Page 54 of Forever Christmas
Chapter 20: Gavin
This sonogram isn’t in Dr. Jamison’s normal office. When we check in, Corabelle and I are herded to another part of the building.
“We’re going to radiology,” Corabelle whispers. Her face is white and she clutches the pillow I gave her. “Some stranger will look!”
I look at the paper I was handed. “It says Level II sonogram on here,” I say. “Maybeit requires a higher-level tech.”
Corabelle’s face is pinched and red, like she’s going to cry any second. I’m not any happier with this turn of events than she is, but we don’t have a choice.
We enter the radiology wing and I turn our paper in to the woman at the desk. We sit in a small waiting area with a couple women with bulging bellies, and a few others who must be coming in for some otherreason. Many are my mom’s age.
The wait is terrible. Corabelle has this glazed look, like she’s trying to forget where she is and what is coming. She manages not to throw up or anything bad, though. I’ve secretly been folding up little trash bags and keeping them in my pocket to be prepared.
I haven’t told her this, but in the time we’ve lived together, I’ve checked on the trash bags regularly.We never talked about it, but one time, when she was in the hospital with pneumonia, I went to her apartment to take out her trash and discovered a secret of hers.
She poked holes in the bottom of all her trash bags.
I have no idea why, if she has some thing about a kid getting in there and suffocating, or what. The weird thing is, when kids DID start coming around, after we lived together,and Jenny had her baby, and Rose sent Manuel to visit, she stopped doing it.
Now is not the time to ask about it, though.
The other pregnant women have gone back, so I figure we’re up next. At least one has come out with a printout, on the phone telling someone she is having a boy.
“Corabelle?” a voice announces.
We both look up. It’s a different person than has called any of the others. She’smid-forties with short black hair tipped in purple.
“Ready?” she asks.
I take Corabelle’s hand. She hangs on to the pillow and we follow the woman through a hall and into a small semi-dark room.
“Just hop up here,” the woman says.
I take the pillow from Corabelle as she settles on the exam table. The woman arranges Corabelle’s pants and shirt to expose her belly, tucking some protective paperinto the jeans so they don’t get gel on them.
This view of her aligns completely with the one sonogram we had of Finn. We didn’t get the early one. I guess her old doctor didn’t do that. There was just the one, around this time, to check on him and determine that he was a boy.
We want to know the gender. Corabelle’s friend Jenny made a big deal about not finding out until the baby arrived. Butboth Corabelle and Tina took the approach of wanting to know as much as possible as soon as possible. Maybe that’s part of dealing with losing your first kid.
I don’t know that I hope for either thing. I have pictured a little girl many times since I first imagined her. But a boy is fine too. Just a healthy heart. All we ask for is a healthy heart.
“The radiologist will be in very soon,” thewoman says. She arranges the stool, the machine, and the squeeze bottle of gel in its warmer. Then she leaves.
“There’s no baby pictures in here,” Corabelle says.
“Too dark, maybe?” I say.
“Or it’s a room where they don’t want to upset the patients,” she says.
I can’t imagine they would have a dedicated room for women whose babies might have something wrong with them, or die. But who knows?I’m not going to argue with Corabelle, not now. That’s for sure.
After a quick knock, the door opens and a different woman comes in. “I’m Shelly,” she says, shaking both our hands.
She has short curly hair and reminds me of Tina. I guess to differentiate between her and the assistants, she has a white coat on over her scrubs.
Shelly sits on the stool. “So you’re sixteen weeks, I see.” She pullsup a screen and types a few strokes. Corabelle’s name and information comes up in the corner.
She picks up the gel and shakes it, then leans to squirt some on Corabelle’s stomach. “We’ll be doing the standard measurements,” she says. “Length, head, femur, belly. We’ll look at the nuchal fold to rule out Down Syndrome. And we’ll take a look at the baby’s heart. Do you want to know the gender?”
