Chapter 21

Addie held my hand in the waiting room, but when a technician called my name, I decided to go alone. This was going to be something that I would need to do on my own. I needed to face the little parasite growing inside of me. I needed to be able to look at it and know with certainty that I did not want it.

I didn’t really have a stance in the pro-choice/pro-life debate. I’d never thought I’d be put in a position like this, where it would actually be relevant to me. Now, I was realizing how important it was. I respected those that wanted to keep their pregnancies, and I completely understood those that wanted to terminate theirs. I sympathized with all women in my position.

The ultrasound transmission gel was very cold, and the technician apologized.

“I usually keep it warm, but I forgot with this batch,” she explained. “Let’s see, how many weeks along are you?”

“Thirteen,” I said. I had the abortion planned for two hours from now, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Okay, let’s begin. This is the probe. I’m just going to press it on your tummy, and we’ll get a good look at Baby, okay?”

“Um, okay.”

She pressed the probe down on my stomach, and that’s when I got the first look at my little parasite. There it was, baby-shaped and everything. I hadn’t been expecting that. I’d thought it would still look like a little clump of cells, but it had arms and limbs and a big head and a delicate spine. I could count all the bones if it stood still, but it was constantly moving around.

“We’re going to do what we call a heart tracing now,” the technician said. “We’ll get the beats per minute. There’s Baby’s heart, see it?”

I did. A little heart, beating fast. Thumping, probably as fast as mine was.

“Looks like the heart rate is steady. The measurement reads 149 beats per minute, which is completely normal. Let’s take a look at Baby. See the ribcage there? Hands, arms, spine. You can make out the brain anatomy here. And the legs! Look at them move.”

I was silent.

“There’s where the cord is inserting into Baby’s tummy. Now, I’ll take some measurements.”

I watched the technician as she explained everything to me as she went. We witnessed my little fetus dance in my womb, moving around so much that it made the technician laugh.

My heart was stuck somewhere in my throat.

“Oh, look, we’ve got the perfect angle to get an idea of the sex of Baby,” the technician said, excited. “That’s not always possible, and you’ll want to wait until 20 weeks to start buying clothes for Baby’s gender, but from what I can see ... I mean, only if you want to know.”

“I do,” I said breathlessly. “Please tell me.”

“A girl,” she said, smiling. “You’ve got yourself a little girl.”

My eyes filled with tears.

“Would you like to hear her heartbeat?” the technician asked.

“P-Please,” I choked.

Then came the sound, penetrating every corner of the room, so loud, so steady that I felt tears escape from the corners of my eyes. Her heartbeat was wild, untamed, like an uncaged animal, and I instinctively reached to put a hand over my belly, feeling the sticky gel. She was down there, beneath the flesh and hiding in my womb, growing.

A girl.

Addie was waiting for me right outside, thumbing through a magazine in the waiting room. She looked up, caught sight of me, and hopped up to her feet.

“How’d it go?” she asked, linking her arm with mine.

“Fine.”

“Have you changed your mind?” Addie asked.

“No.”

The abortion clinic had me sign a lot of paperwork. I didn’t even read it. I was too numb.

Addie didn’t say anything. She could tell that something had changed, that I’d been altered somehow, right down to my bloodstream where there pumped blood, so much blood carrying right into my belly, giving sustenance to the little girl who no one wanted. The little girl who just wanted to be loved. The little girl who belonged to nobody. The little girl who was too young, too innocent to understand just how hard life could be.