Unintended

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“Now, do you think you’re ready?”

I nodded again, and with tears still falling down my cheeks, I let Debbie lead me to the couch and I got up, unbuttoning my jeans and lifting up my top. When I was settled, Keely and Ash came to stand at my side, both of them taking hold of my hand while Debbie rubbed the cold gel stuff over my already slightly swollen belly.

I was visibly trembling, but I tried to take some deep breaths.

“Okay,” Debbie said, moving the monitor closer and picking up the scanner thing. “Let’s take a look.”

For a while, she rubbed across my stomach very slowly, then pressed down a little harder and rubbed again. For the longest time, nothing happened, and tears rained down my cheeks as I held my breath. Tension came from my friends in waves, and then the sound came.

A heartbeat.

The breath I was holding came out of me in a rush, and the tension dissipated, turning into excitement from Keely and Ash, and I finally cast my eyes to the monitor. Honestly, there wasn’t much to see, but the sound of the heartbeat pounded in my ears, and relief shot through me.

Debbie pulled the monitor closer again, a slight frown on her face as she looked carefully. Her hand kept moving around on my stomach.

Just like that, the relief was gone and panic took me again.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

My body felt stiff while I waited for her to speak. “Listen,” she said after a moment. “Can you hear that?”

“The heartbeat? Of course.”

She shook her head. “Listen again.”

I did, and Keely let out a surprised laugh beside me, just as I realised what was happening.

The heartbeat sounded too fast, but… it wasn’t.

“It’s twins,” Debbie said. She pointed to the monitor, and I knew she was still talking but now, as well as the sound of the hearts beating, I just heard her words over and over.

It’s twins.

Twins?

This had to be a joke. Or a mistake. But as I stared at the monitor, to where Debbie was pointing, I could see she wasn’t wrong. There were two tiny babies right there.

I looked up at Keely and Ash, with what felt like a look of absolute shock on my face.

Tears rolled down Keely’s cheeks as she smiled at me. “Two babies,” she said, laughing. “This is incredible.”

Ash looked a little choked up too, but he smiled and said, “Congratulations.”

I flicked my head back to look at Debbie again, and she too was grinning. “Evie, I know this is a lot to take in, but this is a really good thing. You have two healthy babies growing in there. You look to be around nine to ten weeks, but twins typically don’t wait out the full nine months.”

“I got pregnant on New Year’s Eve, if that helps,” I said, still a bit spaced out.

“Okay,” she said. She took a moment to do the calculations. “In that case, your babies are due towards the end of September. But realistically, it will be a little earlier than that.”

Debbie ran through some things with me, letting me know that I’d need extra scans now I was having two babies instead of one, to check on their growth, and I also spoke to a doctor to make sure my own health was up to scratch.

The appointment only lasted about twenty minutes, but it felt like forever. I was in a total daze as I listened to everything I was being told, and Debbie had also given me some leaflets about counselling and support groups so I could talk to other people in similar situations if I wanted to. I hoped Keely and Ash were paying attention to everything Debbie had said, as I’d need them to tell me what I’d missed.

When we finally left the room, with me clutching a photo of my scan, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I just wanted to lie down and let it all sink in.

However, Keely had other ideas, and she gave me a tight hug, squealing, “Evie, I’m so happy for you!”