Anatomy

Louisa said, "I just can't believe that mum has gone back to Spain! And so soon!"

Martin cleared his throat. "She healed well enough… so…" He flicked on the wipers for it had started to mist again, obscuring the windscreen.

Louisa replied, "But I thought she might decide to stay longer."

"She convalesced well in her room at the pub."

"Yes. Thank you, Martin for having Pauline check in on her."

"Um, she suggested it. She also arranged for one of the village girls go see her in the evenings." Martin's brow furrowed. "Someone named Morganna… Newsome."

"Morgana?" Louisa asked puzzledly. "There's no Morgana in the village. Who? Oh, I know! Must be Morwenna."

"Who is this?"

"Morwenna Newcross. Works in the bakery, I think. Or the fish monger."

"Hm."

"You've probably seen her; Morwenna. Lives with her grandfather."

Martin got a flash of an old man. "Right. Old man. War vet." He did not add one with high blood pressure and a dicky heart. Also bad knees.

Louisa nodded. "That's him. William Newcross. They live up top the village. So sad."

"Oh?"

"Well, he's a widower. Been one for about ten years. Morwenna's parents are down in Africa – missionaries. Dad's a minister. Run an orphanage, I heard."

"So they left their child up here to care for other children down there," Martin harrumphed.

Louisa bit her lip as the baby kicked and she rubbed the spot with her hand. "Right." Was that an elbow or a knee? Or a tiny hand or foot stretching out? She got a bit weepy at the thought.

"Hm."

Louisa wiped a too-wet eye and sighed. "But still – my mum leaving so soon…"

"Louisa, you don't even like you mother."

Louisa glared at him from the passenger seat. "Martin, I, I… oooh!" She crossed her arms in anger, looking away from him at the passing moor, now wet with a rain shower.

Martin sighed through his nose, before he spoke. "I was merely stating the obvious."

"Well, she's my mum, and not yours, and yours isn't a piece of cake either."

"Yes," he answered, then accelerated to pass a lorry on the narrow road.

"Martin, you don't need to rush."

Martin glanced at the dashboard clock. "The appointment is for ten," he stated tensely.

"Well, I am sorry that I had trouble with my hair." That morning it was a bit tangled and had been a struggle. She had decided to wear her new maternity jeans and a striped top. Along with a blue blazer it looked quite smart, although she had found herself staring at her belly in the shower, for there was no doubt it was larger each day. Plus her baps were sore and were still growing. Or the joys of being pregnant, she mused. At least no stretch marks, yet.

He turned to look at her hair, the glossy strands tight against her scalp, pulled back into a ponytail. There was no doubt that pregnancy made female hair softer and glossy. "Your hair is fine."

She smiled, as she raked her fingers through her glossy locks. "It is fuller, don't you think?"

His eyes dropped to her abdomen. "Yes." He'd bumped against it at home and the solid existence of that gestational bulge made his eyes go wide. Larger – definitely. Each day he had caught himself mentally measuring her growing belly, comparing it to the previous day.

And fatherhood? Right now he did not feel very fatherly, just anxious, wondering how he'd manage. Heaven knew his father had been a terrible influence.

Louisa caught him looking at her. "Problem?"

"No," he sighed.

"You nervous about today?"

"No," he uttered.

"Well what?"

"Nothing," he said and turned his eyes back to the road, but his mind was still pondering parenthood.

At the doctor's office Louisa had to go through the usual routine of a weigh-in, blood pressure, and so on, all routine. Then Dr. Roberts came in to see her. "Ah, Mrs. Ellingham. Good morning."

"Hello, Dr. Roberts," she answered. "This is my husband," she indicated, but she was upset by her weight gain; 14 pounds, nearly a whole stone. She felt fat enough already, and had plenty more weeks to go.

Martin was in a chair in the corner, trying to be invisible.

"Ah, Mr. Ellingham," Roberts said.

"It's doctor," Martin replied.

"Yes," Louisa added, "My husband is our village GP."

"Oh. Right. Dr. Ellingham." Roberts tried not to frown for he'd heard about the man. He glanced at Mrs. Ellingham. My word she was a beauty – Martin was a lucky man. "Portwenn, right."

Martin cleared his throat. "Actually, it is 'Mister' for I am a surgeon."

Portwenn is very small, thought the doctor. "I didn't know there was a surgical clinic over there."

"There's not," Martin coughed.

"Ah, right…" Roberts stammered, "Well, now about this scan. We seem to have missed the earlier one, but today we can examine the baby's heart, head, limbs and so forth, check for gestational irregularities. Get a check on foetal size, but your weight gain is good. Average," he told Louisa.

"Sorry," Louisa said. "I'm Headteacher of our school, and there was an issue with my schedule, so I missed that one… an early scan." But she didn't feel that gaining 14 pounds was good.

