Grandma had called me and wanted me to come and visit her, but I had some things to do before I could go. One of those things was my monthly visit, now that I was pregnant, with Dr. Jill Watson, my OB/GYN. She and her husband Jack were really great doctors and visiting them was never a chore, that’s for sure!

The last time I was there was when Nils and I got confirmation that I was pregnant. Dr. Jill found out that she was pregnant at the same time. Seems like we might be doing things together, which is fine because I really like her and she likes me.

I was only about two months along and hadn’t really started to show all that much, but I was anxious to make sure that I was doing everything I should be doing to make sure my baby was strong and healthy. One of the things I asked Grandma about when I spoke with her was if there was any history of problems carrying babies. She assured me that she and my mother (who is deceased, God rest her soul) had never had much in the way of problems, once morning-sickness passed, and that only lasted a couple of weeks. Mine hadn’t lasted very long, either, so going to see the doctor with that out of the way was fine by me!

I arrived at their clinic and found the parking lot much fuller than I had on previous visits. Their practice was a new one, and when I was there the last time they were struggling. Dr. Jill even fretted about having a baby so soon after getting started, especially with the time she’d have to take off to have the baby. She was worried that they might fall behind in their student loan repayments. Of course, that was before the president proposed forgiving student loans, but I got the feeling that Dr. Jack and Jill Watson would pay off their loans, no matter what. That’s the sort of responsible people they were. Of course, they weren’t fools: they were working out here, away from an urban center to help offset some of those loans. It was a program sponsored by the government to be sure competent medical care was available in more rural settings.

Well, seeing the parking lot so full was gratifying, that’s for sure! When I went in, there were three women waiting, two of whom had their husbands with them and one who had a small child on her lap. There was even a young lady behind the window of the reception desk. Before, Dr. Jill handled that, but, I guess with the increase in patients they had to hire someone.

The young lady called out, “May I help you?” It was so nice to have someone ask for permission to help me rather than indicating they might not be able to (you know, the difference between ‘may’ and ‘can’).

I stood before the girl, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old and told her my name and that I had an appointment to see Dr. Jill.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “My name is Sheila.” She scanned the paper calendar in front of her. She found my name and said, “It’s going to be a little while. We’re kind of swamped, as you can see. Just make yourself comfortable and Dr. Jill will see you just as soon as she can!”

I sat down next to the lady with the child. He looked to be less than a year old, maybe six or seven months. I started making faces at him and he started smiling at me.

“Wow,” said the lady. “He doesn’t smile at just anyone. He must really like you.”

“I think he does,” I said. “What’s his name?”

“Jamison, but everyone already calls him Jamie,” she replied.

I held my hand out to him and he took my finger in his pudgy little hand. “I’m Naomi,” I said. “Pleased to meet you, Jamison.” He pulled my hand up to his mouth and gnawed on the finger a little.

“Jamison!” scolded his mother, pulling my finger out of his mouth. “Don’t put everything in your mouth!” She turned to me and offered me her hand and said, “I’m Maggie. I’m his mother, and if I don’t watch him every second, he puts anything he can reach right into his mouth!”

“Don’t worry too much about that,” I said. “I used to babysit children and they all do that. I once read an article that stated that it was important that they do it, too, because it helped boost their immune system.”

At that moment, Sheila called out a name and one couple went with her back to see one of the doctors. I turned back to Maggie and asked, “How many children do you have?”

“Just Jamie,” she said, “and he’s already getting to be a handful. He’s seven months old and already trying to walk and getting into things he can get near when he crawls. I have to watch him like a hawk. Do you have any children?”

“This is my first,” I replied. “My grandmother says that both she and my mother had no problems carrying children, so I’m not too worried. I’m being really careful, though, to do what Dr. Jill tells me to do.”

“Do you like her?” asked Maggie. “I’ve never met her.”

“Oh, I love her!” I gushed. “She’s just out of school but she’s the best doctor I’ve ever had. We found out the same day that we were both pregnant!”

“She’s pregnant, too?” Maggie said incredulously.

By this time, Jamison was wriggling, trying to scoot himself over onto my lap, probably to play with some of the jewelry I was wearing. I reached out and Maggie let him go and he plopped himself down facing me and started fingering my necklace.

“Yes,” I said. “She and Dr. Jack, her husband, were planning on a family, but she got pregnant a bit earlier than planned. I’m sure, if you ask, she’ll tell you all about it. She’s very friendly.”

“I don’t know. Maybe after I’ve...” she trailed off as she heard her name called out. “OK, I’d better take Jamie,” she said.

“Oh, let me hold him awhile,” I begged. “I need to get used to holding babies again. I haven’t done that since I was in high school.”

She looked at me strangely. “I’ll trust you,” she said, “but if he gets to be too much, you bring him right back to me, OK?”

“Absolutely. Sheila over there will help keep an eye on the two of us!” Sheila nodded her head. Dr. Jack came up behind Sheila and said something in her ear. She called out another name and as the last couple and Maggie went through the door, I saw Sheila pick up another folder with another chart in it.

