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“You, Layla, and this baby mean the world to me, so this is a tough negotiation,” I countered.
“You’ll get used to the idea,” she started to say, then she clutched at her baby bump. My heart sank to my stomach like a heavy lead weight.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked urgently, suddenly petrified at seventeen weeks something had gone wrong. My heart raced so fast it triggered tiny electrical charges pinging around inside my body, making me feel lightheaded. The metallic taste in my mouth made me feel sick as I fought off the urge to panic.
“I think I felt the baby move,” she murmured quietly, her eyes were big and round, and her mouth circular and wide to match them in surprise. For a second my heart skipped a beat, and it should have been a moment to cherish, but the enormity of my anguish took yet another step toward the day I couldn’t wish was over safely fast enough.
With Harper’s swollen belly, I could no longer pretend in my head nothing was changing, but as she was carrying our child differently to Grace’s front bump, and with Harper’s preference for loose clothing, she was less noticeably expecting until it was almost time for her scan.
When my hands skated over her stomach, or I held her by the hips, her figure felt fuller, but these changes were most notable for the first time when I was brushing my teeth and Harper came into the bathroom.
I glanced at her over my shoulder as she leaned on the bathroom door, then turned back to rinse out my mouth. As I was straightening up from the sink, I caught the sight of the obvious neat bulge in her belly and I stopped moving. A wave of anxiety gripped me as the reality of seeing my baby growing inside my girl overwhelmed me again.
No matter how ridiculous I tried to tell myself my fears were; they remained imbedded in my mind. The chances of Grace dying like that were millions to one, yet she had. This point kept me from discarding it from ever happening again.
As part of my psyche involved a great deal of self-preservation, I found I couldn’t let myself go all in and be excited like Layla and Harper were… like everyone else around me was.
It wasn’t until Harper was twenty weeks along that our situation turned a corner. Our ever-vigilant little princess, Layla, knew that by then there was a good chance the baby could now hear some sounds inside Harper’s belly.
Observing how Layla interacted by constantly chatting and trying to share her earbuds with our unborn baby by tucking one into Harper’s belly button, my heart squeezed at how she loved this baby already, and it finally sank in I was missing out.
At the time, we were all sitting on the sofa with our feet stretched out on the coffee table and I suddenly reached across and gently smoothed my huge palm protectively over our growing baby bump. Feeling the solid little bundle growing inside Harper made my chest and throat tighten with emotion.
“You have to hear this, it’s my favorite song,” Layla coaxed as she glanced up at me and smirked wickedly. “If you’re going to live with me, we can sing it together and drive Daddy nuts because he hates it,” she gloated sadistically, with her mouth almost touching Harper’s stomach as she mumbled conspiratorially.
The whole Frozen movie soundtrack drove me crazy, so I wasn’t sure which one she was referring to, but I chuckled that she was recruiting her unborn sibling to wind me up.
Harper immediately turned her head in my direction, her eyes narrowed, as she gauged my response. “Scan tomorrow,” she murmured encouragingly. Like I’d forgotten.
“I know, it’s been on my mind,” I confessed, and she smiled, placing her warm soft hand over mine on her belly to keep it in place. I spread my fingers wider—more protectively—and it was the first time I had shown any obvious affection to physically acknowledge our baby to her.
I was fine so long as we were living in the ‘now’ talking to Harper about the pregnancy, but there were still things neither of us were saying, like what if something went wrong? When I had to speak with anyone else about her condition, it gave me the jitters.
Being physically involved took effort, as my mind was still blocking events around my nightmare scenario first time around. To some I’m sure I sounded ridiculous, but trauma is trauma.
Harper’s opinion was the only one that counted, and I was making small steps each day to push over the invisible line between my past and my present.
After I let myself go and showed real interest, it was like a dam had broken and I couldn’t have been more focused on every aspect of our baby’s development.
Layla’s innocent excitement toward the pending arrival humbled me, and although I’d been carefully observing how Harper was coping, I knew my somewhat standoffish behavior had failed to make her feel attractive. This wasn’t because I hadn’t thought she was; it was more of a case of burying my head in the sand.
The morning of the scan, my nerves were frayed, and I had found myself having quite regular conversations with God about what this would mean to me if he let us catch a break with our results.
My mom said prayers always came in handy—something I didn’t believe in when faced with Grace’s sudden and rapid illness—but I figured anything I could do to create a positive vibe was worth a try.
As the sonogram technician set Harper up on the table, the lights were dimmed, and I wiped my sweaty palms before clutching Harper’s hand. Watching with a racing heart as blue translucent gel was applied to her belly, I took a deep breath and tried to look relaxed for Harper’s sake.
The blank screen transformed immediately when the transducer spread the gel across Harper’s bump, and we saw our baby’s little gray, grainy form appear on the screen. My heartbeat stalled for a second at the sound our baby’s strong, steady heartbeat and my breath caught in my throat.
Harper squeezed my hand tight, drawing my gaze from the screen to her eyes, and her wondrous smile made me swallow hard. My eyes filled to the brim with tears and I blinked, letting them fall one after another. It was a totally unexpected reaction, but one I couldn’t control.
“Is everything okay?” I asked nervously, wiping tears from my eyes with my sleeve, both eager and reluctant in equal measure to be reassured, and Harper squeezed my hand again.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” she asked, and I almost missed her question because the rapid volume of blood rushing through my ears distracted me.
“Baby’s doing perfectly. Length, abdominal circumference, head circumference, heart and heart rate are all within normal range.” My shoulders instantly slumped in relief and I realized how tense I had been. Harper squeezed my hand again.
“You okay?” I nodded, too choked to speak.
