I'm amazed by the number of reviews on that last chapter...thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts. I can see there are some mixed feelings on whether or not Olivia should be pregnant. I know I can't please everyone, so I am just going with my original plan for the story. Trust me when I say this is far from over. I hope you like it.
Olivia paced back and forth across the room, waiting for the doctor. She was cold, wearing nothing but the thin gown the nurse had given her, and she wondered why doctor's offices were always freezing. People were there because they were sick, and yet they had to be uncomfortable as well. She knew she should sit and wait, but she couldn't calm down enough for that. When she'd called her doctor that morning, she had insisted she come in for blood work right away and Olivia had waited over an hour while they ran tests before the nurse came to bring her back to the examination room. She'd been in there another thirty minutes and no one had come to say anything to her. She wanted her results. She couldn't handle the wait anymore.
She had spent most of her time in the waiting room looking through magazines and brochures, searching for any hint that would help her self-diagnose her illness. She figured if she could mentally prepare herself, at least she wouldn't melt down when the doctor told her. According to the medical journals and take-away flyers in the office her symptoms mostly pointed to pregnancy, just like Fin had suggested, but she knew she wasn't pregnant. She'd never let herself even consider that possibility after last time, she knew it wasn't possible. Other likely scenarios included ovarian cancer, fibroids, bladder infections, and various sexually transmitted infections. She figured she could rule out the STIs since the only person she'd had sex with in months was Elliot and she trusted that he wouldn't have given her anything. The thought that really scared her was the cancer. It wasn't uncommon in women her age, but from all she had read was a certain death sentence. She felt the now familiar tears stinging her eyes and cursed herself for breaking down once again. She'd cried more in one day than she had in her entire life, at least it felt that way.
There was a quick tap on the door and the doctor walked in, "Olivia?" she said with a smile. "How are you doing?" She walked in and closed the door, looking at her patient who was still pacing anxiously around the room.
"How do you think I'm doing?" Olivia sputtered. "I've been waiting for hours and I'm going out of my mind with worry!"
The doctor nodded, "I'm sorry. Why don't you sit up here on the exam table and we'll talk."
Olivia reluctantly climbed on the table and sat, wringing her hands nervously. "Just tell me…please." She let a few tears slip down her cheeks. "I just need to know. Am I really sick? I don't want to die. I can't leave my son. I just adopted him and he has no one else," she broke down into full blown sobs.
"Olivia," the doctor spoke gently. "You are not dying." She looked seriously at her patient who couldn't seem to stop crying, "Did you hear me? You're fine."
"I'm fine?" Olivia sniffled and shook her head in disbelief. "Really? I feel so awful…"
"I know you do," the doctor's tone was serious. "Because you're pregnant…" Olivia shook her head in disbelief, all the color draining from her face. She felt dizzy and weak, like she couldn't sit up and she seemed to have lost all ability to speak. All she could do was stare at the doctor. "Olivia…are you alright?" the doctor asked, not completely surprised by her patient's reaction. "I know you didn't expect this."
"I can't…" Olivia's voice cracked and she cleared her throat. "You said I couldn't get pregnant." Her mind was racing. Why hadn't she been more careful? Getting caught up in the moment was no excuse. She wasn't a sixteen year old for crying out loud. How could she have been so stupid?
"I said it wasn't likely," the doctor reminded her. "But sometimes, the unexpected happens…"
"No!" Olivia couldn't believe her own reaction. She had always wanted to have a baby, so the fact that she wasn't happy about this surprised her and she felt guilty about it, but she couldn't help her feelings. "You said it wouldn't happen…that I was in peri-menopause and I'd waited too long to have a baby. You said that!"
"Olivia…try to calm down," the doctor spoke calmly. "I know what I said, but sometimes things happen. There is always a very small chance of pregnancy until a woman has completely gone through menopause. You hadn't even officially started menopause. You were still having periods, right?" She looked at the chart and then back at her patient. "When was your last menstrual period?"
"I don't know," Olivia said honestly. "A while…a few months I think…I'm not that pregnant."