"Fine and no problem," Roberts said. "The scan tech will come in and prep you. Nothing untoward, just lower your jeans and pants, down to your, uhm, pubis, then raise your top? And if you can get on the couch here and recline."

Louisa nodded, as the door opened and the tech came, who was a tall and thin woman with short blonde hair, who also had a face of aquiline features.

"Hello. I'm Kyra," she introduced herself in a friendly manner.

Roberts said, "This is Mrs. and Mr. Ellingham. She is 23 weeks pregnant, here for an anatomy scan. Checking the usual markers for grown – head and limbs. And do you want to know the child's sex?"

The technician smiled down at Louisa. "Have you had a scan before?"

"No… no… sorta fell off the schedule," Louisa told her. "Been busy."

Martin got out of his chair in the corner of the room and walked over to sit by the head of the exam bed, his face frozen.

Louisa took his hand, which he gripped tightly. "We haven't actually decided about finding out the baby's sex, have we?"

"Um, yes, no, I don't know," Martin mumbled. "Is it necessary?"

Roberts shrugged. "Up to you two."

Kyra smiled. "When I was pregnant I wanted to know at first but then changed my mind. Made it a surprise." She smiled as she prepared the ultrasound machine. "As long as it was healthy, that's what mattered."

Louisa stared into Martin's face, after she got him to look at her. "Yes or no?" she asked.

Martin sighed. "Your decision."

"Well, it might be kinda nice to know ahead of time – clothes and such – what color to paint the baby's room." She stopped and bit her lip. "But…"

Martin turned to look at Roberts and the tech. "Would it be medically necessary?"

"No," Roberts answered. "Not at all." Unless something unusual was detected, Roberts bit that thought off.

"Then…" Louisa stopped for a deep breath, "let's not. That okay with you, Martin?"

Martin's mouth had gone dry, so he only nodded yes.

Roberts nodded. "That's fine. I'll leave you to it, Kyra."

The tech started the scan, after rubbing a gel couplant on Louisa's belly, which lying on her back seemed to look even larger than when standing. "The gel provides a good pathway for the ultrasonic pulse the wand sends out," Kyra was saying. "Both going out and coming back."

"I understand," Louisa said.

Roberts glanced at his watch. "I must see to my next patient, so Kyra?"

"Yes, doctor?"

"If the Ellingham's wish to see the baby…"

"Oh, yes!" Louisa said, nearly yelling.

Roberts nodded. "Fine just turn the screen away when you scan the lower abdomen."

"Will, do," Kyra said. She looked at Louisa. "A good plan?"

Louisa suddenly felt like she was at the circus and the other three in the room were on the stands watching the show. She squeezed Martin's hand, whose fingers felt cold to her. "You okay? She whispered to him.

"Um, yes. Fine. You?"

"Yeah," she answered.

Roberts left the room, as Kyra swung the TV-like screen on its swivel mount so the couple could see the scan. "Now… here's the baby's head…"

At first a cloudlike image appeared, but as the ultrasound wand was moved to the center of Louisa's belly, they could see the head, actually a cross section through her baby's head; there was the nose and mouth and the brain.

Louisa gasped for she saw the tongue move and what must have been it's hand brush against its face.

"Martin! It's…"

Kyra smiled. This was the moment that she always enjoyed, that look at a well-formed foetus to its mum. "That's your baby, Mrs. Ellingham. Mr. Ellingham can you see as well?" Kyra had had two children, and perhaps a third was on the way? He last period was very late, so she suspected that she was carrying once more. The first two were girls and perhaps if she was expecting, and it was a boy, then her in-laws, who'd raised five boys, might get off her back. Her husband didn't care one way or the other, but the grands did.

Kyra turned to face the husband, who wiped his eyes very quickly. "Can you see as well?"

Martin nodded. "Yes," he grunted. Martin was trying to do two things at once – evaluate what he was seeing from an medical standpoint, but the rest of his mind was filled with a tender reaction. Yes, that is a baby in there, and the head looks fine, the larynx and spine, the spinal cord well intact… and he felt his hand soften in Louisa's grip. Turning to look at her face, Louisa was biting her lip, but when she saw him gazing at her, she smiled and blew him a kiss. Our baby, he thought. My child – mine and Louisa's. He had to gulp hard.

Martin then took a small and careful sip of air, but his eyes were watery, and his nose was suddenly congested. He cleared his throat and asked, "Heart and lungs? Spine?"

"Right," the tech replied. "Just coming to that. Arms first. There's the upper arm, ooh he's moving…" The image blurred then steadied down. "Left arm, appears to be well made. Right as well."

