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. “Maybe it 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 other reason. 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’s mid-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 paper into 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. But both 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,” the woman 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 pulls up 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?”
“Yes,” Corabelle says. “And our last baby had hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Will you be able to tell if this one does?”
“Definitely,” she says. “It will already have presented. Did it get caught early last time?”
“No,” Corabelle says. “Not until birth.”
“We’ll take a good long look,” Shelly says.
This makes me wonder why Finn’s sonographer hadn’t taken a good long look. But Corabelle said at the time that many heart defects weren’t found until birth. It was past.
But now, it’s present.
Corabelle’s grip on my hand becomes a tight squeeze as Shelly starts moving the paddle over the gel. The blips onscreen are a blur of movement at first, then they lock in.
I’m getting better at seeing stuff. The baby is more clearly a baby now. I can see the head and the body and bent legs. Even the cord is obvious, sticking up out of the belly.
The pulse of the heart is evident in the shifting dots. Corabelle lets go of me unexpectedly and covers her eyes.
“We’re fine,” I say to her. “It’s fine.”
Shelly doesn’t speak for a while, and the seconds tick away like a bomb about to go off. I look at Corabelle, who is concentrating on breathing, her arm over her face. Her chest rises and falls in a deliberate pace. Maybe she’s trying not to throw up.
I hold on to her arm.
“So the size is spot on,” Shelly says. “Sorry to be quiet. I wanted to be able to speak when it was time to say everything. Here is the length and it’s coming out to sixteen weeks, two days. So perfect. And head is fifteen four and femur is sixteen four. All in good range. Might mean he’s tall.”
“He?” I ask quickly.
She nods. “Yes, it’s a he.” She moves the paddle around. “Boy parts!”
“Another boy, Corabelle,” I say.
She moves her arm. “Please tell us about the heart.”
“Definitely no hypoplastic heart,” she says. She zooms in on the pulsing dots and freezes the screen. “Here is the left side and here is the right. All properly sized.”
“But…” Corabelle says.
“I’m going to keep a watch right here,” she says. She rolls the arrow over the top of the baby’s heart chambers. “There’s a hole here that is perfectly expected, one that will close at birth.”
“But…” Corabelle says again.
“There’s a flap that should come over it when it’s time. I’m not seeing it. It’s too early to tell anything, and he’s probably going to be just fine. But with the history, I want to keep watch.”
The woman saves the screen and pulls the paddle away.
Corabelle’s voice is tense. “And if it’s not fine?”
“Most likely, we give the baby a drug shortly after birth to close the hole. If not, it’s a small procedure where we go up through the groin. Nothing open heart. Nothing major. Nothing life threatening in any way. Often we wait until they are two. And that’s worst case. Most likely this is going to close up on its own.”
Corabelle covers her eyes again. I can see tears soaking another pillow.
“Listen to her,” I say gently. “It’s going to be fine. He’s fine.”
She tries to nod beneath her arm. Shelly wipes Corabelle’s belly with the paper and tosses it in the trash.
I help her sit up.
“We’re right here,” Shelly says. “We’ll do another sonogram early in the third trimester and see how he’s progressed. I’m betting it will be all closed up and fine.”
Corabelle doesn’t say anything. I help her off the exam table.
I should probably be worried about this little blip with the baby, but right now taking care of Corabelle is about all I can do.