Page 17 of A Pact for Porter

I was pregnant, and as thrilled as I was, I felt miserable. The midwife said we could wait for our prenatal appointment until we hit the second trimester. I could not. This morning sickness was horrific.

I’d managed to get my work done, but only with many trips to the restroom, thanks to my stomach that rebelled at pretty much every food product except toast. At this rate I was going to birth a loaf of bread. I knew morning sickness came with pregnancy. No part of me expected pregnancy to be easy. My body was growing a whole-ass baby.

The problem was less the puking and more the worry that it was a sign that something was wrong. Everything on Google MD said morning sickness was a good sign. And I was sure it was. But in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, what if this was an indicator that there was a problem?

The midwife set us up with a doctor near where I was finishing up my project, since she was located by the townhouse. I was so appreciative of the way she listened to me and helped me find someone. My mate was commuting back and forth on the weekends with the idea that once this project was over, we’d live in the townhouse for at least the rest of the pregnancy.

I filled out gobs and gobs of paperwork online, and then when I got to the office, they gave me gobs and gobs more. They knew more about me than my mate did. Not really, but it sure felt that way. Also, why did I have to answer the same question on four different sheets? Couldn’t they consolidate? Maybe it was for the best they hadn’t because by the time I got done, we were being called back to the exam room.

“Well, hello, Dads. It says here you wanted an appointment before your twelve weeks because you have some concerns?”

“I did,” I said. “I’ve not been keeping food down, and I just want some reassurance.”

“Well, the best way you can have reassurance is by seeing your baby.” He went on to explain that the machine he had wasn’t the same caliber as the one we’d have for our anatomy scan at twenty weeks. He said it would work for a screening to see if anything was wrong and let us know if we needed a more in-depth ultrasound, but also for my reassurance.

He had me lie back on the exam table and pull up my shirt. I was barely pregnant, dates-wise, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at my belly. It had grown to the point where I now hated wearing my jeans. At first, I was self-conscious about how it grew, but my mate couldn’t get enough of it. So, if he wasn’t mad at it, I couldn’t be either.

The doctor coated my belly with a gel that was far too cold and then ran the monitor over it. We heard a lot of huhs and a bunch of clicks, but not much else, until he turned to us.

“So, I found out why you’ve been so pukey.” He looked at me with a smile. That was a good sign. At least I took it as one.

“Because I’m pregnant?” I sassed back.

“Exactly.” It wasn’t the answer I expected, but it worked. “Would you like to count how many?”

“One.” I held up my finger. “There’s one. You don’t need to count one. It just is.”

My mate grabbed my hand and held it tight.

“There’s a little more than one,” the doctor said, pressing the wand to my belly. “Here’s baby number one, baby number two, baby number three, baby number four, and baby number five.”

“That’s not one, Doctor.” Five. Had he really said I was growing five whole babies. How was that possible?

“No. It’s not one.” He chuckled. “Congratulations. You’re going to have five little ones soon.”

“Is my body built for that?” How could I possibly carry five babies? It might be the norm for my beast, but he wasn’t doing the heavy lifting here. I was.

“Of course, although I’m going to have you take some extra vitamins.” He scribbled on a piece of paper. “You’re looking great, but let’s do some blood tests and monitor you.”

“Because five won’t fit?” Fair to say his words hadn’t comforted me the way I needed.

“No. Because you need your nutrients. If you can’t keep food down, we might have to help you with that.”

My mate looked like he had just hit the lottery, but I was scared. So very scared. I held his hand the entire way home.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, and he hugged me close.

“Of course, you can. It wouldn’t happen to you like that if you couldn’t.” That sounded like some bullshit right there, but I wasn’t going to argue. Pivot, though? Absolutely.

“Well, one good thing came out of this,” I teased.

My mate said, “Nope. Five good things.” He sat down and pulled me onto his lap. “But tell me, what is the good thing?”

“Our decision for us is made. We can’t stay in the townhouse. There’s barely enough room for us and one baby.”

“That’s true,” he didn’t argue. “I’ll put it on the market tomorrow, and we can start looking.”

It was weird. We’d just found out we were having five babies, and we were talking about houses and the criteria we wanted to establish for our new home. But, also, that was easy to solve. We knew we needed a certain number of bedrooms, a certain amount of space, to be within moving distance of his job—that kind of thing. If only all decisions could be that easy. Pretty soon, we were going to be making decisions on birth plans and preschools and colleges. And, yeah, I was getting ahead of myself, but it was true. Everything comes at you at once.