Page 78 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

My hand drifted to my belly, and a tear dripped down my cheek. I felt both. This was no nightmare. This was the dream. This was real-life magic.

How many hours had I wished for this? How many times had I prayed for a miracle?

A smile cracked my frozen face and another tear fell.

“I’m having a baby.” The words filled the car and my heart with so much joy, I collapsed against the steering wheel, laughing and crying.

When I pulled myself together, I sat up and flipped down my visor’s mirror. My mascara was glommed on my wet eyelashes. The blush I’d carefully applied to my cheeks was streaked with tear trails. My face still held a tinge of green from the nausea.

Who the hell cared what I looked like, because I was pregnant.

“Oh my god.” I giggled. “Yes!”

I felt like hopping out of the car to do a jumping heel click. Instead I sat there, blissfully wiping away the tears. But as my face dried, the euphoria dulled.

Had the doctors in New York gotten my diagnosis wrong? That just couldn’t be. We’d gone to one of the best fertility specialists in Manhattan.

I’d been sitting right there next to Adam as he’d listened to the latest test results, so it wasn’t like some detail had been lost over time. It wasn’t like he’d had hours to confuse or forget important aspects of the report.

Sure, I hadn’t seen the results in person, but neither had he. The doctor was booked solid, so we’d opted for the results over a phone call instead of waiting a week for an appointment window to open up.

The clinic hadn’t minded giving us our results over the phone, because in their world, diagnosis was just the beginning. Our doctor had been determined to give us a child.

When we first met with the specialist, she decided the first course of action was to correct my missing cycles. She gave me a hormone shot in the ass, handed over a box of ovulation sticks and prescribed lots and lots of sex.

She also told me to do whatever it took to reduce my stress levels, so I got weekly massages and cut back at work. I eliminated wine and chocolate and everything delicious.

Three months, countless shots and no pregnancy later, the doctor ordered another set of tests.

The results from those tests were the ones Adam had taken over the phone. And something had to have gotten lost in translation.

I dove into my purse, rifling around for my phone at the bottom. After looking up the fertility clinic’s number, I waited through a few minutes of transfers until I finally reached the nurse who’d been on our case.

“Hey, Patrick.” I smiled as he answered. “This is Piper Campbell. Formerly, Piper Hall. Do you remember me?”

“Piper. Of course, how could I forget those dimples. So good to hear from you.” His warm voice had always soothed my nerves when I was bare-assed, waiting for the needle pokes. “Though it’s about th

ree years later than I’d expected.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “Adam and I got divorced so we didn’t really need that consultation for in vitro.”

He hummed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, that happens with some of our clients. People always say time is the true test of marriage. I say it’s infertility. What can I do for you today?”

“Um . . .” I took a deep breath, not really even sure how to say this out loud. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re pregnant! All right!” He clapped, the noise echoing into the phone. “Congratulations! You’ll be one heck of a mama.”

“Thank you. So much. But the reason I’m calling is, well . . . because I’m pregnant. Based on the last tests you guys ran for us, I was under the impression that I’d never be able to conceive without some help. I’m shocked, to say the least, and I guess curious how it could have happened.”

“Hmm. That doesn’t seem right off the cuff. But let me go back and check your file. Give me a second.” A keyboard clicked in the background as he typed.

My fingers ran up and over the steering wheel as I waited. After they’d made about five loops, he came back onto the phone.

“Okay. So let me just refresh myself here. We started with some basic hormone injections to get your ovulation back on track. And when those didn’t result in a pregnancy, we tested both you and your husband for abnormalities. I’m seeing here that your vaginal pH was slightly acidic, but nothing that couldn’t be corrected. But we recommended IVF because of your husband’s poor sperm quality. The doctor made a note that your chances of natural conception would be less than ten percent.”

The phone fell out of my hand and landed on my lap, and I scrambled to pick it back up. “Patrick, I think I must have heard you wrong. I thought I was the one with the abnormalities, not Adam.”

“No,” he said gently. “You both had challenges. Without intervention to match sperm and egg, you likely wouldn’t have conceived. He has a low sperm count and limited motility. The doctor said that there was a high chance the quality was too poor for in vitro. Our recommendation for the best chance at fertilization was to explore external donors.”