I play with the cards that were placed on the table in the waiting room in the doctors. Nathaniel made me go to the doctors as soon as I had the chance, I was up extremely early trying to book this last minute appointment. "They best give me a treat." I say dully, still playing with the cards.
"You're an eighteen-year-old, fat chance." Cassie scoffs. "Why do you even want a treat?"
I sigh, letting go of the cards I slouch back against the seat. "Because we had to come at eight in the morning, and its almost nine and we haven't been called in yet." I growl quietly.
"Are you being for rea-"
"Aasia Taylor?" The doctor interrupts Cassie.
"Oh that's me." I say excitedly jumping off my seat. "You wait here, I won't be long. I hope." I shrug, walking towards the female doctor as she stood outside of her room.
She lets me in and tells me to take a seat on the stall beside her. "So Aasia, what seems to be the problem?" She asks, as she searches up my name on her computer and looks at my documents.
I watch her as she carefully types my name in, when she clicks on my name she doesn't see much records as the last time I came to the doctors was when I was a child, to get my required vaccinations done.
"I've been vomiting a lot, like a disgusting amount." I say squirming at the memory of me vomiting.
"When you say a lot, do you mean regularly or a heavy amount?" The doctor asks, ready to type in whatever I say.
I think for a second. "Both." I say firmly. "Especially during the early hours of the morning and midday." I say shrugging. "It's really bothering my sleep, and my husband's sleep also."
"Yes, it says here you're married?"
I nod.
"And you've only recently turned eighteen?" She asks, again sounding more like a statement than a question, considering she had all my records.
When she sees that I haven't replied, she looks at me and waits for a response. "Yes."
"Okay, have you been feeling fatigued, having mood swings, anything out of the ordinary?" She asks, as she types something into the notes area on her computer.
"Yeah, but I'm guessing it's probably just pre menstrual symptoms, I should be starting my period but I haven't." I shrug, as I grab my phone to see the time. I was only ten past nine.
"You're late for your period?" The doctor asks, as she analyses the symptoms and makes notes again.
I nod my head. "Yeah, two weeks maybe or more, I can't remember." I shrug. "I was just happy I wasn't starting." I smile to myself.
"Have you wondered maybe you're pregnant?"
"Pregnant?" I raise my eyebrows. "That was a funny joke." I say widening my eyes and letting out a brief laugh, shaking my head.
But the doctor wasn't laughing or smiling, her expression harsh but neutral she asks me again. "Have you wondered maybe you're pregnant?"
"I'm not pregnant, that's insane." I shake my head. "I'm eighteen." I throw my hands up in the air in confusion. I can't be pregnant.
"Well I'm going to book you in for an ultrasound just so we can see what's going on with your internal organs, or if you are actually pregnant." The doctor types more notes into her computer and prints off the sheet.
She hands me the sheet back. "You'll be called in ten minutes for a scan, please take a seat in the waiting area."
Raising my eyebrows, I shove the sheet into my pockets and walk out the room. I can't be pregnant, the thought of being pregnant hadn't even wondered into my mind, not once. I walk over to Cassie and take a seat near her.
"What are you doing?" Cassie asks, as I remain seated. "Are we not leaving?"
I shake my head. "I have to stay for a little while, just so they can do some more checks, you should leave though I may be here for a while." I say with a tight smile, not really understanding why I just lied to her.
"You sure you don't want me to stay?" Cassie asks.
I shake my head. "Nope, it's nothing serious anyways, you go ahead and I'll meet you soon we can all go for lunch." I say with a warm smile.
Cassie nods and makes her way towards the exist.
After waiting for ten minutes I was moved from the waiting room to another waiting room that was on the second floor. But I didn't realise I would be waiting for another fifteen minutes, despite the doctor telling me the scan would be in ten minutes.
"Aasia Taylor?" The nurse in a light blue uniform, in contrast to the doctor who had a white gown over the dark blue uniform calls out.
Forcing a smile on my lips I walk over to the nurse, impatiently I walk inside and take a seat on the table without being asked to, I wanted to get this over and done with.
"Right, I'm just going to need you to lie back and lift your jumper up please, as I get everything ready." The nurse says gently, walking towards her desk.
I slide back onto the table and lift my jumper up, exposing most of my stomach, awkwardly I fumble around with my hand on top of my stomach, trying to cover it.
"Right, here we are." She says pulling the computer that showed the images on towards us. She squirts some light blue - almost white gel on to my stomach.
"Cold." I say awkwardly under my breath.
"Yeah it will be cold, but that's fine, it won't hurt you." She says as she brings the probe onto my stomach and moves it around spreading the gel.
"So you think you're pregnant?" The nurse asks as she carries on moving the probe around my stomach, keeping her eyes on the screen.
