Page 134 of Broken Silence
“Sorry,” the sonographer said.
“It’s fine.”
She pressed into what felt like my bladder. A full bladder at that. If I peed, I was never coming back.
“There,” she said. “You see here? That little thing that looks like a bean.”
I gasped as I took in the tiny little life inside me. Something inside me snapped and spread through my entire body like a glowstick. Love. “That’s my baby.”
“That’s your baby. The fluttering here,” she said, pointing to the screen. “That’s a good, strong heartbeat.”
“I can’t believe that’s inside me.”
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, staring at the monitor, not physically able to tear my eyes away.
Something else tore through me as I watched my baby’s heart beating. A protective instinct that took my breath away. I would burn the whole world down to protect that little life already.
I could very suddenly and very acutely feel my mum’s pain when she’d found out that I’d been abused.
“I’ll take some measurements and give you an approximate due date. You’ll get a more accurate one at the later scan, though. Baby is still very small,” she said, thankfully brining me back to reality.
I wanted to reach out and touch her… or him. But that would be ridiculous since the baby was inside me and not the monitor.
“Okay, so I put you at ten weeks and two days with a rough due date of March third.”
March third. It sounded like the most perfect date in the world.
“Would you like to take pictures?”
“Yes, please.”
Cole had to see this—our baby.
For the rest of the time, while she got images and checked the baby over, I stared at the monitor like an idiot. Or, hopefully, like an excited mum-to-be.
“I’ll clean the gel off and then print your pictures.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, my eyes drifting back to my baby’s heartbeat right before she turned the monitor off.
“Easy to lose time staring, isn’t it?” she said, wiping my stomach as the printer rattled beside us.
“It could become addictive.”
Laughing, she handed me three photos and sent me on my way. I didn’t want to leave but my time was up, and I had to get back to Cole. It was almost five-fifteen and he’d be home soon.
It was a race to get back, and that sent a thrill down my spine.
It was me who pulled into the driveway first, but he would be right behind me. I let myself in and headed straight to the kitchen, brushing our booth on my way to the fridge. Of course, that was in our home. Everyone thought we were crazy, but it was a big part of us. It wasn’t the prettiest piece of furniture we had. It was still my favourite.
Plus, we could do things on it that we’d never been able to when it was in the café.
I grabbed Cole a beer from the fridge, and a water for me. No more wine until my baby was in my arms.
While I waited for him, I placed an order at our favourite Italian restaurant. Tonight called for authentic pizza and pasta.
I’d get some veggies on the pizza—give the baby something healthy.
