Merry Christmas for those of you that celebrate that! This update is a present for Roxanne, but obviously, everyone is equally free to enjoy it. Thank Roxanne though, for an update coming today because making this a present for her gave me motivation to finish it.
"Come on, Michelle," Wylie said, picking up his pillow and playfully whacking her with it. "You cannot hit snooze for a fourth time. We have an appointment."
"I'm not asleep," she said, covering her eyes with her hand. "I just don't want to get up."
"It's fatigue. That's typical of a Week Tenner."
"Will you stop being a walking talking baby book?" Vega sat up, stretching. "I am talking to my husband, not an encyclopedia."
"Yes, but your husband," Wylie said, sinking down on the bed next to her, "happens to be quite knowledgeable about the likely source of your fatigue."
"Okay Doctor Spock." It was her turn to wield the pillow. "Scoot over so I can get up. We won't be late. You know?" She shrugged. "The doctor only suggested the weekly ultrasounds until I'm out of the first trimester, but I'm definitely going to miss seeing him every week."
"Speaking of your pronoun choice," Wylie said, "only about eight weeks until we can find out."
"Do you want to know?"
"Well, yeah," Wylie said, "so we have less arguing to do about names. My parents spent a solid month fighting over whether or not their girl name was going to be Elizabeth or Marguerite and then it was like heyyyyy, penis!" He trailed off awkwardly, throwing up jazz hands.
Vega rolled her eyes. "Okay but you know that everyone will be then bombarding us with either pink or blue, then it'll be dolls or cars, dresses or overalls."
"Well, we have a couple months to talk about it," he said. "But we only have about ten minutes to get into the car if we want to make the ultrasound."
"I'm going, I'm going!" Vega pulled her jeans off the hanger as Wylie went for the dresser to grab his car keys. It was only a couple seconds before he heard her voice again. "Uh...Jay?"
He turned around. She was facing the mirror, her head cocked, her jeans over her hips and her hands resting near her zipper. "What's wrong?"
"N...nothing. He could only see her in profile, but he could still tell that her brow was furrowed. She raised her arms over her head. "Am I showing?"
Wylie studied her. "I don't...I mean I see you every day but..." he shook his head, his shoulders lifting in a shrug. "I don't see any difference. Why?"
She turned to face him, her hands going back to her jeans. She tugged on them, trying to fasten the button. "I can still do it, but..." she tugged again, emphasizing that it was taking an effort.
"Well I do know those jeans," Wylie said, stepping closer to her. "I've undone that button quite a few times."
"Exactly." She tugged again. "I wore these to the seven week ultrasound. Didn't have a problem then. But now it's three weeks later and..." She bit her lower lip, grinning down at herself. "I think we are going visible, mi niño."
"Alright, so you have done this before," said the ultrasound technician. "So just lie here, relax, and we'll take a looksee. We should be able to get a nice heartbeat for you to listen to."
"Are you excited?" Vega asked, her hands folded over her main scar.
"Of course," Wylie said. "Jane and Lisbon get to see Mimi every day, we're restricted to a one way Skype call every week."
"There we go!" The technician said as the images popped up on the screen. "The baby is moving at this point, you just won't be able to feel it yet. It's now possible to bend at elbows and knees."
"Oh, Michelle," Wylie said. "That reminds me. I can touch my toes again."
"And soon I won't even be able to see mine," she quipped. "Oh look! Jay, look!"
The image on the screen was making small, jerking motions. Wylie pointed at the screen. "Me trying to navigate life." He and Vega chuckled. "Can you even believe it?" He said. "It's happening in there, but we're seeing it up here, and we can't even tell it's happening otherwise but it is." He shook his head. "It's pretty cool"
"Yeah," Vega agreed. "It's very cool." She shifted her weight, resting one of her hands at her side.
"Everything is looking good," the technician said. "I think we'll do these at eleven and twelve weeks, and then once you're out of the first trimester we can remove any extra precautions that have been on you since the bleeding. You haven't had any alarming symptoms since?"
"Nope," Vega said. "Everything has been perfect. What's your name again?"
"Gary."
"Everything has been perfect except her memory," Wylie joked.
"Shut up."
"But seriously," Vega told him. "It's been great."
"Good, good. Now what I'm going to do now is move this Doppler around and see if we can get you guys an audio on the heart. Sometimes it takes until twelve weeks to hear it really well, but this little one may be positioned well enough for it to happen today."
"Is that it?" Wylie looked underwhelmed.
"That's me drumming my fingers on the table, Wylie," Vega said, amused.
"Do you find it weird that she calls me by our last name?" He asked Gary.
His answer was a different kind of drumming sound, and a triumphant smile from the technician. "There you go."
Vega bit her lips, nodding. "Well damn." She grabbed Wylie's hand.
"It's fast." He looked at the technician. "But that's normal, right?"
"It's normal for them to be faster than an adult's," Gary said. "We're right in the middle of the normal range for beats per minute, it's sounding like. So very healthy."
"Hey." Wylie grinned down at Vega, raising his free hand for a high five. "Our baby has a heartbeat?"
She rolled her eyes, but granted his high five request. "Our baby has a heartbeat!"
Wanted to throw a twist on the more clichéd overemotional experience of the ultrasound and hearing the heartbeat. Obviously that's a huge emotional deal, especially after a scare like the Wylie's had, but I figured they would turn that emotion into a sort of "aw yeah, rock on, this is so cool" attitude, blame the ending of Copper Bullet if you wish. ;)
