The first heartbeat

...and the things they don't tell you

“Can he come in with me?” I checked with the nurse. 

“Yes, no problem,” she reassured me.

I gathered my test reports, and seated myself to fill in the forms. 

Away, I heard Ravi ask the receptionist if he will also be allowed into the scan room. Yes, sure, she said. Great, he confirmed. 

Bladder bursting, I waited for the clock to strike 2. The minutes crawled. As did the air molecules in the reception of this building.

The doctor finally signalled for me to enter. Can Ravi come, I signalled to the nurse. Ma’am, first you need to get ready, later, he can come.

He’s seen me in worse states of undress, I thought… rolling my eyes as I rolled up my shirt and lay on the table.

I yearned for some fresh air, as the nurses drew shut the curtains and lowered the window blinds. The room got dark and the machines began to whirr and whizz and rumble and roar.

“Your first?”, the doc asked. 

“Yep.” I smiled.

“How old are you?” she went on. Routine questions. 

I answered as I made a note of my strange view of the world, in a supine position. Ceiling fan. Odd calendar on the wall. Curtains partitioning the room. Light fittings that belonged in 90s TV sets.

When I sensed she was done, I said, “Can you please send my husband in?” “Yes, of course,” I heard the nurse say. And yet, no Ravi in sight.

I felt a cold gel on my belly as the doctor ran a joystick-like device over me. 

I peered over at the doc and saw her squint at the screen. 

Her silence felt loud. Despite the rumbling machine.

“Shut the balcony door, ma,” she instructed the nurse, eliminating the last sliver of light and fresh air in the room.

I’ve never had so much time pass with so few words exchanged between the humans in the room, I thought to myself. 

Deep belly breaths. That was my go-to somatic hack when there was too little information and too little air movement for me to make sense of things cognitively. 

“Hold your breath?” she instructed, piercing me out of my reverie.

Suddenly, there it was. 

A thunderingly loud 170 beats per minute. 

My only frame of reference for that kind of rapid rhythm may have been the introduction to EDM by a much younger friend, some months ago.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed – involuntarily. 

“That’s the heartbeat,” she smiled. 

“So fast?”

“It’s usually about twice the heart rate of the mother.”

Really? I thought. Why were you so quiet while scrunching your eyebrows at the screen?? I screamed internally. 

I was tearing up and my insides were a flaming hot fire of relief and joy and surprise and… sadness — that somehow, despite asking four times, Ravi wasn’t here to experience this with me.

“Please please can you send my husband in?” I said again.

Whirling around in her chair, she nodded to the nurse to bring Ravi in. “We don’t normally allow husbands in,” she said. “They… sometimes get scared.”

Of what?!! I mused silently, unsure if I even heard that right. 

“He would have really loved to hear this, doctor,” I replied pleadingly.

Just then, Ravi walked in and turned to me. His face was blank – the first of many blank looks in the months to come – as he nonverbally checks in with me about an experience that is primordially and viscerally mine and only secondarily and vicariously his.

“We don’t normally do this, the doppler can heat up the baby… but since you asked,” the doc said with a smile. 

And there it was again. 

A rapid, unbelievable, breathtaking heartbeat.

“That’s the heartbeat!” I squealed to Ravi, and heard myself break out into a giggle. In a rare moment – perhaps the first in the 15 years I’ve known him – Ravi teared up and was giggling with me. 

“God bless you both!” the doctor gushed. 

“Thank you,” I whispered, barely able to wrap my mind around the surreal bigness of that moment.

There’s a lot I’ve been told about parenthood. Parenthood as exhausting. Parenthood as a penalty. Parenthood as self-effacing. Parenthood as a sacrifice. 

But I’d never ever heard about this first moment of primeval connection between three whole human beings. The moment it dawns on you and your partner that a baby you both made is coming to life inside of you. With a 170 bpm EDM rhythm for a heartbeat.