Jamison and I played together for some time. The first couple had left about the same time that Maggie had gone back to see Jill, so I knew it might be a while before she came back out, and, if Dr. Jack gave the other couple as much time as Dr. Jill usually gave a patient, then he wouldn’t be available for even longer.

Jamison was fidgety, though. He soon tired of my necklace and earrings, so I took him over to the toys in one corner of the room. He played with them for a time, standing up and doing deep-knee bends. He was constantly making noise, too. Then, he spied the books that were in a basket by the toys. He picked one up and crawled over to me, handing me the book.

It was “The Tawny Scrawny Lion,” a book that my mother and grandmother had read to me. I picked him up and grabbed a couple of other books at the same time. If he wanted me to read to him, maybe that would help him stop fidgeting. There was a rocking chair in another corner, and I sat in it.

I read him one book, then another. He was rubbing his eyes and yawning by the time I finished the second book, and by the end of the third, he was fast asleep. I kept rocking and mumbling, and soon I was starting to yawn and my eyes were getting heavy.

About that time, Maggie and Dr. Jill came into the waiting room. Sheila was standing behind the two of them, pulling on a sweater and picking up her purse. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay a little while?” Sheila asked.

“I’m sure,” said Dr. Jill. “Ms. Naomi and I are good friends and we might just sit and talk awhile.”

Sheila said good night to her and Maggie and slipped out the door. Maggie just looked at me. “How did you get him to sleep like that? He hasn’t done that for months!”

I just sort of shrugged and maneuvered him up onto my shoulder. “I’m not sure. I was reading and rocking and next thing I knew he was snoring.” Maggie looked sharply at me. “It was a cute, little baby snore, Maggie,” I said. “It was adorable. But it’s probably a good thing you came out when you did: I was about to fall asleep myself!”

“Hmm. Rocking and reading,” said Maggie. “I’ll have to try that sometime. Need to get a rocker, first, though!” She laughed and reached for Jamison. He wasn’t exactly a light-weight, but she took him in her arms then headed for the door.

“Don’t forget,” called Dr. Jill. “Make an appointment for the same time next month!” Maggie gave a little wave and was out the door.

“Well,” said Dr. Jill, “what brings you here this afternoon, Naomi?” She smirked at me and patted the little swelling that was my baby bump. It really wasn’t very noticeable yet.

“As if you didn’t know, Dr. Watson,” I replied, patting her tummy that was slightly more rounded and pooched out a little more than mine. “How are you doing, anyway?”

“I’d be a lot better if I wasn’t so sick in the mornings. How’s yours coming along?”

“I think you’re going to hate me,” I said. “I haven’t had any morning sickness for about three weeks now.”

“You’re right: I do hate you,” she laughed as she put her arm around me. “Well, let’s at least check you out so that the insurance company doesn’t accuse us of fraud!” I put my arm around her, too, and we marched in lockstep to her exam room.

“You know the drill, Naomi,” said Dr. Jill as she locked the door to the exam room and started stripping out of her scrubs. Dr. Jill liked me to be nude for my examinations, and I insisted that she be just as naked as me.

Since I just had my dress to pull off, I fumbled for the zipper, but couldn’t seem to quite reach it. I felt Jill’s hands on my back as she said, “Let me help you,” and she undid the hook-and-eye at the top of the dress and pulled the zipper to the bottom of its run. I shrugged and the dress puddled at my feet. Jill picked up the dress and hung it on the hook on the back of the door, then she was busy pulling her ‘comfortable’ shoes and socks off her feet.

I was busy getting my little boots off. I favor the little ‘Peter Pan’ boots in spring and summer because I think they’re comfortable and they are easy to put on and take off. By the time Jill was slipping her scrubs off her hips and down her legs, I was standing there naked. “Hurry up, Jill” I chided and she slipped her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and pulled them off.

She stood there and we compared ourselves. She was a bit bigger than me anyway, but her tummy really wasn’t that much bigger than mine. If I had to guess, I’d say we were probably going to be in the hospital at the same time for the same reason! At least, I hoped she’d be there with me, and not just as my doctor.

She reached out for me and wrapped me up in a hug, one that I returned just as forcefully. Our tummies pushed against one another and we ground our pubic bones against each other. Jill and I were about the same height, but her breasts were bigger and rubbed mine so deliciously. I could feel my nipples popping out and rubbing hers until they popped, too. Her lips sought mine and she and I kissed passionately for more than a minute. She always tasted so good and our tongues chased each other back and forth between our mouths.

I broke off the kiss and leaned down to capture one of her nipples. I started to suck on it, but Jill pushed me back gently. “Now, now, now!” she gasped. “If I let you get started, we might never get to your exam. We should do that first, then play!”

I reluctantly released her nipple, but gave her breast a squeeze. “You promise?” I asked, pinching the nipple lightly. “You promise?” I repeated.