Good work, so far, Louisa thought to herself. Growing along; her fertilized egg was working properly. As a very young girl the idea that women grew babies inside them seemed so weird, but of course she'd seen their dog have puppies. The actual mystery of how puppies, or babies, got growing in there was something that was whispered about later in the girl's loo at school and on walks with her sometime friends. Of course, the actual method was still unknown to her young mind, but one of her seventh-form teachers, Mrs. Trent, was going to have a baby, so one day. Louisa had to ask her.

The teacher had reviewed them for an upcoming exam, and after class, Louisa, urged on by Angela and Tina, had asked the teacher, "Mrs. Trent, well, I get it how sea urchins make baby urchins and so on, fish too, but…" she had waved a hand at her teacher's large belly, "but how… in what way… I mean… do… um, people?" She had to stop; too embarrassing for a nearly thirteen-year-old girl.

Mrs. Trent had smiled at her, then waddled over to close the classroom door. "Louisa, shouldn't you ask your father?" she asked, but the teacher knew that the child's mum had run away with a lover.

The young Louisa had shrugged.

"Right." Poor kid, the teacher thought. This is important. She opened a desk drawer and took out a pamphlet, one she usually shared with girls of this age. "Boys and girls are different, and they have different parts…"

"God! I know that!" protested Louisa.

"Has you dad… I mean."

"Oh gawd no," Louisa whispered. "He's never said anything about that; just said to not let any boy 'get up to any mischief.'"

The teacher smiled, then withdrew the pamphlet. "Right. Look, here's what I'll do. Will your father be home later today?"

"Yes. He's first shift at the quarry." And working, thankfully, and the larder was well stocked this month. "He might be… home." Or at the pub, she thought.

Mrs. Trent smiled. "I'll come around your house say, about five-ish?"

Louisa gulped for the house was not as tidy as it might be. "Why? Am I in trouble?

The teacher smiled at the girl and patted her dark hair. "I just want to have a little chat with your dad and if he agrees then… well... then we can have a talk – woman to woman." Louisa was such a bright child, and she'd go places unless some randy teenage boy got her up the duff.

No one had ever before called Louisa a woman. "Sure…" she answered puzzled at this turn of events. "Fine." She'd have a little time to straighten up the front room when she got home.

So, after school Mrs. Trent paid a visit to their house. Louisa was asked to go outside for a while the grownups chatted. After a few minutes her dad opened the door. "Louisa, my girl, come in. Will you?" he called out, "I… and uhm, yer teacher… we want to talk about… things." Her dad's face had gone red in a blush, as he ducked his head away from her.

That was the day that Louisa found out what her dad had told her about boys and mischief. Louisa was not exactly surprised by what she was told, but the mechanics of human reproduction - in some technical detail were spelled out – and it had made her both appalled but also puzzled.

Mrs. Trent had also brought a paper sack, which she opened and talked about tampons and sanitary napkins, as well as contraceptives. The village had too many pregnant girls and single mums so Mrs. Trent had been waging war on the increase of people hereabouts; too often under poor circumstances. After some explanation, she added, "And anytime you want to talk about these, or have any questions, then you just ask me."

Ah, thought Louisa, that was what happened last week. "I see." Well, good to know what that was. She sat up straighter, for now she knew the secret her girlfriends did not. How it all worked.

Yet the one thing that most impressed her about her teacher when she told her, "Louisa, I have a baby in me because I love my husband – and he loves me." Louisa recalled her dad, jumped up and left the room and she heard him weeping softly in the loo behind the closed door. Her dad knew that Eleanor had left for their love was gone, evaporated like the morning fog.

Back in the present, Kyra was reciting what she saw. "Heart looks fine with all four valves looking good; and I don't see any issues there. Look, can you see how the heart is pumping? The chambers filling and then squeezing out blood?"

By now Louisa was squeezing Martin's hand and the grip was so tight she felt blood pounding there whether, hers and her husbands, she could not say.

Kyra smiled, then worked down the foetal abdomen. "GI system look nice, along with the lower spine; spinal cord is good," she stopped and swung the screen away. "Now I'll just look lower…" She saw what she needed to see, then moved to the legs. "Right, all good there. Limbs look great, and ooh, it's kicking."

Louisa felt two kicks down there and her bladder, already bursting, almost let go. "Likes to disco on my bladder."

Kyra smiled. "Comes with the territory." She moved the wand back up to reexamine the groin. "All looks good here." She made screen captures of the head and upper arm, for the record. She turned away and looked at a reference table, comparing the screen measures she had made. "I'd say this baby is right on schedule for a twenty-three-week pregnancy. About 1.2 kilos and roughly 30 centimeters long." She smiled at Louisa. "Mrs. Ellingham, the anatomy scan look very good. No issues form what I see."

Martin took a deep breath for he had been holding it. "Right," he muttered in relief, while Louisa smiled, wiping tears with a tissue.

Kyra took a pen and made notes on the form. In the space marked sex she marked... an 'X' in one of the boxes provided; M or F.