He moved the transducer again. Checked the screen. Checked the forms. Moved it a third time, his brow furrowing in a way that made the room’s easy celebratory chatter start to die down on its own.
“Everything okay, Doc?” Marcus asked, his own smile faltering to match.
Dr. Okoro didn’t answer right away. He looked at Whitney. Then he looked at Marcus. He set the transducer down gently and reached for Whitney’s intake chart, flipping back through several pages.
“Mrs. Sorrell,” he said carefully — Whitney had used her own name for the intake, not yet Coleman, not yet anything official — “when we did your initial visit six weeks ago, you reported your last menstrual period as occurring approximately twelve weeks before that appointment. Based on that date, and today’s measurements, this pregnancy should currently be sitting right around twenty-one weeks.”
“Right,” Whitney said, glancing between the doctor and Marcus, something flickering behind her eyes that I imagine, looking back, was the first real crack of panic. “That sounds right.”
“The measurements I’m taking today,” Dr. Okoro said slowly, “put this pregnancy significantly further along than twenty-one weeks. Closer to twenty-six, possibly twenty-seven, based on femur length and head circumference both.”
The room went very quiet.
“That’s — that can’t be right,” Whitney said, her voice climbing half an octave. “The dates I gave you were accurate.”
“Ultrasound dating this late in a pregnancy isn’t always exact,” Dr. Okoro said carefully, “but a five-to-six-week discrepancy is significant enough that I need to ask you directly, Mrs. Sorrell, in front of your family here — is there any possibility of an earlier conception date than the one you originally reported?”
Marcus, according to Yvette, went very still.
“Whitney,” he said. “What’s he talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Whitney said, too fast, her hand tightening over her belly like she could physically hold the truth down along with the baby. “The doctor’s probably just wrong about the measurements. Machines make mistakes.”
“I need everyone besides Mrs. Sorrell to step out of the room for a moment,” Dr. Okoro said, his voice gentle but firm in a way that made it clear he wasn’t asking permission.
