I exhale a breath I wasn’t aware of holding. Maybe I just needed for him to tell me everything will be okay. Maybe I just needed for him to feel like everything will be okay. Whatever the reason, the tension in my muscles relaxes, and I sink further into the mattress.
Eventually, a tech comes to take me for an ultrasound. Then, when I arrive back in my room, it’s only a matter of minutes before Dr. Stephens walks in to give me the results.
“Looks like placenta previa,” she announces. “But it’s nothing that I believe you need to stay here to treat, nothing that severe. Bed rest. Stay off your feet as much as you can. No exercise. No sex.” She says the last with a playful amount of emphasis as she turns a warning eye toward Nate. “I can talk to Mr. Li. He’s made house calls before. I’m confident he’ll work with you at home so you don’t have to come out so frequently.” Mr. Li is the Chinese medicine man I’ve been seeing for herbal remedies and acupuncture.
The doctor goes on to give me a follow-up appointment date and a few other common sense instructions like no baths or douches, nothing in the vagina. No straining, be careful of falls, that sort of thing. Basically, I’m to treat my body as though it’s made of glass. I don’t think that will be a problem. Nate is already doing it for the most part. And, honestly, I don’t care what I have to agree to; I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep the baby safe.
“But everything is okay? I mean, the baby is going to be okay?”
Dr. Stephens smiles. “I don’t see why she won’t be. Just take it easy. You’re almost there.”
At that point, for the first time since I saw the blood, I fully relax.
********
“You don’t have to carry me, Nate. I can walk into the house, for Pete’s sake.” I resist when Nate sweeps me off my feet after I step out of the car in the garage.
“I like carrying you,” he assures me, swinging us both around as he pushes the car door shut. “It always reminds me of feeding the stingrays in Grand Cayman. Remember that?”
My head is on his shoulder, but I can hear the smile in his voice. “How could I forget? Someone talked me into feeding them, even though I was afraid of getting squid juice on me and getting a stingray hickey. But still, I was dumb enough to do it.”
“The part I talked you into went fine. They warned you not to wipe your hands on any body parts. How was I supposed to know you’d brushed your leg after you fed them?”
“I didn’t mean to do it. It was just sort of habit, I guess. I mean, we were in the water. I just didn’t think about it.”
“Until a big female stingray came up to suck the smell off.”
“Yeah, I sure thought about it then!”
I smile at the memory. I’d gone completely motionless with panic when the stingray swam to my leg and turned its vacuum-like mouth on my skin. It wasn’t really painful; it was more terrifying than anything. At least to me it was. I screamed and tried to get away, but my progress was very slow in the chest-deep saltwater. That had probably only aggravated the situation. But sweet Nate, he’d been so distressed by my upset that, once we got back to shore, he’d carried me all the way to the bus stop and then on to the cruise ship and then the rest of the way to our room when we arrived back at the boat. I wasn’t actually hurt, but he was taking no chances.
After that, we’d made the most of the comical situation, and Nate had offered at every turn to strip me down and wash my leg. “You know, to make sure it doesn’t get infected,” he explained with his sexy, suggestive smile. The skin wasn’t even broken, but I always relented anyway, loving how intimate our trip became after that. We touched and laughed and kissed every few minutes for the rest of the voyage. Despite the hickey, there was no point at which I wasn’t blissfully happy.
That was just before we got married. We were young and energetic, and life was a beautiful mystery that stretched out in front of us like those stunning sunsets on the ocean—to infinity. And beyond.
If someone had told us then where we’d be now, neither of us would’ve believed them. I suppose no one really expects their life to end early or abruptly or painfully. Many fear it, but few actually expect it.
Nate gets me safely inside, and it isn’t until he deposits me in our spacious master bathroom that I feel the tears come. Even though my obstetrician gave me no reason to think that I might lose the baby over this, I feel a deep ache behind my ribs that won’t quite go away. A sense of foreboding pounds at the door of my heart, echoing through my muscles in a fine tremor that ends at my fingertips.
All alone, I shake like my bones are tectonic plates, rubbing together and threatening an earthquake.
When I finally calm, I move to the large dimpled ottoman and sit down, taking my phone from my pocket. With trembling fingers, I set it to video. I take another succession of deep, steadying breaths and wrestle back the sobs that refuse to vacate my throat.
Eventually it works.
A smile into the camera is a totally different story, though.