Before I can say anything else, Sarah returns with Dr. Julian on her heels. She nods a quick hello and settles onto the stool, getting straight to business. Instead of using the images Sarah froze, she takes the wand in her own hand and maneuvers it until she finds a satisfactory view. Both Sarah and the doctor study the new image. Sarah’s face creases with worry and she glances at her boss, clearly afraid she’s made a mistake. A pang of guilt hits me, but I brush it aside. I’ll apologize after I know my baby is okay.
“Nice, strong heartbeat,” Dr. Julian says, digging the probe into my stomach at an angle. “There you go,” she says, motioning toward the screen. I squint in that direction, my brain acknowledging what I’m seeing but failing to make the right connections. “This is definitely a girl,” she says, shaking her head. She clicks a few buttons and zooms in. An image of between our baby girl’s legs looms above us.
“You’re having a baby girl,” she confirms, her voice clear, with no note of hesitation.
“How?” Owen asks. I’m thankful he finds his voice, since my own is lost somewhere.
Dr. Julian chuckles. “Well, for one thing, she’s missing some vital pieces that would make her a boy.”
“We know the difference between a girl and boy,” I say, harsher than I intend. I swallow and force myself to relax, although I’m hardly in the mood for joking. I don’t understand why the doctor isn’t more concerned about this sudden turn of events. “The blood test came back weeks ago, and we were told we were having a boy,” I say, hoping the hysteria inside isn’t leaking through my voice yet. “The blood test is ninety-nine percent accurate or something. Is something wrong with the baby? Has he not developed?” Trying to imagine what could cause the discrepancy between the two tests only makes my mind spiral outward, each reason worse than the last.
Dr. Julian wheels the stool toward the foot of the exam chair and rests her palms on her knees as the nurse hands me a towel to wipe my belly.
“I’m sure you’re both a little confused, especially since I was the one who told you the blood test was the most reliable,” she begins, pushing her glasses up her nose with a finger. “Usually that’s the case. However, there are some special instances we don’t account for because they’re so rare. They are anomalies, if you will.”
Owen leans forward on the edge of his seat. I lean back, waiting for the bad news to drop. Anomaly. Not the word I want associated with my baby. Sarah said the baby looked healthy and strong, with a good heartbeat and normal growth. I try to fixate on the positive aspects of this visit. So what if there’s some confusion about the sex if it’s growing and alive? I steel myself for the giant BUT I’ve been waiting for since the start of the appointment. Your baby is healthy BUT. Everything is okay, BUT …
“The blood test doesn’t quantify the amount of Y chromosome in the mother’s blood, only detects the presence of the chromosome. A mother will have zero detection of Y chromosome in her blood stream if the fetus is female. If there’s any Y present, the fetus is determined to be male. This is true for all basic cases,” she says, speaking slowly and as simply as possible. I wish she would get to it. Even Owen knows boys have an X and Y while girls have two Xs. “Cassidy, your blood test came back male because it picked up some amount of Y chromosome in your blood,” she said. I open my mouth to interrupt, but she stops me by holding up her finger. “However, I suspect the test picked up residual Y chromosome left in your body from your previous pregnancy.”
I rack my brain for any instances of this happening in my experience, but veterinarians don’t test for gender in horses. Our patients tend not to ask whether they are having a filly or colt. Nowhere in any of the baby forums have I read about this happening, although I’ve never looked for such specific cases. It never occurred to me I’d need to.
“How is that possible?” I ask.
“Studies have shown the genetic makeup of a fetus can last quite some time in the tissues of the mother. Some might argue that a mother is forever altered with every child she carries,” she says, clearly getting into her own argument. “Your miscarriage was only a few months ago, and it’s been shown that residual markers of pregnancy might be testable in a mother’s blood for up to a year after birth.” Or after loss, I think. “Since the test doesn’t quantify how much Y material is in the blood, it could be a trace amount and still register as positive for a male fetus.”
