I glared at Dr. Freeman, not feeling cheerful. I didn’t feel at all cheerful. I was not at all delighted.
His smile fizzled. He cleared his throat. “So . . .”
“So . . .” I repeated, still glaring at him.
He cleared his throat again and glanced at the screen to his left, where my electronic chart presumably detailed my status, and walk-wheeled himself over to the computer. “When was the start of your last cycle?”
I struggled to remember the date. “It must’ve been December.”
“That sounds about right. Are your periods regular?”
“No. They’ve never been regular. Sometimes I go months without.”
His eyes moved over me appraisingly. “Do you exercise a lot?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the sonogram has you at fourteen weeks.”
“I’m fourteen weeks.” Again I echoed, my throat tightening around the words.
“We need to schedule you for the eighteen-week sonogram with the perinatal group. Again, due to your advanced age, we’ll treat you as high risk until we rule out complications.”
If he mentioned my advanced age of thirty-six one more time I was prepared to knock him out.
“Also, you’re due for some blood tests, but the panel they sent over as part of your oncology screening looks good. Assuming nothing has changed, your counts are great.”
I squirmed in my paper gown, thinking back over the last week and all the risky—and outright dangerous—behaviors I’d engaged in. The big issue floated once again to the surface of my mind.
“I do have a question.” I paused, waited for his gaze to meet mine before continuing. “I may have been dosed with Ketamine last week, enough to put me under for about fourteen hours.”
He blinked at my statement, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. “You may have been dosed with Ketamine? Did you have surgery?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
I struggled for a minute, releasing a pained sigh. “It’s a really long story.”
Dr. Freeman stared at me, obviously waiting for me to continue.
Figuring what the hell, I explained, “I rescued my husband last week from an illegal oil refinery in Nigeria and he drugged me with Ketamine in order to force me to leave without freeing the remaining hostages.”
Dr. Freeman’s expression didn’t change, but he gave me two slow blinks before replying dryly, “Riiight. You don’t have to tell me what happened if you don’t want to.”
Sigh.
Stupid Greg and his stupid poking. Both the poking and the poking had landed me in this debacle of a conversation.
Dr. Freeman turned back to the electronic medical record and typed as he spoke. “First I’d like to know the dose and have a sample of the drug if you have it. And we should do some additional blood tests. But, since the baby’s heart rate looks good, a one-time dose of Ketamine isn’t a disaster.”
Something hot and panicky—a weight I’d been carrying, an albatross of guilt and worry—eased, and I took a full breath for the first time since being told I was pregnant. “So the baby should be fine?”
“It’s likely, but I’d like to be sure,” he hedged. “I believe Ketamine is a class B drug. Since there are no controlled data in human pregnancy, it’s generally contraindicated. However, it can and is used as anesthesia while pregnant, which—from the sound of it—might be a similar dose to the one you took. I know of no case studies describing adverse effects to the fetus from a one-time dose.”
Unthinkingly, I placed my hand over my abdomen and nodded. “That’s good news.”
He considered me with a slanted frown. “In Asia, Ketamine is abused as a recreational drug and is correlated with full-term low birth weight. But that’s when it’s abused daily or weekly. You’re not abusing it daily or weekly, are you?”
I shook my head. “No. It should be a one-time poking.”
“A what?”
“A one-time thing. I have no plans to be dosed with Ketamine ever again.”
“Good. That’s good. Don’t use any other drugs, either.” He didn’t sound judgmental per se, but he wasn’t his normal cheerful self either. “Maybe focus on taking a prenatal vitamin should the urge grip you. I’ll leave a script for you at the front.”
I tried not to roll my eyes and barely resisted the urge to respond with, So, no meth?
Great. Now my obstetrician thought I was a recreational drug user. I was now branded as an advanced, maternal-aged recreational drug user.
How lovely.
Ice cream.
It wasn’t that I was simply craving ice cream. Rather, my soul required it.