For Real

Eleni

“Okay, this might feel a little strange. Just take a deep breath.” Dr. Hanna inserts the ultrasound wand, the very last step of the appointment.

I breathe through the weirdness, and a grainy, black-and-white picture pops up on the screen. In the middle of a big patch of darkness sits a little grain of white.

“There’s your baby,” she says quietly. “It’s too early to tell sex, but do you see right there?” She points to another bump on the screen.

I lean closer. Dante holds onto my hand like a lifeboat in a storm. “Yeah?”

“That’s an eye.” She smiles at me. “You’re right on track, nine weeks pregnant.”

I nod. The picture on the screen is…strange. It doesn’t look like a baby yet. It looks like the thing they show pregnant women on TV that makes them cry.

Dr. Hanna looks at me for a moment. “Let me guess. You haven’t started showing yet, and you’re young, so you’re having trouble believing you’re really going to give birth.”

I bite my lip. “You could do the maternal a little less well