Letting the information sink in, I turn to face Owen, who’s staring at the doctor with a slightly dumbfounded expression. Our baby is fine. Our baby girl is perfectly healthy, and that’s all that matters. I squeeze Owen’s shoulder, and he gives me a hesitant smile as he tries to digest the new information. I should be thrilled that everything is okay, but the results of the blood test linger. My baby son refuses to let go. Even as his sister grows in my belly, he persists. My heart tightens with the all-too-familiar twinge of grief. I want to feel joy, but sadness drifts into its rightful place.
“A girl,” Owen murmurs. For months we’ve been imagining our life with a little boy, a mini Owen. Not once have we considered what it might be like with a daughter. “I always wanted a little girl,” he says, a smile spreading across his face as his voice cracks. His eyes fill with tears and my own follow suit.
“Me too,” I admit, turning to study the monitor again.
“We’ll leave you guys for a few minutes.” Sarah retreats and Dr. Julian pauses in the doorway, “Come by my office before you go.”
We sit in silence, staring at the images of our baby girl.
“Crazy,” I say, shaking my head. “What are the odds we would be the one percent whose blood test was wrong?”
Owen shrugs. “I always knew we were special,” he says, his wet eyes twinkling. “It’s kind of awesome, actually,” he says. “He’s still a part of you. Maybe he’ll always be part of you.”
These moments remind me why I love this man so fiercely. His innocence and ability to see the good in everything is never-ending, no matter how much tragedy we suffer. Our son will be part of me forever; I don’t need a blood test to tell me this. He burrowed straight through my tissues, past my marrow, and into my soul. Owen is staring at me with pure love and adoration, and it should be easy to simply bask in his loving glow. But a voice from deep inside refuses to be silenced. It’s the same voice I tried to ignore weeks ago when we first found out we were having a son and I felt a sting of disappointment, afraid of a “replacement” son. That voice mocks me now. Are you happy now? it taunts. Owen wraps his arms around me, and I lean into his tender embrace, hoping it might help ease the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. All I want is to celebrate the baby girl we’re having and to honor the baby boy who will always be with us. The voice quiets, but I know it’s not done with me. It’ll sing me to sleep later, the familiar song of guilt and loss, making sure I don’t forget the words.
♦ 38 ♦
CLAIRE
After
February 19
I HOVER THE CURSOR above the join discussion button but don’t press it. My fingers are paralyzed by fear, unable to do the simplest of actions. Click. Reality looms around me. I’m a twenty-nine-year-old stay-at-home mom. It’s been almost ten years since I was a student. In another lifetime I had a promising career as a marketing executive, but I made the conscious choice to raise my children instead. I don’t regret my decision. I’d choose it again and again. So what the hell am I doing? I take a sip of my Chardonnay, wondering if it’s too late to back out now. It’s just an online workshop, a six-week introductory course. It’s hardly anything, but it feels like everything.
I’ve always enjoyed writing. In college, I yearned to major in English literature but recognized such a degree had limited career prospects. Also, I was more interested in writing creatively than reading others’ work, so I knew I’d need to follow up my bachelor’s with an MFA. But even an advanced degree didn’t guarantee a paying job. In the end, I settled on marketing. This gave me an outlet for my creative en
ergy, and my love of words came in handy for the ad copy I produced. It wasn’t the same as writing poetry or prose, but it would pay the bills.
For years I’ve kept a journal, filled mostly with my experiences of motherhood, since I’ve dedicated most of my adult life to this task. But I’ve also jotted down my hopes and dreams and sketched the world around me with my words. Under my bed is a stack of beautifully bound notebooks filled edge to edge with my musings, each meticulously labeled and stored in chronological order. Lately, the pages call to me more often. They compel my hand to record my daydreams, stories that feel real for all the time I spend thinking of them. Stories about mothers and daughters and friendship and heartache. Stories with characters that could be me or anyone at all. These stories twirl in my head as I drift to sleep. My eyes snap open at two in the morning as a piece of dialogue or description comes to mind, and in a sleepy haze I jot down a few notes in the journal I always keep on my nightstand. One morning Steve asked why I was so tired, so I told him about my nocturnal scribbles. He suggested I write a book. Like it’s that easy.
