Unexpected

Christina Ledesma
Long Story
Unexpected

You were unexpected, but I couldn’t wait to feel your new soft skin. There you are wrapped up in a tiny bundle placed in my arms. And there’s your uncle moving around the room taking pictures of us from different angles to show all his friends. Your first baby picture, your head pressed against my chest where I can hear your tiny heartbeat. I wanted to name you Isaac if you where a boy and Isabelle if you were a girl, but your father insisted that we would name you after him cause he was positive you were a boy. I watched you all day when you were asleep and I wondered how I squeezed you out of my tiny frame. My family showered you with gifts especially your grandmother; your grandfather however didn’t seem to like you to much, because your skin was to dark for eyes. Eventually I knew you would grow on him. He was watching you from the window when I saw him crack a smile in the corner of his mouth. Your hair was thick and black and would stand straight up on the top of your head. I would use a dab of baby oil to slick it back. You had my eyes, big and brown with flecks of gold around the middle. And when the light would hit your face they would almost look green. I knew you would be tall like your father and have the shape of his lips, and my button nose. When we brought you home your room was decorated in pastels and I had just bought you the entire collection of Dr. Seuss. That night I sang until you were asleep with the lullaby that my mother would sing to me.
You were unexpected; I didn’t even know you were inside me. I had just gone in for a checkup. And the next thing you know I’m sitting on a toilet waiting to catch my pee in a plastic cup. After I was done I placed the plastic cup inside a silver box in the restroom and went back to my room. I sat on the edge of the patient bed and waited for the doctor to come in. The walls of the room looked like they were moving. They moved closer and closer to me, some of the posters on the walls advertized different types of birth control, others were pictures of women with labels on their body parts. The nurse walked in with a clipboard and told me the doctor would be here shortly. She took my blood pressure and asked me when I started my last period. The doctor finally walked in with his white long coat and a stethoscope around his neck. He took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves and asked me to lie down. He lifted up my shirt and placed his cold hands over my belly and pushed his fingers into my skin. “Are you constipated Mrs. Flores?” “No doctor”. “Have you been feeling any nausea?” “No doctor I haven’t”. When he asked me if I had been feeling nauseas I remembered puking after eating a burrito from the lunch truck at school, but I figured that was only because I had food poisoning. You can never trust any food that’s being made in a truck that has a kitchen. He spread a purple jelly over my skin and ran a monitor over my belly. I looked over on the screen and there you were the size of a lima bean. “Congratulations!” the doctor said, and handed me a picture of you. I stared at you on the screen and could see your heart beating. I turned over to my side and closed my eyes. “Congratulations Mrs. Flores!” he said. “Was this a planned pregnancy?” “No doctor Han, this was unexpected”.
It was unexpected the moment you were conceived, both of us cramped up in the back seat of his car in the middle of the night. I wish I could say there were rose petals on top of the black silk sheets and intimate candles surrounding me. Instead it was so much more romantic, my skin rubbing up against his gray upholstery with my back against the handle of the door and the steam from our young hot breaths melting the frost off the windows. We both had been drinking, and the alcohol had shut off every sensible thought in our minds and turned every body part we touched into gold. The possibilities didn’t even cross our minds; we were drunk off passion and young love. We finished, got dressed and kissed each other goodnight. It was unexpected; if we had thought of the possibilities.
The nurse asked me what my plans where and the only plans I could think of were my parents. I couldn’t image the look on their faces when I told them that I was three months pregnant because I fooled around with a guy that they didn’t even know. The image of their virgin daughter dressed in a pure white dress and married in a catholic church would be broken. They would be reminded every time they saw my over size belly about the mistake that I had made. I turned over to my side and asked the nurse what my options were? Her white porcelain smile turned to a serious frown. She asked me “Well are you not planning to go through with this pregnancy?” I told her that I would call in the morning and that I needed time to think about it. That night I lied in my bed knowing that a life was growing inside me. My parents had no idea I wasn’t showing yet and I didn’t really have any symptoms. The only thing that I noticed was that I had this weird craving for pickles and ice cream. I stared at my ceiling lost in the white paint. I kept asking myself what would be the best decision to make. I kept imagining the look on my parent’s faces, what the father would say, and the burden that would stay with me for the rest of my life.
The next morning I called the nurse and made an appointment. She gave me directions to another hospital near home. On the way I called the father, he answered and I could feel him breathing into the receiver. I hung up and drove to the hospital and parked my car in the back of the building. I closed my eyes and rested my head on the steering wheel. I looked up and wiped my tears and watched the rosary swing back and forth around my rearview mirror. I ripped the beads from the mirror, locked my doors and went inside the building. I took the elevator to the second floor like the nurse had said and found room 12. My hand trembled over the door knob I clenched it tightly and turned it slowly. I walked into a room full of patients. I walked over to the front desk and told the nurse that I was here for an appointment. “Oh Mrs. Flores we have been expecting you”.
The room was filled with different women; pregnant women, women with kids, women with their nervous boyfriends, and women who were alone like me. I picked up a magazine from the coffee table and found a seat in the corner of the room. I opened up the magazine and began to flip the pages. I started to read titles like “Plan your Pregnancy”, “Newborn Mommies”, and “Top Ten Baby Names”. I threw the magazine back on the coffee table and sat back in my seat. I couldn’t help to notice the little girl in her pink flowered dress playing next to her mother’s feet. She was wearing the cutest black maryjanes with white stockings wrapped around her legs, and pigtails with pink ribbons to match the flowers on her dress. She was beautiful and identical to her mother. With her curled auburn hair, pale soft skin, and sea green eyes. I couldn’t help to smile and she noticed me. She wobbled her little pudgy body toward me and held on to the coffee table so she wouldn’t fall. She smiled and hugged the trunk of my leg. “Mrs. Flores?” the nurse said. “The doctor is ready for you now”.
I said by to the little girl and followed the nurse down the hallway. The cold tile gave me goose bumps and the smell of the paint on the walls made me nauseas. We step inside a room with no posters on the walls. She handed me a backless night gown and asked me to undress only below my waist. She closed the door and I could hear her put my clipboard on the back of the door. I sat there on the patient bed nervous and scared. The image of my parent’s faces and the little girl kept replaying in my head. I prayed to God before the doctor came in and asked him to forgive me for my sins. I grabbed a tissue from the counter and wiped the mascara tracks off my cheeks.
I could hear the doctor grab the clipboard off the door. He knocked before he came in. “Mrs. Flores, how are you?” “Are you ready for the procedure?” I nodded my head. The nurse walked in with a tray filled with silver tools and placed them on a stand near the doctor. She brought in water and blue tablets and told me to take them to help ease the pain. The doctor asked me to lie on the patient bed. He placed my legs in metal stirrups that kept my legs from closing. The nurse who was assisting him handed him a needle. “Mrs. Flores, this is going to hurt a little it‘s going to numb the area so you don’t feel any pain”. I wanted to tell the doctor the only pain I will feel is the scarring that will be left inside me every time I remember my first pregnancy. The doctor left the room, he wanted to wait about twenty minutes so I could numb properly. When the doctor returned the nurse handed him another tool and he began to poke me. “Mrs. Flores can you feel this?” “Do you feel this Mrs. Flores?” I looked at the doctor and screamed at him in my head. I could feel everything, the hate from my parents for breaking their traditions, the guilt on my shoulders for committing a sin, and the empty belly I would go home with. The doctor had not even started yet and I could feel my stomach twisting and turning. I could feel the little soul inside me. I clenched my teeth and dug my nails into the sheets on the bed. “Stop!” I said. I got dressed and ran out the door. It was unexpected, that little girl. I never expected her to smile back.