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“Mrs. Stockton?”
Vaulting off an Eames chair, I follow a woman dressed all in white, wondering if I should ask whether colors are reserved only for the fertile. Pastels for pregnant women and infants, bright primary colors for toddlers, neon for grade-school aged kids.
Five minutes later, I’ve peed into a cup, been weighed and measured, and am sitting, shivering, in a flimsy gown. A woman breezes into the room, small and thin with gorgeous black hair cascading to her shoulder blades in a smooth line. “I’m Vivian Lu. Thanks for coming in today, I’d like to examine you first, and then we can talk once you’re dressed, all right?” she asks, the breathless rush of her words softened by an open, easy smile.
I like her right away. “Sure.” I lie back, putting my feet in the stirrups and chanting nursery rhymes in my head as I’m poked and prodded.
“Okay, all set. You can get dressed and meet me in my office. It’s the room right across the hall.”
She is gone before I sit up. Anxiety cinches like a too-tight belt around my ribcage. She was very fast. Too fast. She must have found something. Some reason I will never get pregnant.
What will I tell Tucker? Failure, failure, failure.
There are several boxes of tissues in the exam room, and I go through the better part of one as I pull my clothes on and find Dr. Lu in her office, collapsing into a chair facing her desk.
“So, it’s not often I say this to new clients at our first meeting…”
My face crumples. “Oh my God, I knew it. I’m never going to have a b—” I can’t even get the word out of my clogged throat.
“No, no. Mrs. Stockton, please. That wasn’t what I was going to say at all. Your urine sample registered high, but I wanted to confirm it with a physical exam.” As I rub at my eyes with a fresh tissue, she a