“So, now let’s see . . . Mina, you’re here for a pregnancy test, is that right?” She looked up at me, her head tilted and her eyes squinted in concern, all evidence of the grin from seconds before wiped from her face.
“Yes,” I said, my voice cracking. I coughed and cleared my throat. “Yes, that’s why I’m here.”
“Well, then, my assistant, Jamie, will be joining us any minute now for the physical exam, and she should have the test results with her from your urine sample. But let’s discuss some of the background first. What symptoms have you had? Why exactly do you think you might be pregnant?”
I mumbled through the list of mystery ailments from the summer—the fatigue, the sore breasts, the aches, the morning sickness—leaving the most obviously significant detail for last. “I also took a boxed pregnancy test over the weekend. Four actually. And they . . . they were all positive. But I figured those tests probably aren’t always accurate?”
“Hm. I see.” She looked away for a second, considering. “Actually, Mina, I have to say, the tests rarely give false positives. False negatives, on the other hand, are more common, but that’s not what we’re worried about today. I suppose there could be other reasons for a false positive . . . There are certain conditions, rare conditions, that can alter your hCG levels and affect a pregnancy reading. But let’s not jump to that conclusion first. Like I said, very rare, and I doubt that’s what we’re looking at here.” She paused to give me a quick polite smile.
“Now, Mina,” she said, plowing ahead, “I notice you left the sexual history section blank, which I’d like to discuss. Do you know who the potential father would be?”
“Uh . . . no. No, I don’t.” My mom erupted into a coughing fit from her seat in the corner, and Dr. Keller glanced over at her, eyebrow raised.
“No!” I yelled, piercing the air, much more emphatic and desperate than I would have liked. “That’s not really what I meant to say, Dr. Keller. I mean, of course I haven’t had multiple partners or anything like that. I haven’t . . . I haven’t . . .” I sputtered, my cheeks flaming. “I haven’t had any partners. Zero.”
My mom and I had discussed this exact question in the car on the way over. We’d decided that it would be better to say I’d had one “sort of” partner, one “sort of” sexual encounter—make up a little lie, at least until we had adequate time for the massive amounts of reflecting necessary to come up with a better, more socially acceptable line.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t do that to myself or to Nate or to whatever crazy, freakish slipup of nature had caused this all in the first place. It just didn’t feel right.
“So you’re saying that you haven’t had sexual intercourse? That you’re still . . . a virgin?” Dr. Keller asked, frowning in confusion.
“Yes? Yes. I am.”
“All right, well, there are risk behaviors that wouldn’t fully qualify as intercourse, but could possibly lead to pregnancy if the male discharge still penetrated the vagina. It’s uncommon, Mina, but is that what you’re suggesting may have happened?”
“No,” I whispered, staring down at my lap. “I didn’t do anything like that, nothing at all.”
“I see. All right,” Dr. Keller said, twirling her stool around to face my mom. “Sallie, I’m sorry, but would you mind waiting in the hall for a bit? I think it’s best I discuss some of this with Mina one-on-one, if you don’t mind.”
My mom nodded, looking startled, and fumbled to pick up the strings of her purse. Just as she stood to leave, the door opened and the assistant stepped back inside. Her bright smile had disappeared, I noticed, and was replaced by an ominous look of total blankness. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I wanted to give you the results.” She held out a single sheet of paper in the air as evidence.
“Oh yes, thanks so much, Jamie,” Dr. Keller said, taking it from her and scanning the details. She looked up at me, then over at my mom, hesitating.
“It’s fine, you can say it in front of her,” I said, steeling myself for the inevitable. My mom walked over to the exam table, clutching my hand as we waited.
Dr. Keller fixed her eyes on me, her lips a careful, practiced straight line. “The test clearly shows that you’re pregnant, Mina.” My mom’s grip tightened around my fingers, and I squeezed back.
“Now, again, there is a small chance that it could be a false positive, so I’ll need to check for a few things during the physical examination, and I’d also like to do an ultrasound today. I want to make sure we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“Whatever you think is best.” I had nothing else to say. I wasn’t surprised by the results—I was more surprised that I wasn’t surprised, really. But I’d known the answer all along, hadn’t I? Probably before Hannah and Izzy had even voiced their suspicions. Some small part of me had known. Some small part of me that I’d refused to acknowledge, not until I had to.
“Sallie,” Dr. Keller said, looking over at my mom. “If you could just step out while I give Mina a routine physical and ask a few questions, I’ll have Jamie come and get you for the ultrasound. It shouldn’t be too long.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said to my mom, tilting my head up to kiss her on the cheek. I hoped that was true.
“I love you, sweetie,” she whispered. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.” She turned and walked out, leaving me alone with Dr. Keller and her doubting eyes.
I tried to detach myself from the room and the doctor and everything that happened next. I breathed in and out while she checked my heart and my lungs, and I leaned back as she kneaded my abdomen. I lifted my right hand, then my left hand after she pulled down the robe for my breast exam. I jolted a few times, her strong mechanical fingers jabbing too hard at my already sore and swollen chest.
“Relax now, Mina,” she said, situating my feet into place in the stirrups, my gown tented over my bent knees. “I’m going to put the speculum in now, and you’re going to feel some pressure. It may feel a little uncomfortable, but it won’t be painful, I promise.” I pinched my eyes shut as hard as they would close, but tears still leaked out, dripping down the sides of my cheeks. I tried to think of happier times, happier places—sitting on the counter in my grandmother’s old kitchen, watching her cook her classic roast beef and mashed potatoes every Sunday afternoon, the sunlight from the window so warm and golden on my face; telling bedtime stories to Gracie, her soft little body propped against mine as she asked for The Lorax over and over and over; reading the first Harry Potter book out loud with Nate, an entire rainy Saturday on the couch passing the book back and forth, chapter by chapter, all the way through.
But the speculum was cold, so cold and so foreign, a piece of metal that didn’t belong in my body. Dr. Keller was talking me through the exam, words like spatula and wand, gonorrhea and chlamydia, standard procedure. She used her gloved fingers next, less intrusive than the speculum, but still strange and unfamiliar, pushing against my cervix, my ovaries, my uterus. The sound of her voice fluttered around the edges of my subconscious, like a radio station coming in and out of service, clear to static, static to clear.
“Mina? Did you hear me? I said you can sit back now and put your legs down. I’m done with this part of the exam.”
I opened my eyes and blinked a few times, readjusting to the present.
“Everything looks normal and healthy,” Dr. Keller continued. “The uterus felt enlarged, which is to be expected. And I did detect that your cervix was softer than it would typically be in a woman who wasn’t pregnant, and there was a bit of a bluish discoloration. This is called Chadwick’s sign, and it’s perfectly normal to find in the first trimester.”