The nurse walks out into the waiting room for the second time since Tinley arrived, and her hand instinctively clutches the armrest of the chair she’s sitting in. Her appointment was scheduled for twenty minutes ago so odds are this woman is about to say her name, but she’s not ready for it. Even though she had the pregnancy confirmed at the hospital when she broke her foot, it’s like being here in the OB’s office is going to make everything official and really real, and that thought is absolutely terrifying.

“Tinley Scott?”

As her name leaves the nurse’s lips, the butterflies in her stomach flap around like crazy and her hand falls down to where she has the very beginning of a growing bump. It’s the moment of truth. She has no idea what this first appointment even entails, but then again, this is all new territory so she doesn’t know what any of these appointments will be about. Something about this being the first one seems important. She gathers up her purse and walks toward the nurse, whose giant smile does nothing to ease her anxiety.

They walk back toward a scale and the nurse makes small talk as they check her weight. After, while getting her blood pressure checked, Tinley realizes she has no idea what the woman asked her or how she answered. The whole thing is completely unreal and she can’t focus on anything other than the fact that a human is currently growing inside of her. When the nurse leaves the room and she’s all alone, the silence becomes deafening. Her heart is pounding, and that’s all she can hear as she slowly undresses the bottom half of her body and sits on the table to wait.

The ticking of the clock on the wall seems to increase in volume as each second passes by. She never understood why there’s so much waiting when you go to a doctor’s office. You make an appointment, and yet they always make you wait in the waiting room for an additional fifteen to thirty minutes minimum after your appointment time. Then when they finally call you back, you do more waiting in the exam room before the doctor shows up. What’s the point of making the schedule in the first place if they aren’t going to follow through with it?

She’s contemplating getting up to just leave when there’s a knock at the door and her doctor pokes her head into the room. She has a huge smile on her face as she pulls the chart away from her chest and opens it up. After a quick glance down, she looks up and asks, “Are you Tinley?”

Tinley can only nod her head, unable to find the words to answer even a simple question. She darts her tongue out to lick her lips, but it doesn’t seem to do much to help her dry mouth.

Her doctor places the chart on the counter and washes her hands while looking over the nurse’s notes. As she slides on a pair of gloves, she turns on the monitor next to Tinley’s head and pulls out what can only be described as a teeny tiny condom. “It’s nice to meet you Tinley. I’m Dr. Laughlin. I’m going to have you lie back on the table and slide your bottom all the way to the end, just like when you have your annual exam.”

She nods her head, follows the doctor’s directions, and asks, “Is this safe for the baby?”

Picking up an alarmingly long wand and putting the condom on it, her doctor chuckles. “Since you’re so early in your pregnancy, we’re going to be doing an internal ultrasound. I assure you it’s perfectly safe for your baby.”

Tinley breathes a small sigh of relief, but she still looks warily at the extremely long device that’s about to be forced up her lady bits. The length alone makes her wonder how it could possibly fit up inside her.

“Just relax.”

She didn’t even realize she was tensing up, but she forces her legs to calm down and releases some of the tension she was holding in. The giant wand is slid into place, and suddenly the room is full of a distorted galloping horse sound. Tinley’s eyes go wide and she feels scared as she asks, “Is everything okay? Is something wrong?”

Dr. Laughlin smiles and nods her head. “Everything is perfect. That’s your baby’s heartbeat that you’re currently hearing.”

Heartbeat? She never even thought about hearing her baby’s heartbeat and this early. She thought maybe she would get a confirmation of pregnancy and then a prescription for prenatal vitamins. But not this. She suddenly feels so in love and connected with her child just listening to the sound from the ultrasound machine. Her child is barely big enough to be considered a person at this point, but she couldn’t imagine not having the child in her life anymore. She’s always laughed off the idea of love at first sight when describing a relationship, but love at first sound when it applies to your own child is one hundred percent true. She loves this baby with her entire heart, and it’s not even born yet.

The rest of the appointment moves quickly as her doctor explains about prenatal vitamins and everything she needs to be doing to ensure her pregnancy progresses the way it should. After making her next appointment, she finds herself sitting in her car, processing everything that just happened. The whole appointment was completely surreal. If anything, she couldn’t help but think about Marek the whole time, how wrong it was that he wasn’t there. She knows telling him is the right thing to do, but the thought of it and the actual doing it are two completely different things.

She feels weak as she types out her message to him. She is the reason they aren’t talking or working on their relationship right now, but it’s hard being apart, especially in moments like these.

The minute she sends the text, she instantly regrets it. She had a quick moment of weakness and she shouldn’t have put those feelings onto Marek.

Tinley places her phone on her lap and her hand gravitates to the very small protruding bump that has popped up. A small tear falls down her face, and she’s left feeling more uncertain than she did a few moments ago. She doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to do this on her own and the thought of that terrifies her, but worse than that, she’s scared of how Marek will react when she finally musters up the courage to tell him the truth. Maybe he won’t feel the same about her anymore and it’ll be the final nail in the coffin of their relationship.

After her appointment, she took a detour at a small and very expensive baby boutique. She passes it every single time she drives to work, and she’s always thought it looked absolutely adorable. When she stepped foot inside, her suspicions were confirmed, but what she wasn’t ready for was the sticker shock. Do people really pay five hundred dollars for a diaper bag? She’s always heard people say babies are expensive, but that’s just ridiculous.

Her sister does have a pretty valid point. The most walking Tinley ever does is from the couch to the bathroom or kitchen. Just the thought of putting on pants and going outside to walk sounds awful, and those people who run for enjoyment? They sound like fucking masochists. No thank you.

Well, that was really subtle. Tinley knows she needs to tell him, she just hasn’t done it yet. Really there could be only one of two reactions from Marek: he gets upset and chooses to leave her to take care of their child on her own, or he mans up and they figure things out together. She doesn’t anticipate that he would completely ditch her, but she also doesn’t want him to just step up out of obligation. She wants him to want both her and their baby.

She knows her sister means well, but the added pressure isn’t helping one bit. If anything, it just gives her even more apprehension.

If there’s one thing she knows for sure, it’s that she needs to tell Marek about her pregnancy. She can’t start buying stuff for this baby and going to all of these appointments and leave him out of it. They might not be squared away on where their relationship stands, but he is still the father of her baby. Now she has to worry about how he’s going to handle it. He might already be a father, but that doesn’t mean he wants more children, and the fact that he might not want to have anything to do with their unborn child scares her more than the uncertain state of their relationship. What if he decides he doesn’t want to have anything to do with either of them?