Over the Moon - Chapter 4

I was met at the L&D entrance by a pretty young nurse, who looked way overdue for some much-needed sleep, and a tall male orderly that reminded me of a young Will Smith. James, bless his heart, uncharacteristically barked orders to the shocked pair that resulted in them getting me admitted with lightening speed.

Time went by in a blur as I was wheeled into an exam room, stripped, placed in a gown and had my feet up in stirrups before I could fully grasp what was going on. I looked around for James, but figured he must have been discreetly hiding in the hallway, figuring out how he was going to apologize to the nurse and the orderly.

A pretty woman with olive skin and long, dark hair swept into the room and calmly introduced herself as Dr. Sonja Marquez, the OB resident on call.

She looked at my chart for a minute and then asked in a slightly puzzled voice, "Ms. Walters..."

"Please call me Jillian," I interrupted, giving her a weak smile.

"OK, Jillian. You say you're 6 weeks pregnant, but I don't see anything in your records confirming this. Has your doctor performed a pregnancy test, yet?"

"No, I just found out myself. I took one of those home pregnancy tests early yesterday morning. With my history of miscarriages, I was almost too afraid to hope," I said almost in a whisper, a little embarrassed at my confession to this strange doctor. Apparently, she thought nothing of my answer as she continued to ask me questions.

" Is the pain you're experiencing sharp or dull?"

"Mostly dull, but I did have two really sharp pains. One before I left the apartment and the other in the car on the way here." She wrote this down in my file as she asked the next question.

"About what time did the cramping start?"

"Around 1:15 a.m., so not that long ago." I honestly had no idea what time it was.

She kept reading, writing notes and asking me questions. Many I had already answered when I had been admitted. Many I had answered what seemed like a million times before during my previous miscarriages. While the questions were irritating, I also knew they were necessary.

The longer she went on, the more nervous I became. I was still having little cramps, though they weren't nearly as painful as they had been when I first arrived.

Suddenly, as brave as I thought I was feeling when I got to the hospital, I was now feeling terribly sorry for myself. I was going to be 40 in a few months, I'm not exactly a spring chicken, and regardless of the outcome, I would always feel like I had lied to the man I loved, like I had somehow tricked him into having a baby against his will. I felt like my soul was being ripped open and my emotions were going to spill all over the bright white linoleum of Exam Room 1.

The doctor looked at my tear-filled eyes with the slightest bit of sympathy. Very un-doctor-like Greg would think. He'd immediately call her a Cameron and mock her compassion, but I greatly appreciated it at the moment.

"We're definitely going to keep you overnight, but based on what we find, we may have to keep you a little longer...or not," she tried to reassure me when she saw the panic in my eyes. Right now I'm going to do some blood work, a pelvic and then an ultrasound exam. We'll discuss treatment once we know more," she said as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

"Why don't you scoot down just a little more for me and we'll take a look at what's going on," while we wait for your tests to come back. Marquez had heard that Jillian was brought in by Dr. Wilson, himself, so she knew that the lab would see to it that Jillian's tests were a priority.

Following the pelvic, she squirted the cool gel on my lower abdomen and rubbed gently in circles with the wand until an image became clear on the screen. Tears immediately formed in my eyes as I saw the little peanut on the screen...and heard a faint heartbeat. It wasn't a tumor or a mass or some other crazy medical anomaly that I was expecting. It was a baby. My baby. Our baby.

"Well, you're definitely pregnant," she said with a smile. "Congratulations! Now, let's see if we can help keep you that way."

I heard a commotion outside the exam room and then a loud bang as the door swung open. I almost jumped off the table, which would have been quite a feat considering I was laying flat at this point, my feet no longer in the stirrups. I heard Greg before I could actually see him, since I was facing away from the door.

"Baby Daddy coming through," Greg announced to a shocked Dr. Marquez.

I could see that she recognized her lunatic of a hospital colleague. It just took her a second to make the connection that I was the woman now carrying the madman's child. I smiled sheepishly, almost trying to apologize for Greg's behavior, though I knew it was a worthless gesture.

"So, what's the word, Marquez? Am I a Baby Daddy or not?"

Before Dr. Marquez could answer, I blurted out, "Greg, we're pregnant!"

"Well, I'm not feeling very pregnant, but if you're happy..."

I waited patiently for him to continue, but what I got instead was a soft, tender kiss that tasted of Bourbon and apologies.

Marquez cleared her throat and we both smiled, a little embarrassed at our little PDA.

"So what's with the cramping, Marquez?"

"Everything looks fine, in spite of the cramping. Probably just stress, but with her history, I'd like to keep her for a couple of days and start her on an aspirin/heparin cocktail to help with her clotting problems, so we can hopefully carry this baby to term."

"We?" Greg asked mockingly, simply unable to stop himself. "I gave him the "behave yourself"death stare and he cleared his throat and stood straight as he listened to the younger doctor.

"I mean, I believe this would be the best course of action to help Ms. Walters carry your baby safely to term."

"Aspirin and heparin," he repeated to himself. "Riiight...from the Scotland and New Zealand studies. Good call, Marquez. I hear the results are very promising."

"They are." Marquez beamed inwardly, actually amazed that she had just gotten a metaphorical pat on the head from the great Dr. Gregory House. Sure, he was an ass, but a brilliant one, nonetheless, making his seldom-given praise more valuable than gold.

"It should help her over the next seven months and increase her odds of carrying to full-term. Of course, she'll have to have the heparin shot every day of the pregnancy, but since the heparin doesn't cross the placenta, their's no risk to the baby."

Pregnant woman in the room, I thought to myself with a smile as they continued to rattle off medical jargon while completely ignoring me. Greg again nodded his approval. And me, I was willing to do anything, if it meant that I could carry this baby to term. If she had told me I'd have to do a daily walk through hot coals while juggling chainsaws, I would have agreed to it.

Dr. Marquez excused herself from the room, giving Greg and I a moment to ourselves.

"Jilly," he said, first looking down at the bright white linoleum before looking up into my eyes. "I'm...I'm..." he began with a deep breath.

"Shhhh. No apologies," I said shaking my head. "Do you remember what you told me on the phone, when James was breaking all traffic laws to get me here?"

"Yes," he said as he rolled his eyes, hating to be reminded that he had actually said the words, but smiling slightly as he repeated them back to me like a bad school boy confessing his misdeeds. "I told you that 'I loved you and that in spite of my crappy childhood, and still questionable adulthood, having a baby with you would make me the happiest man in the world,' and so help me Jillian, if you ever repeat this to anyone, especially the kid, I'll..." I shut him up with another long, deep kiss.

As we broke the kiss, Greg and I both turned and stared in amazement at the image on the ultrasound monitor. Greg tentatively reached out with his long fingers and touched the little blob on the screen that was our child. His bright blue eyes conveyed a thousand different emotions, the most notable one being love.

"Looks like our little peanut is quite the fighter?" I said to him proudly as fresh tears pricked my eyes.

"Yeah, and I can only hope she has half the fight...and the sense...and the ability to put up with her ass of a father, as her mom. If she does, she'll be just fine."

tbc