improvements that will come with the new clinic that’s under construction.
“How about we do a quick test?”
After she helps me sit up, I begin to cry at the sheer preposterousness of me forgetting about my birth control shot and getting pregnant. I’m a nurse, for crying out loud. Who knows better than me not to let things like that slide?
Austin puts his arms around me. “Shhhh. If you’re pregnant, we’ll have a beautiful baby to love. It’s no biggie.”
“But our wedding and your season and everything… I’m not ready for this.”
“Let’s make sure that’s what it is before you worry about all that, okay?” Miranda asks.
Nodding, I wipe the tears from my face, fully aware that an accidental pregnancy in my blessed life hardly counts as a crisis. Austin and I have the resources and the ability to handle anything that comes our way, and as someone who works with people who have serious needs, I never forget the privilege that comes with that reality. But damn it, I’m not ready to have a baby.
“We’re not even married yet.” We’ve been planning our wedding for November, after his upcoming season.
“We can fix that anytime you’d like.”
“We’re supposed to have a wedding, not a shotgun thing.”
Laughing, Austin says, “No one’s holding a gun to my head, sweetheart. You know I can’t wait to marry you and have more babies with you and everything else with you.” He kisses away my tears. “We can get married and have our baby and then throw a big party to celebrate our marriage when the season is over. It’ll all be fine.”
Miranda returns with the items needed to take the test.
Austin helps me down from the table. “You got this?”
“I got this. You don’t need to help me pee.”
“I would if you needed me to.”
“It hasn’t quite come to that. Not yet, anyway.”
“I’m here for it, babe. I’m here for it all.”
“We’ll be right back,” Miranda tells Austin. She walks with me to the bathroom that’s reserved for staff. “Whatever happens, you’ve got a great guy who’d do anything for you. It’s all going to be fine.”
“I’m fully aware that I have no business reacting this way to the possibility of being pregnant.”