"Always," I frowned. The nurse called me in and took my vitals. Everything was as expected. The nurse guided us into a room and I sat on the table while Carter held my hand and caressed my wrist softly with the pad of his thumb.
"Maybe we could get lunch after this? Or make a stop at La Perla?" he breathed in my ear seductively. His warm breath tickled my neck and sent shivers down my body. When I wasn't sleeping or peeing my desire for him was through the roof, apparently a side effect of all of the hormones in my system. Carter wasn't complaining in the slightest.
"Carter, you're making me nervous." I tilted my head to block his access to my neck.
"I’m trying to distract you." He pulled the hair off my neck. The cool air caused another wave of shivers to race through my body.
"You're making it worse," I whispered.
"It doesn’t sound like it." He trailed his lips along my sensitive flesh.
"Good morning, Evangeline." Dr. Burke breezed into the room with a nurse following behind her. Carter pulled away from me in a flash.
"Good morning." I smiled.
She shuffled through her paperwork and then turned to me. "Six weeks today, huh?" She stood and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Yep," I sighed nervously.
"So we're going to listen for the heartbeat today. We should be able to hear it, but if not it's still early on and not abnormal. Lean back on the table and lift your shirt."
Carter laid me back slowly and waggled his eyebrows with a mischievous smirk. I rolled my eyes at him.
Dr. Burke turned around and placed a probe against my belly and turned up the volume on the box in her hands. I held my breath as she moved around my belly searching for the little heartbeat I was desperate to hear. Carter held my hand tightly and continued to caress the skin with his thumb. It was taking what felt like forever. I kept reminding myself that if we didn't hear it to today it didn't mean anything was wrong.
She moved the probe to just above my pelvis and then a small whoosh-whoosh echoed through the room.
"Is that it?" My eyes darted to hers.
"That's the baby." She smiled brightly. The whooshing sound filled my ears and a smile spread across my face so wide it hurt. Water pooled behind my eyelids and I heaved an immense sigh of relief. I looked at Carter and his own wide smile matched mine.
"I can't believe it."
"Me either," he whispered.
"That’s interesting." The doctor shook us out of our blissful baby bubble.
"What?"
"I think I’d like to get a closer look." The doctor turned to the nurse and whispered a few indecipherable syllables before the nurse stepped out of the room. My heart clenched in my chest.
"We're going to do an ultrasound, Evangeline." Dr. Burke pulled away the probe and the whooshing that had filled the room with so much love moments ago was now absent.
"Is everything okay?" I choked out through a lump of fear in my throat.
"I just want a closer look." She patted my leg. She meant it as a reassuring gesture but it only served to ratchet up the fear that had settled in the pit of my stomach. The nurse came back in wheeling a cart with a monitor perched on top.
This was terrifying and wrong. Something must be off. What could she have determined through that sweet whoosh whooshing of the heartbeat we'd heard just a few moments ago? Could she tell if there was a defect?
Oh God, please just let our baby be healthy. The fear choked my throat and a few stray tears traveled down my cheeks. Carter took notice and wiped them away with the pad of his thumb.
"Everything is going to be okay, baby," he whispered and kissed me on the forehead. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
"This is going to be cold." The doctor squirted gel on my stomach. Carter continued to rub my forehead and stroke his large palm down my hair. It calmed me to have his soothing hands reassuring me.
Dr. Burke swirled another probe around my belly and then pushed hard above my pelvis where she'd found the heartbeat.
"There's the baby." She turned the monitor to us and pointed at the screen. "That little flickering there is the heart." We watched as a little black dot on the screen flickered inside a tiny white blurb. The doctor shifted the probe around more and the baby moved off the screen. She pushed and prodded and then the baby came back into view from a different angle.
"And there's baby number two." She smiled brightly. My world froze in time as I stared at the second flickering heartbeat on the screen, now obvious next to the first one.
"Oh my God. Twins?" My eyes widened.
"Yes, congratulations. You'll be welcoming two babies next July."
Carter's hand stilled on my forehead and the hand holding mine tightened to almost the point of pain. I realized that he hadn't said anything and I turned to him.