Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler

true.
    â€œNow, in terms of next steps, we first need to determine how far along you are. Can you remember when you had your last period?”
    I thought back, squinting as I combed through my memories to the beginning of the summer. “End of May, early June, I think. Somewhere around then.” Hannah’s parents had just opened her pool, and I’d had to slip one of her mom’s tampons from the bathroom cabinet.
    â€œAll right,” Dr. Keller said, jotting down some notes on my patient sheet. “That means you could be as far as twelve or thirteen weeks in, near the beginning of your second trimester. The baby would be due in early March in that case, but the ultrasound will give us a better sense of more precise dates. You still have some time, Mina—you still have options in terms of how you handle this pregnancy. Do you want to discuss abortion now? I’m here to answer any questions you might have, any questions at all. I can give you information about adoption resources, too, of course.”
    â€œNo,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “I don’t have any questions about that. Not right now.”
    â€œMina, I really think you . . .” she started, but decided against whatever was next. Instead she just nodded, looking away from me for the first time since she’d sat down. “Unless you have anything else you’d like to talk about first, I’ll have Jamie call your mom back in. But only if that’s what you feel most comfortable with.”
    â€œYes, definitely,” I said. “I want her in here with me.”
    The sight of my mom reemerging a few seconds later was more of a relief than I would have expected. I hadn’t realized just how much braver I felt when she was close to me.
    While Dr. Keller and Jamie tinkered with a machine mounted on a cart in the corner, my mom and I hugged—a tight, desperate hug. I pulled back when Dr. Keller started wheeling over the ultrasound equipment, a computer screen and keypad with coils of cords and plugs and attachments hanging from the side.
    My mom helped me settle into a prone position on the table, my feet propped back up in the stirrups. I closed my eyes as Dr. Keller ran a small device back and forth over my bare stomach, opening them only when she said that she wanted to try a transvaginal ultrasound, too. She showed me the probe she’d be using—a bizarrely penislike stick covered in a condom and gel. I’d be losing my virginity to a machine. I almost laughed out loud at the thought, a deranged, crazy-lady laugh that I just barely stopped from reaching my lips. I squeezed my mom’s wrist with one hand and grabbed the metal table rail with the other as the probe entered, pushing farther and farther in, making my body feel less and less like my own.
    After a few tense seconds I heard a beep from the monitor and looked up as the screen came to life. I couldn’t see much of anything at first, just darkness with a few hazy, wavy clumps.
    â€œWe should be able to detect the heartbeat in just a moment with the Doppler fetal monitor,” Dr. Keller said, tapping at the keypad as she kept her eyes on the screen.
    â€œSee that?” she asked, running her finger slowly along the grainy image. “That’s your baby, Mina. At first glance the size and formation is exactly what I’d expect for someone at the end of her first trimester.”
    I had stopped breathing, every last particle of my body suspended in disbelief, every last bit of energy focused on that strange tiny shape in the center of the screen. My baby.
    My baby
.
    â€œAnd if you watch closely, you’ll see a small flickering, a very rapid movement . . . See, right here? Like a little valve opening and closing, opening and closing. That’s the heartbeat. That’s your baby’s heart, Mina, beating at just the rate I’d like to see at this stage.” She turned a dial