I’m no author. I’m hardly a writer at all. I keep a diary, like so many others in the world. Recording my thoughts isn’t real writing. Writing a book is laughable, so I pushed it out of my mind at the time. But the idea keeps coming back, as though this story is trying to burst forth from me. Even my phone’s notepad is filled with tidbits of prose, and I’ve outlined an entire novel in my head. Since Steve put the notion out into the universe, I’ve been writing in secret, stashing my notebook in my purse and stealing away to write in solitude, never easy in a houseful of needy boys.
Aloof though he may be, Steve noticed. Usually we exchange small gifts on Valentine’s Day. Nothing extravagant, just a little something to honor the day and honor our love. Last year it was perfume and concert tickets. This year my gift was a piece of paper folded into a card, a printout of a six-week creative fiction course he’d enrolled me in. To say I was surprised is an understatement. Surprised, giddy, terrified. It’s the best present he’s ever gotten me.
Day one of the course and I’m frozen in place. All that stands between me and an exciting adventure is one little click. My notes are spread on the desk beside my laptop. A half-completed outline is open in a Word document. I’m eager to take the leap but scared to fall. Who do I think I am?
Writing a novel is an outrageous goal for a woman like me. I have no experience, no training, and no time. My calendar is booked. One look at my giant whiteboard and that much is clear. When would I write this book—in between making breakfast and story time at the library? Maybe after baseball practice or while the boys do their homework? My life is busy and full and satisfying. I feel greedy for wanting—needing—more.
Maybe this is how Mom felt. Her desire to create was so great that she couldn’t focus on anything else in her life. Cassidy and I blocked her potential, squandered her talent. She painted, but not in the way she wanted, not with two kids and a house to run. Will that be my fate? Will I write, but not the way I want to write, and end up bitter with nothing to show for it? I long to talk to Cassidy but fear she’ll only see this as one more way I’m like our mother. She’s always questioned my decision to stay at home and hinted I should get back out in the working world. I doubt she’d qualify novel writing as real work. I could talk to Mom, but what’s the point? Maybe she’d be proud, but inevitably it would become about her. For once, I want it to be about me.
I take another sip of wine. Maybe a blog would be better. A mommy blog. That way I could write about things I have some authority to speak on. Share my tips and tricks for raising three boys. How to host a great Christmas Eve dinner. How to find time to exercise and get your prepregnancy bod back. I can think of a hundred different topics, and none of them excites me. Plus, I’d need a platform and a social media following, neither of which interests me at all. No, I don’t want to be a mommy blogger. I want to be a writer.
Closing my eyes, I click. I know I’m only entering a discussion, but I feel like I’m entering a whole new phase of my life.
♦ 39 ♦
CASSIDY
After
April 1
MY PHONE BUZZES ON the nightstand, jolting me from a deep and dreamless sleep. Desperate to quiet the incessant hum, I nearly knock my reading lamp over before finally grasping it in my palm. It continues to vibrate as I fumble with my sleepy thumb and swipe the angry red answer command. Owen barely stirs next to me, and I’m thankful he’s such a sound sleeper.
It’s 2:10 AM. The witching hour. It can only be an emergency at this ungodly hour. The familiar thrum of adrenaline surges through my body as my senses quicken and I go from sleep to alert at once.
“Dr. Morgan,” I say, my voice betraying my exhaustion. I assume this is a veterinary emergency, not some other type.