“Yes, yes,” she replied, “anything so that we can get through your exam!”

She took me by the hand and led me to the scale in the corner of the room and she weighed me. “Hmm,” she murmured, then said, “You’ve gained all of two pounds. Are you eating properly? I’ve gained five pounds!”

“I eat like a horse, Jill!” I protested. “I guess, in my family, we don’t gain a lot of extra weight when we’re pregnant. At least, that’s what my grandma told me.”

Jill made a note in my chart. “What about your mother?” she asked. “Did she gain much weight when she was pregnant with you?”

I hung my head and quietly said, “I don’t know. My mother died when I was little. Grandma and Grandpa raised me.”

“I’m so sorry, Naomi!” Dr. Jill cried. “I didn’t know. Can you forgive me?”

I pulled her in and hugged her. “No, you wouldn’t know, so there’s nothing to forgive. It’s just a hole in my heart that Grandma fills pretty well, that’s all.”

“Thank you,” she said. “How about you hop up here on the table and we’ll check everything else out.”

I did as she asked and she picked up a stethoscope from a nearby desk and listened to my heart, then moved the diaphragm down to where my tummy was pooching out a little. She moved it around a bit, smiling.

“Do you want to hear what I’m hearing?” she asked. I nodded my head and she took the earpieces from her ears and put them to my ears. She once again put the diaphragm against my chest, saying, “That’s your heart you’re hearing.” I heard the ‘lub-dub, lub-dub’ of my heart with its steady rhythm. She moved the diaphragm back down to my baby bump, and the sound of my heart faded, only to be replaced by a similar sound, only a little higher in pitch and a whole lot faster in rhythm. “That’s your baby’s heart you should be hearing,” she said.

I put my hand on the hand that was holding the diaphragm and a very different feeling than I’d ever had before came over me. I could hear the baby’s heart! I knew that I would love this little being from now until I died and that knowledge filled me with a warmth that is hard to describe. One thing I knew for certain was that no man could ever feel quite this way because no man could grow and nurture another human inside of him. Sure, they can love a child, but never with the same conviction that a mother can.

After a few moments, I handed the stethoscope back to Jill. “Thank you,” I said quietly. I could feel the tears running down my cheeks as she handed me a tissue.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, wiping at her own cheeks. “I listened to my baby’s heart a couple of days ago; I know just how you’re feeling right now! But, since you’re doing so well, let’s do something that we don’t usually do for another month or so. Let’s see if we can see the baby, too!”

She had me scoot up the table a ways and lie down on it. As I was maneuvering myself, she brought a machine over to the side of the table and was laying out some parts of it, including a bottle.

“Are you going to do a sonogram?” I asked, hitching myself up on an elbow to see what she was doing.

“Yep!” she said. “I think you might like it, and you can take it home and show it to Nils. It makes the baby seem more real to the guy.”

“OK,” I laughed as I lay back down; “you’re the doctor!”

“I certainly am,” she said, laughing with me. She picked up the bottle. “Now, this gel is going to be fairly cold, so don’t jump too high!”

She was right: it was cold. I suggested that maybe she should keep it in a warming bath like aestheticians do to keep their depilatory waxes warm. She said that someone else had made the same suggestion earlier and that they would look into getting one.

Once she had spread a lot of gel over my little pooch, she put the head of the ultrasound against my tummy. It was cold, too and I tightened up in an involuntary reaction. “Relax,” said Jill. “It’ll warm up in a few seconds.”

I tried to relax, but it was difficult. She turned the screen so that I could see it, also, and at first, all I could see was what looked like an old black-and-white TV screen full of static. But as she moved the wand around, the picture changed.

Jill was talking to me while she was moving the wand, just telling me what she was doing and what we were seeing. Suddenly, very clearly, I could see my baby! It was curled up a bit, but I could see an arm stretch, and then the back moved a little. But, it was so small and I commented on that.

“Of course it’s small!” she said. “Right now, most of your tummy is just the uterus and placenta. The baby itself is only about the size of a small peanut. What you’re seeing is very magnified because this is a very advanced machine. See that hand? You can’t see any fingers because they haven’t developed yet. And don’t ask about if it’s a boy or a girl: even if we could see it, the penis hasn’t developed at all yet!” She laughed a little, and, holding the wand over where the best picture of the baby could be seen, pressed a button. There was a whirring noise and soon Jill took the wand off my stomach, ripped some paper from where I couldn’t see it, and presented me with a printout of what we had seen. Along with the print-out, she handed me some paper towels and she started to wipe the gel off my tummy.

“Oh, my,” I said. Then I added, “This isn’t life-size, is it?” It couldn’t be, because the image was bigger than my hand and the baby in the image was at least twice the size of my little finger.

“Yeah,” said Jill as she was putting things away. “The baby’s image is about three to four times bigger than life-size. Otherwise, you probably couldn’t see it for all the background noise.”