Gummy bear

POV 

Millie 

Of course, the pregnancy test comes back positive so I'm sent down with that dark-haired nurse again down the long hallway to get an ultrasound. I feel like my legs could betray me at any step and allow me to fall to the ground. 

The dark-haired nurse opens the door to the ultrasound room, "this is Emily, she needs a dating for early pregnancy," she tells the ultrasound technician. 

The tech takes some papers from dark-haired nurse and leaves the two of us. 

"Hi Emily, I'm Nina, have you ever had an ultrasound before?" She asks so sweetly but I'm not falling for that shit again. 

I shake my head. 

Nina explains to me how it'll all go and that she'll explain things throughout the process. 

I lay down on my back as she gets things prepared for the ultrasound. She squeezes some gel-like substance on a probe-like device and faces the screen between her and me. I'm indifferent about this, I don't think I even want to see, I want to close my eyes and pretend this isn't my reality. 

The ultrasound begins and the silence in the room is thick, I can basically hear the blood pumping through my ears. 

"Oh! Right here," Nina says with a perfect white smile, practically the same brightness as her perfect bouncy hair. 

I look at the screen but have no idea what she's seeing. 

"This here is the gestational sac, the amniotic fluid, and here, that's the baby," she says pointing to a little gummy bear-like image. 

The blood I once heard and felt pumping throughout my body has seemed to solidify. I'm so frozen at the image, it's so..real. 

"Here, let me zoom in, this is baby's heart, I'm going to measure it," she says concentrating on the screen in front of us. 

I stare at the fast flicker on the screen and a warm tear escapes my eye, running down the side of my temple. 

What I'm feeling…is unusual. I'm not crying because I'm sad or terrified. I'm crying because I'm happy? The feeling coursing through me is warm, and peaceful overwhelmingly affectionate towards this little gummy bear's beating heart. 

"162 beats per minute, that's a lovely number for the seven to eight-week mark," Nina says squeezing my arm with excitement on my behalf. 

"Woah, woah, woah!" I say in complete shock. 

"Seven to eight weeks?! How?!" I demand. 

Nina stops what she's doing for a second to explain to me that two weeks are added in a pregnancy and that the gestational age of the baby is actually five to six weeks so I guess that makes sense? I don't know it's all so confusing I need to do an all-nighter googling all of this. 

Nina goes back to doing whatever she's doing, "Oh Emily, look at this, I got a better image, these little things here, these are the start of arms and there are the legs and the head and abdomen," she points everything out with so much excitement, she really is so sweet and I can tell she loves her job. 

Those warm feelings of looking at my baby wash over me again. It's so freaking cute, my little gummy bear. For a second, I almost forget that this isn't just my baby, it's X's too. It's our baby that we created together. Who will this baby look like? Will it be a girl or a boy? The guessing continues on in my head as Nina prints off the pictures from the ultrasound, congratulates me, and sends me on my way.

I can't wait to show Steph my little gummy bear. It's incredible how drastically my feelings have changed since walking into this office. I smile down at the various black and white images in my hands as I walk down the now brighter-appearing long hallway and to my best friend. 

When I exit the door, Steph puts her head up and notices my shift in demeanor, "you're not pregnant?" 

I roll my eyes at her and unfold the ultrasound pictures in my hand revealing the pictures to her. 

"Woah.." she whispers. 

"It's crazy right?" I ask as she examines the black-and-white photos. 

"I'll say, and you're..okay with this now?" She asks looking up at me. 

I shrug my shoulders, "I don't know Steph, I guess I'm coming to terms with it, when I saw its little heart beating something in me changed." 

She squeezes my shoulder, "let's pray it's a boy," she says with a wide white smile. 

"Let's," I say as we leave the office.