"No…you're not," the doctor agreed. "Your period was irregular due to the peri-menopause. You probably randomly ovulated around the same time you were sexually active and you had no way to know that would happen."
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" Olivia put her head in her hands, but she had quit crying. She didn't feel like crying anymore. She was too tired.
"You have choices," the doctor reminded her. "You don't have to carry the baby to term. Honestly, in most cases like yours, I'd recommend termination. The odds of you getting pregnant right now were only five percent, but the odds of carrying this pregnancy to term are also pretty slim. Plus the chance of birth defects is significant with your age. Not to mention the risk to your own health."
"I don't know if I can do that," Olivia said honestly. "Do you really think there is something wrong with the baby?"
"I have no way of knowing yet," the doctor answered honestly. "All I can do is give you statistics. I can tell you most women your age who get pregnant naturally will miscarry before the end of the first trimester. Poor egg quality, combined with hormonal issues usually trigger a miscarriage. We need to find out how far along you are. I'd like to perform a transvaginal ultrasound to determine date of conception."
"Okay," Olivia leaned back on the table, the doctor's words swirling around in her head. She was pregnant, but she was probably going to lose the baby. If she carried the baby to term, it could be sick or disabled. She could have an abortion since she didn't want to be pregnant, but she'd always wanted to be pregnant before this very moment when she was facing it. She couldn't think clearly. She put her feet in the stirrups, trying not to think of how vulnerable she felt while a technician came in and a nurse covered her with a small blanket. She closed her eyes, feeling the pressure of the ultrasound probe inside her. Why was she going through all of this? She knew the date of conception…the exact date.
"Everything looks good," the doctor said as she took some notes in her folder. "Around seven weeks…" she looked at Olivia, her eyes still closed as she lay on the table. "Do you want to see?" she asked gently. Olivia opened her eyes, looking toward the monitor. "You see that little flicker?" the doctor asked, pointing to a small dot on the black and white screen. "That's the heartbeat. It looks strong for now…really good."
Olivia couldn't take her eyes of the small dot…her baby had a strong heartbeat. No matter what the odds were, her baby was okay right now. "I can't believe this," she sighed.
The technician finished the ultrasound and the doctor allowed Olivia to sit up. Marking more things in the chart, she spoke seriously, "You have some time to decide what you want to do," she insisted. "It's safer if you make the decision during the first trimester, but you still have five weeks. For now, I'll prescribe some prenatal vitamins to help you keep your iron levels up and you need to get some rest. When you decide, give me a call. We can schedule the termination if that's what you want to do, or I can refer you to a perinatologist who works with high-risk pregnancies. Give it a few weeks and then let me know."
"I want the name of the perinatologist," Olivia said quickly. "I'm going to have this baby."
The doctor nodded, "Okay." She wasn't surprised by Olivia's choice, but she was worried by it. "Olivia…I have to suggest you have some extensive prenatal testing done. You can have chorionic villus sampling done in a few weeks. If something is wrong, it would be better to know now."
"I'll talk to the perinatologist about it," Olivia agreed. As scared as she was at the prospect of being pregnant, she was even more worried about the health of her baby. The doctor left, giving Olivia time to get dressed. Olivia pulled on her clothes as quickly as possible, wanting more than anything to get out of that room. She turned, looking in the mirror that hung on the door and for the first time she realized how weak she looked. Her face was pale and she hard dark circles under her eyes. She put her hand to her stomach, feeling sick and knowing for the first time that it wasn't some flu bug that would eventually go away. "Oh God…how am I going to tell Elliot about this?" she whispered sadly.
There was another fast tap on the door and the nurse walked in with a bright smile, "Here's your prescription," she handed Olivia the paper with the doctor's instructions for the prenatal vitamins. "And here's your copy of the ultrasound picture." She walked out and Olivia looked down at the picture. She wanted to be happy, to smile at the thought of this little person she'd always longed for, but she couldn't. She was scared to death. She shoved the picture in her purse and walked out the door.