Still

Note: This story contains content that might be sensitive to some readers (the loss of a child).

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

A simple sound, replaying in my head. I couldn't understand it the way I expected, the way mothers do. A real life just floating inside me, and a heartbeat that fills my head like something impossible, but really rather ordinary.

"He's strong, right on track." The midwife told me, smiling and watching the glowing monitor. I laughed, and almost cried a little. Stared at the screen and for the first time realized, he was real.

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So now, sitting on the cold, blue chair in the waiting room, I watched many other mothers leave their scans in the same euphoria I had been left with a few days ago.

I had been told to stay after today's routine checkup, which was normal.

I had been watching the receptionist for some time. The way he worked, the blue scrubs he was wearing. His smile for patients, versus the smile he gave his coworkers. The lunch that sat untouched next to him as he continued to type away at something that seemed important. He stopped typing for a few moments, started reading, and then his expression changed.

When he addressed me, I noticed something on his face unlike the faces people had been giving me for the months leading up to now. He didn't put on his smile for patients. He looked down at his computer screen and smiled in the way that doesn't reach your eyes. He had gone quiet, then forced out,

"Ma'am, I need to get the doctor but I'll be with you shortly."

He stood up, leaving me in the busy room. Three magazines laid out on the table, untouched but fitting for an office. A magical font on a poster about special vitamins with too many side effects to name. The specific pattern of the floor tile that caught the fluorescent light from the ceiling, humming at a frequency I hadn't noticed until now, even after many visits.

Maybe I noticed it because I knew something different was coming, and thinking about that wasn't a feeling I had room for.

So instead I watched a woman laugh at a brainless video on her phone. A couple holding hands while the man hid his nerves poorly, bouncing his knee but trying to smile at her. A child playing with a toy board in the corner, surrounded by plastic toys. Details I usually overlooked, but that right now felt important.

I checked my phone and saw notifications from my husband asking how the appointment was. It wasn't over yet, so I put the phone away. But maybe I should respond? No, nothing was different. Everything remained unchanged, because women were asked to stay at the clinic for perfectly normal reasons.

The midwife who had told me he was strong, she was quite young. Fresh out of medical school. Maybe she had misread something? But no, they wouldn't let someone inexperienced handle the appointments of real, paying patients. Someone should have given a second opinion, perhaps. Or maybe I was just scaring myself. I had been eating well, taking my vitamins, drinking more water than I ever had in my life. The life inside me was perfect. Strong. On the right track.

What if?

The floor tile started to look interesting again. Diamond shaped patterns, alternating perfectly. I wondered how they made it so perfect. Did they lay it out immediately? Draw the pattern and then cut the pieces of marble? How did they pick the colors?

When was the last time I felt the heartbeat myself? I felt it move just the other day, definitely. Or was it exhaustion? Imagination? I pressed my hand to my stomach and listened hard. All my senses focused…

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. There he was. Alive and well.

Or was that my own heart? The same heart I felt as my mother pulled me in with the most genuine smile you could imagine as she pulled the baby clothes out of the gift box I gave her. A gift box I spent about three days deciding if it was worth wrapping. Telling my mother would make it real.

The same heart I could feel sitting on the cold tile of my bathroom floor, holding a test with two lines on it. After I had told myself I would focus on my job, and my relationship, and become a better person. The cliché things that every person wants in life. But those would end because of these two lines. I stared at the bathroom ceiling and the light that wasn't much different from the one I saw now in the office. Those things didn't have to end.

The list of names that my husband and I spent the rest of the night perfecting — options for a girl or a boy. Names that could be changed depending on whatever the life that was born wanted to be. Names that could be easily pronounced, easily spelled when they ordered a coffee, and easily remembered when they introduced themselves.

Clothes shopping, except this time I didn't know what to buy, because how could you shop for someone you didn't know yet?

These last few days have felt quiet. Yesterday morning I woke up to breakfast in bed and reached for the nausea pills before I picked up my fork, before realizing I didn't feel any nausea. But I had been on new overnight medication and maybe it was actually working. So I ate the breakfast my husband had taken the time to make before leaving for work. I had also been getting back into my work after months of not thinking about it. The job, the dreams that didn't have to end. And I focused in a way that reflected how well I had been sleeping. Things were getting better. I must have been through the worst of it, right?

I had felt less. Less tired, less sick. But more normal, and more excited. Did that mean anything?

What if something did change?

When was the man from the front desk coming back to tell me? I couldn't keep distracting myself. I needed to know. It had taken too long. So long I thought I might be right. That it was over. That he was.

But no, how could it have shifted so drastically in just a few days? That was impossible. Who could I turn to right now, if the doctor had decided he had better things to do than tell me what was going on?

Please, God, I haven't reached out to you in some time and I'm sorry for that. But I promise, I will do better. I'll worry less, I'll stop scaring myself with articles about the consequences of having a baby young, or horror stories about what happened to someone across the country who took the same medication I was taking. And I'll be grateful. So grateful. I already am, I just want to make sure — please give me a sign that everything is okay. Let me hear his heart more than once. Please don't let anything happen.

Finally, the doctor opened the door. I saw his face appear in the small window of it, and he slowly turned the handle and stepped through. Or it felt slow, but maybe it really wasn't. I stood up immediately and put on a smile that was faker than I knew I could create.

"Why don't you come with me? I have some news for you." Could he be any more vague?

Regardless, I nodded and followed. I left the tiles on the floor and the fluorescent light and the woman on her phone and the couple holding hands. I took a step into the seemingly empty hall, leading into the rooms of patients who weren't receiving news. They didn't need to be scared like I was. I heard a laugh and the beeping of a monitor. Some files being printed. An ordinary world, continuing on, as if mine wasn't slowly reaching a point I never imagined it would have to.

I stayed very calm, which I didn't understand. One foot after the other, simply walking. My hand found my stomach again, and I could definitely feel his movement. Unless the movement was from the walking.

The doctor stopped in front of his room, a small one. Pictures on the walls and the same patient chair I had known for the past five months. The doctor sat in his chair, which felt worse than it should have.

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"How are you feeling?" he asked. I felt relieved. This was a normal check-in. I could forget about all of this and think instead about what I was going to eat after, because I was starving. I could text my husband back that the appointment went well, and ask him what time he would be home from work.

"Fine, thank you." I replied, letting out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

There was some quiet, and the doctor took a breath of his own and then spoke.

"I'm so sorry. There's no heartbeat."

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

That's strange, I can hear one right now.