So we go to the doctor's office for Jess's checkup. We jitter in the waiting room, thankfully not for too long before we're called back to the exam room. The doctor tells Jess to pull up her shirt and pull down her jeans to "Britney Spears levels," so that she can use the Doppler machine.
The doctor spreads what can only be described as blue goo, or possibly smurf ectoplasm, on Jess's stomach and pulls a wand from a little machine that's mostly a speaker. She switches on the machine and we hear white noise: static, ocean, a seashell that aurally reflects the blood rushing in your ears. She moves the wand over Jess's slowly expanding stomach, searching for the heartbeat. We know we might not hear it; we might not hear it because sometimes you just don't hear it on the first visit, and we might not hear it because it might not be there.
The silence in the room is only amplified by the ocean sound coming from the machine. My wife and I stare into each other's eyes and I squeeze her hand tightly. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump.
We both turn pathetically hopeful eyes to the doctor, but she shakes her head. "That's your heartbeat," she says, and goes back to searching for that other heartbeat that is (maybe should be we hope) hiding there. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump. Jess's heartbeat again. The tension is unbearable.
And then, overlaid on top of Jess's steady Scratch-thump: scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump, exactly double-timed to Jess's heart, syncopated, a mad little drummer pounding out life, a beat you could dance to, and I feel like dancing and crying and Jess is crying, too.
scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump i am here i am building myself out of pieces of both of you i am here i am going wild just wait until you meet me scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump
Nothing else in the world is as important to me as that wonderful, beautiful, kinetic techno drumming of my baby's heart. As soon as I hear that sound, it's over for me, man. I don't care what happens as long as that beat keeps going; I'd throw myself under a bus, I'd take a bullet for that scratchthumpscratchthump.
Do it, child, do it -- bang those skins, pump that blood, make yourself. I can't wait to meet you because I already love you more than anything.
Dear god, the realization that this is just the first in an endless series of casual every day miracles to come.
I love you, Jess, and I love you, baby.
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