“Sorry to call so late, Doc,” the soft but steely voice of Cindy Lombardo drawls across the phone line. “I think Kitty is having a wee bit of a hard time tonight. Seems like this foal might make its entrance a little early,” she says. If Cindy weren’t such an experienced horsewoman, I might ask a few simple questions to ensure the mare was actually in labor. But this isn’t her first rodeo, so to speak, and she wouldn’t call unless there was a problem.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I’m tilted off-balance by the weight of my belly. It seems to have popped overnight. I’m still getting used to my unfamiliar shape, the roundness both pleasing and annoying. At times like this I wish for my normally lithe frame back, and I fumble in my drawer for a pair of pants with enough stretch to accommodate the bump. Shopping for maternity clothes is on my list of things to do, but like most things not work related, it’s low on the totem pole.
Holding the phone to my shoulder with my cheek, I whisper, “I’ll be there in twenty,” before dropping it to the vanity. Thankfully, my body responds to the call like it always does, and my synapses continue to fire wildly, erasing any remnants of sleep. My eyes adjust to the darkness, and I pull out a pair of worn jeans and shirt using the thin stream of moonlight illuminating the room. Owen rolls over and sighs but doesn’t wake.
I tug my jeans up over my hips, bouncing up and down on the cold wooden floor in my bare feet. The jeans are at least an inch away from buttoning, no matter how hard I pull across my waist. Awesome, I think, letting out a frustrated breath. I pull an oversized sweater over my shirt and hope it covers my hips.
“The mare is having the baby,” I murmur, reaching across the bed and brushing a dry kiss against Owen’s cool cheek. “Be back soon, I hope.”
He rustles against my touch and cracks an eye open. “Good luck. I love you.”
I tiptoe out of the room, my heart thrumming with anxiety and excitement.
* * *
Dr. Ford is away this weekend, so I’m the only vet on call for overnight emergencies. He was hesitant to leave me alone in my “delicate condition,” but I assured him (all the while rolling my eyes) I could handle three nights alone, even in such a fragile state. As exhausting as on-call shifts can be, some of my favorite memories come from such midnight adventures.
Delivering a foal is exciting no matter what time of day, but twilight deliveries are always special. Often I’m called to a barn only to find a perfectly healthy filly or colt being cared for by a perfectly happy mare. Horses gave birth without medical intervention for thousands of years and are as capable today as they were then. Horse owners, on the other hand, prefer the presence of a medical professional to ease their own minds. As I pull into the Lombardos’ farm, I fear this might be one of the few cases where I’m actually needed.
The clock on the dash glows green in the dark: 2:45 AM. I grab my foaling bag and head toward the barn, a beacon of light in the otherwise black setting.
“It’s too soon,” Joe says from inside the mare’s stall as soon as I walk in. “She still has a few weeks.” His shoulders fall as his eyes trail back to Kitty, who’s lying in the center of the stall
atop a fluffy pile of new stray, her big belly heaving. I note that her breaths are shallow and labored.
The mare’s eyes roll back in her head as I enter the stall, the whites clearly visible as her natural instinct to view me as a predator and threat to herself and her baby are overridden by hundreds of years of domestication.
Foal birth in the wild is a much different experience. The stallion and the herd stand guard around the laboring mother to protect them against danger. It’s the mare’s job to deliver the foal quickly and efficiently. The longer the mare and foal lie on the ground, the longer the entire herd is vulnerable to attack. Once the foal is born, it’s on its feet within thirty minutes and nursing not long after. Hundreds of years of instincts were put to the test when horses were placed in stalls to give birth, often surrounded by the strange two-legged creatures who resemble predators.
“It’s okay, mama,” I say, my voice calm and soothing. The mare tries in vain to lift her head from the floor but drops it as I crouch and reach my hand out to steady her shoulder. “How are you doing, Kitty?” I pet her sweaty neck with one hand and place my thumb and forefinger under her jaw to take her pulse. “You remember me, don’t you?” The mare sniffs my palm with her soft muzzle. Sensing I’m not a threat, she relaxes her shoulders back into her bed of straw. I quickly flip up her top lip and note the mare’s dry, white gums, a clear sign of dehydration. I wonder how long the mare was laboring before Cindy called. The barn is outfitted with top-of-the-line monitoring technology, but most horsemen won’t interfere until absolutely necessary.
What We Carry Page 24