An Actual Someone

Until Monday I’d had what I considered to be very standard responses to everything that’s happened. It all started—as most events in my life do—with me lying in bed, trying as hard as I could to sleep despite what was going on around me. My wife burst out of the bathroom, threw herself on top of me, and with eyes wider than any I’d ever seen, told me she was pregnant. I had always imagined that would be the moment my life would change, but it really didn’t. The last three months have been a flurry of doctor visits, prenatal vitamins, healthy foods, and sideways glances from my father-in-law that suggest he might kill me, given the chance. For some strange reason, though, none of it seemed out of the ordinary. No, not out of the ordinary—extraordinary. None of it seemed extraordinary.

Monday, when the nurse performing the first ultrasound asked if we were ready, I thought it a bit odd. What was there to be ready for?

I said I was ready. I wasn’t ready.

A TV screen blinked on and I watched—curious, but not fully impressed—as alternating light grey and dark grey blobs floated past a focal point in the center of the screen. Then, suddenly, I saw someone’s back. That’s when things became extraordinary. Someone—an actual someone—was sleeping comfortably inside my wife.

If I could describe what that image did to me, I would, but I can’t. Sorry. All I can say is I liked what it did to me and continue with the story.

The nurse announced she was going to try to get it to turn around, which I thought absurd. Rationally, I knew—as I had known for three months—that we had a baby in process, but the thought that we had a baby that could respond to stimuli and do things like turn around when prompted to had never occurred to me. The nurse poked and shoved, and the very small back on the screen rolled over and became a very small, very annoyed child, trying as hard as it could to sleep despite what was going on around it.

And that did it. Nothing is ordinary now. Nothing will ever be ordinary again.