Free The Midwife by Jolina Petersheim Page A

had ever known, I wanted a face that was familiar to me, and it only seemed fair that the mother of this child should also have to hear these words. That the mother should help me grieve   —that she should grieve too.
    The door the ultrasound tech had shut opened again. I felt like a caged animal, blinking in the crackling fluorescent lighting after an older gentleman flipped the switch. He had white hair receding in a horseshoe shape and dangling pink earlobes. His smile was kind, as were his eyes. Taking the swivel stool the technician had occupied, he hitched up the material of his dress pants and placed his large feet at forty-five-degree angles. His shins were bony and covered with socks made of heavy gray wool. The leg hair was white.
    “Miss Winslow,” he said. I raised my gaze. He did not even deliberate if I was married or not, as I must have seemed so alone, sitting there in my sweatpants with the university logo and my eyes huge in my unwashed face. “I’m Dr. Carmichael.” He reached out his steady hand with long, tapering fingers that felt like chilled candlesticks.
    Did he think the exchange of physical touch would make the words easier to bear?
    “I’m sure you know that my being called in here is not a good sign,” he continued, “so I’m not going to make itworse by beating around the bush.” He smiled. For an irrational moment, I wanted to assault him for his joviality at such a serious time. “There’s some residual swelling on the baby’s brain, and one of the upper ventricles does not seem to be developing. These two things combined with the fact that there’s not a good flow through the umbilical cord . . . well, it makes us worry that there might be something wrong with your child.”
    “It’s not my child,” I whispered, tears flooding my eyes. The second I uttered those words, I realized that Meredith did not have to know that something was wrong. In my opinion, she did not deserve to know, as she could not take a few hours out of her Saturday to sit in a darkened room with a scared woman who was contracted to bear her offspring. Because of her apparent apathy, I did not want to tell Meredith anything. But it was not only Meredith’s child I carried. It was Thom’s child too, and for him I asked, “What’s the next step? And how long ’til we know something for certain?”
    Dr. Carmichael slipped on the reading glasses hanging down across his lab coat from a chain. With his left hand tilted at an odd angle, he scrawled something across my file and said, “I would like to schedule you for an amniocentesis and an MSAFP, which is   —”
    “Maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein screening.”
    The doctor looked up from my file. The blue eyes peering above his bifocals brightened. “Actually, yes,” he said. “We’ll check your fetoprotein levels to make sure the fetus does not have a neural tube defect, such as spinabifida or anencephaly. High levels of AFP may also suggest esophageal defects or a failure of your baby’s abdomen to close. However   —” he glanced over his glasses and smiled again   —“as you might know, the most common reason for elevated AFP levels is inaccurate dating of the pregnancy.”
    “That wouldn’t be the case here, Dr. Carmichael,” I said. “I am a gestational surrogate. I know the exact minute this child was conceived.”
    “Ah, I see,” he muttered. He had not heard me the first time. “Low levels of AFP and abnormal levels of hCG and estriol may indicate that the developing baby has some type of chromosome abnormality. But these are all just precautions, so we can know for certain that your child   —or their child   —is fine.”
    I ran a hand over my stomach, which was as hard as an unripened fruit. The T-shirt covering it was still smeared with the gummy ultrasound gel. “Thank you for being honest,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”
    “You’re welcome.” Dr. Carmichael looked over his glasses and