"No, what makes you say that?" I ask, dumbly staring into the screen.
I feel the nurse's gaze on me for a few seconds, before it moves back onto the screen. "Because if this was a scan to check something else, you would have been told to drink two pints of water, and I can clearly see you haven't, so..." The nurse says awkwardly as she squirts more gel onto my stomach.
"That damn doctor." I mutter. "She's stuck on the thought of me being pregnant, clearly I'm not considering you've been at it for the past few minutes, and if I were, you would have found it by now." I murmur harshly closing my eyes.
The nurse doesn't reply, she just continues moving the probe around my stomach. "Oh." She says in an high pitched tone.
"What?" I ask looking at her with a raised eye brow.
"That's funny..." She says continuing to move the probe around the same area, and looking into the screen with much more attention.
She laughs, and smiles back at me. I look at her and then the screen. "I don't get it?" I say quietly. "Why are you smiling?" I furrow my brows.
"You're pregnant." She says excitedly. "The little thing was hiding." She coos. "You're almost seven weeks pregnant?" The nurse cocks her head to an angle. "Your stomach is incredibly slim for a seven week pregnant woman." The nurse smiles. "If only everyone was so lucky."
I raise my eyes brows completely, my heart lunges and I freeze. My mouth drops and my eyes widen, I couldn't bring myself to look at the screen. She wasn't right, she was wrong, there was a mistake. This can't be happening. A hint of fear injects into my veins, running through my spine I shiver, sitting straight up on the table.
I shake my head.
"Please, ma'am can you lie down again, as the images will not be clear if you're sat up." The nurse asks politely as she nods for me to lay down again.
I fall back harshly, making a small noise. "No." I say to myself. "I literally just started college." I blink continuously in awe and confusion.
"Did you not suspect anything when you noticed your period was extremely late?" The nurse says emphasising on the word extremely.
I shake my head, feeling brain dead. I scoff. "I always have inconsistent periods. I've only been vomiting for about a week, how could I be pregnant?" I furrow my brows.
"It's different with everyone, especially this is your first child you probably haven't noticed all the symptoms." The nurse says as she carries on watching the screen.
"We strictly said no kids though." My heart beat starts to rise. "Nathaniel's going to go insane." I mutter to myself disappointed.
"Hey." The nurse says softly, gently placing a hand on my arm. "This is nothing to be sad about, it's a beautiful blessing you know that right?" She says.
"I know that." I murmur. "The timing isn't the best."
The nurse shakes her head. "Screw timing, you're having a baby. That's incredible, just look at the screen, please." The nurse pleads with a warm smile on her face, she continues to smile at me until I'm convinced to look at the screen.
Finally, I shift my eyes to the screen. I see a small figure floating around and before I realise, tears start to bawl out of my eyes.
"I'm having a baby." I say in an excited tone, with tears overflowing my eyes.
"Yes!" The nurse says mirroring my tone, maybe even more excited than I was.
I stare into the screen and watch the small figure slyly move. My heart pounds as the realisation of the fact I'm having a baby sinks in, it looked incredible and I couldn't believe I'm having a baby.
*
I place my light blue denim shirt and my black jeans flat on top of the bed. Wrapped in only my towel, I take a seat on my bed. I grab the oil to start massaging it into my body, I tried making sure whatever I wore covered my stomach although it pretty much looked like nothing but a lump of fat. Nathaniel wouldn't assume otherwise either because after all, it really did look like I was just gaining weight.
"How long till you get ready, babe?" Nathaniel calls out as he buttons his white shirt. "Cassie texted on the group chat."
I shrug, although he wasn't facing me. "Give me twenty minutes." I reply.
He nods still facing his back towards me as he was facing the mirror. "That stupid Tobias is coming." Nathaniel mutters quietly, I see him pulling a face through the mirror.
I laugh. "You're still jealous of Tobias?" I ask. "We're not in high school anymore." I roll my eyes, standing up from the bed and getting dressed.
Nathaniel huffs. "Yeah, I know we aren't." He says quietly. "He still pisses the hell out of me." Nathaniel bounces his eyebrows walking towards me. "Why does he always talk to you in the group chat for?" Nathaniel squirms, spraying himself.
I shake my head. "Because we're friends, so you need to stop giving us the eye emoji every time we talk, you make it so awkward." I cock my head to an angle as I reply to Nathaniel, he looks at me with a screw face.
"That's the goal."
"You're so stupid." I murmur as I apply my make up on then I put my hijab on. I feel Nathaniel walk towards me, he places his hands on my shoulders from my back and rests his chin on the side of my left cheek.
"What's up?" I say as I apply lipstick.
"Don't look too pretty." He murmurs, placing a kiss on the edge of my jaw, before grabbing the keys off the drawer and leaving the room.
