Jake was 21 years old. Junior in college, just starting to really enjoy life and figure things out on his own when life threw a road bump in his way: he got pregnant. Classic hooked up at a party and the condom broke story. But now two months later Jake was just starting to come to terms with his pregnancy and his rapidly changing body as he walked into his obgyn's office for his first ultrasound checkup.

He checked in, and after a few minutes of sitting in the waiting room with other men and women with various sized bellies a nurse came out and called his name. He followed her back to the examination room holding his small belly bump underneath his t shirt in his hands as she escorted him to a scale to take his weight (he had gained 18 pounds since getting pregnant 8 weeks ago, an alarming amount in Jake's opinion) and then to a bathroom for a urine sample. Once he finished up in the bathroom she took him back to the examination room for some questions, the usual "how's your appetite?" "any unusual side effects?" "are you sexually active?" etc before telling him that the doctor should be in shortly and leaving him alone in the room. Not more than 5 minutes later the doctor came in in a white lab coat, shook Jake's hand and then motioned for Jake to get up on the examination table. The doctor, a relatively young man (for a doctor) with brown hair, began by lifting up Jake's shirt and feeling his small belly, just big enough to be noticable and identifiable as a baby bump and not an extra 10 pounds from the holiday season. The doctor's nimble fingers prodded and poked Jakes belly, probing the depths of his womb before the doctor, satisfied with what he felt, took out a hand held heartbeat monitor and squirted some ultrasound jelly onto Jake's bare belly.

"Have you heard the baby's heartbeat yet?" the doctor asked.

"No I haven't" Jake replied. This was the moment he had been waiting for ever since he first found out he was pregnant: to hear the heartbeat of the life growing inside of him. Jake had watched practically every video on youtube of men and women listening to the heartbeat of their babies inside their bellies and now was his chance to join the ranks of mothers to be. Suddenly Jake didn't worry about his parents' dissaproval of him getting knocked up or the man who impregnated him jumping town after he heard the news that Jake was pregnant. All he wanted to hear was the sound of the heartbeat of the baby inside him growing bigger by the day.

The doctor pressed the wand of the monitor to the edge of Jake's abdomen and the room was suddenly filled with the crackel of static and the watery distortion one hears when they attempt to lisen to something underwater. The doctor moved the wand two inches closer to Jake's navel and then Jake heard it.

A heartbeat.

Jake's heart stopped. He held his breath. His stomach was in his throat with the feeling one has when they're sitting at the crest of the biggest hill on a roller coaster, about to drop over to the other side and speed down. But then Jake listened closer: it wasn't just one heartbeat. Lisening closely to the "WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP" pulses of his baby's heartbeat he heard another fainter pulse staggered between the pulses of the first. And the doctor heard it too. Moving the wand across Jakes belly produced a cacophony of pulses that grew in volume and tempo and diminished as he rapidly traced the wand around the now slimy surface of Jake's abdomen.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" Jake asked, excited and anxious practically beyond words.

"Let's take a look" the doctor replied, lifting the wand of the heartbeat monitor from Jakes belly and grabbing the wheeled ultrasound machine and bringing it alongside the examination table. The doctor pushed the wand of the ultrasound machine to Jake's abdomen and began examining the grainiy image on the monitor intentley when he suddenly froze in keen interest.

"What is it?" Jake asked almost panicked. "Is everything alright?"

"I've never seen anything like this" the doctor replied not exactly helping Jake's anxiety.

"What do you mean?" Jake asked panickedly, raising his voice.

"Multiples"

"You mean like twins!?! Triplets!?!" Jake replied, his voice carrying a mix of surpirise, fear and unbridled excitement.

The doctor dropped the ultrasound wand, got up and stuck his head out of the examination room yelling into the hallway

"Nurse!! The high resolution ultrasound machine in room 4a please!!!"

The nurse that first examined him returned promptly pushing a larger and more intricate looking ultrasound machine into the room and next to the examination table. The doctor quickly fired up the ultrasound machine, squirted more ultrasound jelly onto Jake's belly and then began examining his belly methodically, focusing intently on the black and yellow 4D images on the high resolution monitor.

"Doctor what is it?" Jake asked, the mix of surprise, fear, and excitement still in his voice.

"Jake" the doctor replied slowly, as calmly and controlledly as he could, "you're not going to believe me when I tell you this, but I can count 7 fetuses in your womb. Septuplets"

Jake froze, and then fainted.

When he came to still on the examination table the room now contained another doctor (in the same white lab coat as the first) and too additional nurses who were checking Jake's vital signs. Once Jake had regained consciousness he asked still in disbelief

"Am I dreaming? Did I hear you say seven babies?"

"Yes you did" the first doctor replied. "And Dr. Garrett here confirmed my count while you were unconscious. On top of that your weight gain and hormone levels in your urine all point to a multiple pregnancy like this too"

Jake didn't know how to respond, or whether or not to even believe the doctors. This was his first time ever getting pregnant. And an accident too. But he knew, coming deep from within the bulge of his belly as he rubbed it cautiously with his hands that this was no ordinary pregnancy.

"I'm having a litter" Jake uttered in disbelief. "My parent's are going to fucking kill me"

To be continued