The Wrong Surrogate

Chapter One: Two Pink Lines

POV: Ivy Carter

“No! Absolutely not!”

I stared at the pregnancy test in my hand, blinking repeatedly as if the two pink lines would disappear if I blinked hard enough.

“There's no way I'm pregnant” I say to myself.

I hadn't slept with anyone. I hadn't even been in a relationship in months. So how on earth was I staring at a positive pregnancy test?

I tossed the test on the bathroom counter and paced the bathroom, running my hands through my hair like Cinderella in distress.

Maybe it was faulty.

That had to be it. I'd heard of pregnancy tests giving false positives before. It wasn't exactly common but it happened and right now, I was willing to believe anything that made more sense than this.

I grabbed the second test from its packaging and followed the instructions carefully. Then I waited.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three.

Two pink lines appeared again.

I let out a frustrated cry.

“Are you kidding me?”

My phone buzzed on the counter. It was a text from my supervisor reminding me about a case file I was supposed to review that morning.

Not what I needed right now.

I stared at the screen then at the tests.

How was I supposed to concentrate on work when my entire life had just stopped making sense?

I took a picture of both tests, shoved them into my bag and changed out of my pyjamas. I wasn't going to spend another minute sitting in my apartment imagining every possible explanation.

There was a clinic near my office where I'd gone for a routine treatment some weeks ago. So If something was wrong with my body, they could tell me.

At least that was what I thought.

By the time I arrived at the clinic, my anxiety had turned into irritation.

The receptionist smiled when I approached the desk.

“Good morning. How may I help you?”

“I need to see a doctor as soon as possible”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No but I think this qualifies as an emergency”

Her smile faded a little. “What's the problem?”

I lowered my voice. “I took two pregnancy tests this morning. Both came back positive and that's impossible”

She glanced at my face then toward the waiting area.

“Please have a seat. I'll check whether the doctor is available”

I sat down, bouncing my knee impatiently.

Every time someone walked past, I looked up hoping it was the doctor coming to tell me there had been a mistake.

Eventually a nurse called my name.

I followed her into an examination room, where she asked me a series of questions before taking a blood sample.

“Your results should be ready shortly” she said.

“Can you tell me what might cause two positive tests when I'm not pregnant?”

“We'll need to confirm the results before discussing possible causes”

I wanted to argue but I just held back.

Twenty minutes later, the doctor entered with a file in her hand.

“Miss Carter, your blood test confirms that you're pregnant”

My stomach dropped.

“No. Please check again”

“We've checked the results”

“But I haven't had s*x. I haven't done anything that could make me pregnant”

The doctor paused.

“Have you undergone any fertility treatment recently? An embryo transfer, perhaps?”

I stared at her.

“An embryo what?”

She opened the file and turned it toward herself.

“According to your records, you underwent a fertility procedure at this facility several weeks ago”

I couldn't speak.

Then I shook my head.

“That's not possible. I've never done any fertility procedure”

The doctor frowned and examined the papers more closely.

“Your records indicate otherwise Miss Carter”

“Then your records are wrong!”

My voice came out louder than I intended but I didn't care.

Someone had made a mistake. A serious one.

I leaned forward, my hands gripping the edge of the chair.

“I want to know exactly what procedure you're talking about, who authorized it and how my name somehow ended up on those documents”

The doctor didn't answer immediately. Instead she reached for another page in the file.

Her expression changed.

“What is it?” I demanded.

She looked at me then back at the document.

“Miss Carter, I think there's been a serious error”

My heart began to pound.

“What kind of error?”

She swallowed before answering.

“Your medical records appear to have been connected to a fertility case that belongs to another patient”

I went completely still.

Another patient?

Before I could ask another question,the doctor closed the file.

“I need to speak with our clinic administrator before I can tell you anything else”

I stood up.

“No. You don't get to tell me that I'm pregnant because of a procedure I never agreed to, say my records belong to someone else and then send me away without an explanation”

“Miss Carter please-”

“Who is responsible for this?”

She hesitated.

And that hesitation frightened me more than anything she'd said so far.

Because it made me wonder whether this was really a mistake.

Or whether someone had done this to me on purpose.

“Is there something you're not telling me?” I asked.

“No of course not. We simply need to review your records and establish how this happened”

“Then call whoever needs to review them. Call the administrator, the director, whoever you need to call. But I'm not leaving this hospital without answers”

The doctor pressed her lips together before reaching for the telephone on her desk. She spoke quietly to someone on the other end, explaining that there was a discrepancy in a patient's fertility records and that she needed the clinic administrator to come to her office.

When she hung up, I folded my arms across my chest.

“How long will that take?”

“I'm not sure”

“Wonderful”

Another lady dressed in a scrub entered the office, the Administrator.

I dropped into the chair, resisting the urge to scream. I had a job to get to, bills to pay and an actual life to live. I couldn't spend my entire morning trapped in a hospital because someone had apparently decided to turn my body into a medical experiment.

And the worst part was that I didn't even know how far along I was.

“How many weeks?” I asked suddenly.

They both looked up at me

“I'm sorry?”

“How far along am I?”

The doctor checked the file again.

“Based on your blood test and the dates recorded in your medical history, you may be around five weeks pregnant. We'll need further examinations to estimate the pregnancy more accurately”

Five weeks.

I stared at her.

Five weeks ago, I'd visited this same clinic for what I thought was a routine vaginal treatment.

I'd been experiencing some discomfort and irritation, so I'd booked an appointment with their gynecology department. After examining me, the doctor had recommended a treatment that supposedly required a follow up procedure. I'd trusted them to know what they were doing.

I'd answered their questions, signed the forms they'd placed in front of me and followed their instructions.

At no point had anyone mentioned fertility treatment. Nobody had asked whether I wanted to become pregnant and nobody had told me that an embryo would be transferred into my uterus.

I'd gone there to treat a problem not to get pregnant.

And yet according to the doctor sitting in front of me, that was exactly what had happened.

“Wait” I said

“Are you telling me that the procedure I underwent during my last visit wasn't the vaginal treatment I came here for?”

Neither of them answered immediately.

My stomach twisted.

“What exactly did you do to me?”

“Miss Carter, we're still reviewing the circumstances surrounding your procedure” the administrator replied.

“No. You don't get to hide behind that excuse. I came here because I was experiencing discomfort and your staff told me I needed treatment. I trusted you. So explain to me how that ended with an embryo being transferred into my uterus without my consent!”

The doctor lowered her eyes to the file.

“We're investigating whether your procedure was incorrectly recorded or whether the wrong procedure was performed”

“Incorrectly recorded?” I let out a fake laugh

“You mean someone could have written down the wrong thing and now I'm supposed to believe that's how I became pregnant?”

“I'm not saying that Miss Carter”

“Then what are you saying?”

Silence.

And in that moment I realized that they weren't simply struggling to explain what had happened.

They didn't want to tell me something until they knew how much I already knew.