Week Eight

“Just try and relax now”, suggests the nurse.

“Okay” I reply.

“I think she was talking to me..?” Jo is lying horizontal upon the couch; her legs akimbo, anticipating the insertion of a probe.

“Oh, yes. You’re probably right”

Yes of course I’m right you arsehole. Despite not uttering a word, her sentence somehow arrives in my head telepathically.

I’m not deliberately trying to upset anyone. We’re here for an internal ‘reassurance’ scan, offered to us because of the previous miscarriage. I’ve been anticipating this moment for several weeks now, and my nerves are getting the better of me, causing my mouth to work completely independently of my brain portraying a somewhat inaccurate impression of an irritating prick, rather than a concerned and worried expectant father.

“When was your LMP?” asks the nurse, seemingly completely unaware of my presence.

“When was what?”

“27th March” Jo confidently butts in with a side glare towards me subtitled “Shut up Thicko”

“What’s a…”

“Okay. So that makes you now eight weeks pregnant”, continues the nurse, still oblivious to the fact that I am sat next to the woman of whom she has just stuck a large probe up between her legs.

“That’s right” answers my dearest, still glaring.

“No. That’s not right” I chip in. They both glare at me in unison, the nurse acknowledging my existence for the first time with a look that suggests she’s considering removing the probe from my wife to use as a weapon against me. Jo’s face tells me that she would happily sanction such action.

“It’s only six weeks” I helpfully offer.

“Eight weeks.” The nurse corrects me matter-of-factually; now no more bothered by me than she would be by an irritating fly.

“It’s definitely six weeks. We had sex on the 9th of April, a Wednesday. You must remember Jo? We got drunk and you did that thing you do with your…” I pause as I become aware of the increased intensity of the synchronized glaring. “…well, anyway, that makes it six weeks” I tentatively conclude.

“Ovulation, yes. But eight weeks since LMP, therefore you are into week eight of your pregnancy; eight weeks into the first trimester” she finishes her sentence smugly with one of those know-it-all smiles, whilst affirming her fondness for the word ‘eight’.

Trimester? Wasn’t that the name of a Klingon Solar System in Star Trek? I let it go.

“LMP?”

“Period!” Jo enlightens with a snap.

Oh.

The nurse and Jo continue in discussion whilst I wait for a penny to drop. Eventually I’m hit with a blooming windfall.

“So you are timing this from the day of Jo’s last period?”

“YES!” Again: perfect unison.

“So… you are saying that Jo was in week two on the 9th April?”

“Thereabouts, yes”. I sense that maybe I am starting to annoy them both.

“Which would make her somewhere around two weeks pregnant before we had sex?”

The looks have become quite sinister. Another penny crashes down shattering the deadly silence; this is woman’s logic. I cannot win

“Sorry – please carry on”.

The nurse swivels the screen towards us both. The hugeness of all this suddenly dawns upon me and, much to the relief of Jo and the nurse, for the first time this morning I’m speechless as I observe the image on the scan: a strange new life-form boldly exploring the ‘Trimesters’ on its nine-month mission. It’s our baby and his tiny, beating heart, twinkling like a solitary night star. I shed a tear and let out a huge sigh of relief. Pregnancy and impending fatherhood suddenly seem so very, very real.

I have a feeling that things are never going to be quite the same again.