Dr. Keller pushed back her tray of tools that sat between us and wheeled herself closer to the table and to me. “Before your mom comes back in, I’d like to talk a little bit more about your sexual history. I know it’s not an easy topic to talk about, especially as a teenager, and I didn’t want your mother’s presence affecting your ability to tell me everything. I’m your doctor, Mina, and you can rest assured that everything you tell me is entirely confidential. Because you’re a minor, I legally should have a father’s name to fill in our forms.” Her clear gray eyes were locked on me, sympathetic and sensitive, but still determined.
“I wasn’t lying to you earlier, Dr. Keller,” I said, speaking slowly to keep my voice steady and strong. “I haven’t had sex. I don’t know why this is happening to me.”
She opened her mouth to respond, paused in a silent O, and then closed her mouth and pursed her lips. “Mina,” she started again, “when I was examining you, I did find that your hymen wasn’t intact. Now, that in and of itself can’t confirm whether someone is a virgin. Tampons and certain physical activities can cause the hymen to tear long before sexual intercourse. But you are pregnant, Mina. I can confirm that.” She shifted on her stool, crossing and uncrossing her legs.
“I understand that you may be having some difficulty accepting the situation. It’s not out of the question for people to deny what’s happening to their bodies, especially if the circumstances leading to your pregnancy were . . . difficult or upsetting.” I could see her hands fidgeting on her lap, and I watched as she spun her pen in circles like a miniature baton. I wanted to help her, wanted to somehow put her mind at ease, but I couldn’t tell her any of the things that as a doctor she needed to hear. “Are you in a monogamous relationship currently, Mina?”
“Yes, I have been for two years.”
“Heterosexual or homosexual?”
“Heterosexual.”
“And have there been any instances of abuse, physical or verbal?”
“No! Absolutely not.” My hands squeezed around the sides of the table. She was just doing her job. She was just trying to help. “Nothing like that at all. We’re very happy and healthy. We’re a normal teenage couple.”
We were happy and healthy, I thought, correcting myself, my stomach turning over at the realization. We were a normal couple. Were. I didn’t know what we would be anymore, if we’d be anything at all. I had avoided two more calls from Nate that morning, and I’d sent a single text back saying I was still too sick to really talk. It was a pathetic excuse, and if he wasn’t so busy at the conference, he would have questioned me more. But I couldn’t put him off for much longer, especially since he was getting back from DC that afternoon. We still had an anniversary to celebrate. I had a present for him, wrapped and waiting on my desk, a watch he’d been admiring at the mall over the summer. I’d spent so many shifts’ worth of money on that watch; we couldn’t break up now. The reasoning was so silly, so meaningless, that I almost laughed, but I made myself refocus on Dr. Keller and her sharp, curious eyes that seemed to be recording everything about me.
“Are there any problems at home?” she asked. “Any history of physical or verbal abuse that you want to talk about?”
Jamie shuffled her feet, and her shoes squeaked against the tile floor, breaking my attention. I’d forgotten that she was there, too, that it wasn’t just Dr. Keller who was privy to every last intimate detail of my body and my life.
I looked back at Dr. Keller, my eyes pleading with her to believe me. “No. My family life is amazing. My parents would never in a million years hurt each other or me or my sister. I’m not lying to you, Dr. Keller. I’m not. But I can’t expect you to accept that.”
Dr. Keller sighed, a resigned exhale. “Mina . . . I won’t ask you any more questions right now, because I think you need a little time and space to think this through. You’ve been hit with what I’d assume is a major shock, and we all need time to process these sorts of experiences. We all come to accept things at our own speed and in our own ways.”
I nodded to appease her.
“But I am going to recommend that you talk to someone about this, Mina. Someone who’s not a family member or a friend. Someone with experience who can help you to start sorting things out. I’m going to pass your name along to a counselor who works with a lot of other teens who have gone through the sorts of decisions and circumstances you’re facing. I think it’d be incredibly helpful for you to talk some of this through with a professional.”
I nodded again, though I doubted that I’d actually talk to anyone. I barely had the energy to convince myself that this was real, let alone a complete stranger who would be dead set on helping me to see otherwise—dead set on helping me to see a truth that wasn’t actually true.
“Now, in terms of next steps, we first need to determine how far along you are. Can you remember when you had your last period?”
I thought back, squinting as I combed through my memories to the beginning of the summer. “End of May, early June, I think. Somewhere around then.” Hannah’s parents had just opened her pool, and I’d had to slip one of her mom’s tampons from the bathroom cabinet.
“All right,” Dr. Keller said, jotting down some notes on my patient sheet. “That means you could be as far as twelve or thirteen weeks in, near the beginning of your second trimester. The baby would be due in early March in that case, but the ultrasound will give us a better sense of more precise dates. You still have some time, Mina—you still have options in terms of how you handle this pregnancy. Do you want to discuss abortion now? I’m here to answer any questions you might have, any questions at all. I can give you information about adoption resources, too, of course.”
“No,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “I don’t have any questions about that. Not right now.”
“Mina, I really think you . . .” she started, but decided against whatever was next. Instead she just nodded, looking away from me for the first time since she’d sat down. “Unless you have anything else you’d like to talk about first, I’ll have Jamie call your mom back in. But only if that’s what you feel most comfortable with.”
“Yes, definitely,” I said. “I want her in here with me.”
The sight of my mom reemerging a few seconds later was more of a relief than I would have expected. I hadn’t realized just how much braver I felt when she was close to me.
While Dr. Keller and Jamie tinkered with a machine mounted on a cart in the corner, my mom and I hugged—a tight, desperate hug. I pulled back when Dr. Keller started wheeling over the ultrasound equipment, a computer screen and keypad with coils of cords and plugs and attachments hanging from the side.
My mom helped me settle into a prone position on the table, my feet propped back up in the stirrups. I closed my eyes as Dr. Keller ran a small device back and forth over my bare stomach, opening them only when she said that she wanted to try a transvaginal ultrasound, too. She showed me the probe she’d be using—a bizarrely penislike stick covered in a condom and gel. I’d be losing my virginity to a machine. I almost laughed out loud at the thought, a deranged, crazy-lady laugh that I just barely stopped from reaching my lips. I squeezed my mom’s wrist with one hand and grabbed the metal table rail with the other as the probe entered, pushing farther and farther in, making my body feel less and less like my own.
After a few tense seconds I heard a beep from the monitor and looked up as the screen came to life. I couldn’t see much of anything at first, just darkness with a few hazy, wavy clumps.
“We should be able to detect the heartbeat in just a moment with the Doppler fetal monitor,” Dr. Keller said, tapping at the keypad as she kept her eyes on the screen.