*
The sun was beaming down on us making us all squint, but even then we still chose to sit outside and not inside the restaurant. The air was thick and humid, not a touch of wind in sight, but I slightly didn't mind because it felt like we were still on holiday and college didn't start. We all had ordered and were waiting for our food to come, thankfully this place was halal.
"So how was first day of college guys?" Cassie asks.
I shrug. "It was alright, way less scary than I assumed it'd be." I shrug. Before college started I had the worst anxiety that the students in my course would all just be rude and arrogant, which maybe they are but at least they didn't really show it. Mainly because nobody spoke to me, but that was normal for me, I was always excluded from the crowd.
"It was great, honestly who knew computing and programming would be so fun." Tobias says cheerfully, with a wide grin on his face.
Cassie laughs. "I swear that get's really stressful?" She asks.
Tobias shrugs. "Apparently it does, but first year will be okay I think." Tobias says firmly reassuring himself.
"What about you, Nathaniel?" Tobias asks.
Nathaniel stays quiet for a while until I kick him slightly to talk. He clenches his jaws slightly and sighs. "It's okay, engineering isn't what it seems, it's a lot harder than they said it would be." Nathaniel chuckles, slouching back against his seat.
Cassie shakes her head. "Journalism either, honestly I thought it was going to be a chilled course, but they're already talking about deadlines." Cassie widens her eyes and growls slightly.
Nathaniel scoffs. "Same here, already been assigned a project."
I put my hand over Cassie's hand and squeeze it slightly. "No one said college was going to be easy." I tease.
"Foods here." Tobias calls out as the waitress walks towards us. Suddenly I start to feel extremely hungry, my stomach rumbles as she places the plates on the table.
I ordered the biggest meal, but I was hungry; after all, I was eating for two. I ordered the 'mighty burger' meal with extra fries and a milkshake on the side with extra sides.
The waitress places my food in front of me, the others watch me as she places all the plates on my side. "Uh, where are my onion rings and waffles?" I ask as I look at the food and make sure everything was here.
"Sorry, I'll just go get them now." The waitress says with a small smile.
I take a sip from my milkshake and look at what the others ordered. Everyone other than Nathaniel ordered similar things only their ones were the regular size and not the mighty size which I got.
I look at Nathaniel's plate, he ordered lamb ribs. "I want some." I say awkwardly as I gawk at Nathaniel's food.
Nathaniel sighs, rolling his eyes. But I ignore him and stab my folk into a rib and place it onto my plate, with a satisfied smile I put it in my mouth as the waitress places my onion rings and waffles besides me.
"Really?" Nathaniel mutters. "You ordered the whole menu and still pinching on my food?" He cocks his head to an angle and stares at me.
I shrug. Tobias laughs, "man your girl can eat, yet she's still so small." He shakes his head brooding his eyes,
I put the folk down and look at my stomach with food still in my mouth, I don't say anything but start to feel insecure because I wasn't small anymore, well I was gaining weight and soon I'll be huge. I shake my head and grab the burger. "The ribs were good." I look at Nathaniel and say with a smirk.
He rolls his eyes playfully, digging into his food. I take a bite off my burger and pause for a second. Slowly moving my eyes to the burger I squint to see what was inside it. "Is that gherkin?" I squirm, dropping the burger off my hands and gagging.
"What?" Nathaniel says looking at me. "Are you okay?" He places his hand on my arm and crouches beside me.
"Aasia, shit, what's wrong?" Tobias who was sat near me lowers his head down to be on the same level as me.
"I think I'm going to be sick." I mutter, still gagging.
"But you love gherkin?" Cassie states. Yeah, well not anymore, not since I got pregnant because even the thought of most food makes me want to vomit my insides out.
"Alright, it's okay." Nathaniel says quietly, standing up and gently putting his arms around my waist. I grip onto him tightly as he leads me to the restroom, great.
"This is so embarrassing, I just want to go home." I say quietly, with tears streaming down my eyes. I try to ignore all the stares I was getting as Nathaniel walked me into the restaurant and headed towards the girl's restroom.
"It's okay, baby." He says warmly. "What did the doctors say when you went today?" Nathaniel says as he lets me into the rest room.
Immediately I freeze and the vomiting sensation had disappeared, I no longer needed to vomit. After remaining silent for several seconds, I finally answer him. "Food poisoning." I shake my head.
"That damn Chinese?"
"That damn Chinese." I roll my eyes exaggeratedly. "Anyways, I don't think I want to do vomit anymore, I think I'm okay." I say quietly, tapping down my eyes gently to dry the tears.
Nathaniel nods. "You want to pack up everything for takeaway and go home?" He asks, holding me close to him.
I nod into his chest.
"I got you." He places a kiss on my cheeks. "Let's go."