Page 58 of Breeding Clinic

KAT

Liam,Matthew, and Gabriel are already waiting at the doctor’s office by the time I arrive. I’m fifteen minutes early. So what time did they get here?

Liam stands when I enter, shoving his hands into his pockets and taking them out, then wiping them on his pants. He’s nervous.

“Sit,” I tell him. “I’ll go check in.”

He sits back down, his leg jiggling. Gabriel and Matthew try to distract him with a magazine.

“Hi,” I tell the receptionist. “I’m Kathleen. I have an appointment at one o’clock for my twenty week scan.”

“Got you,” the beta says, looking at her screen. “And I see you’ve been here before. Any changes to your insurance or address since your last appointment?”

“No.” I take the short form she hands me. It’s for acute symptoms or issues that the staff need to be made aware of for today’s appointment.

“Fill that out and bring it up when you’re done.” She cranes her neck to look beyond her screen and smiles. “Is that your pack? First baby, huh?”

I glance at them and smile. “Yeah. He’s more nervous than I am.” And I’m anxious as hell. This is the scan that says if our baby is developing normally or not. I’ve never made it this far before. All of this is uncharted territory.

The receptionist chuckles. “The new parents always are.”

I take the forms with me and join them, sitting to fill out the front and back. Matthew takes it up for me so I don’t need to haul myself out of my chair. I’m only halfway through this pregnancy, but I already feel huge. I’ve had to buy completely new clothes and shoes. My socks are the only things that still fit me. I didn’t realize pregnancy made your feet grow.

After a while, a nurse in powder blue scrubs stands at the door to the back, a chart in her hand. “Kathleen,” she reads from it.

They don’t react to the name until I stand, then they follow me with shared looks between them. The woman takes me to the phlebotomy station where they draw blood for genetic screening, then shows us to a room. “You don’t need to change, just expose your belly once the tech comes in.”

“Thanks.” I sit on the exam chair while they settle on the plastic chairs around the room.

Gabriel picks up an anatomical model of a pregnant uterus. The plastic baby pops out, and he scrambles to catch it before it hits the floor. “Shit.”

“Put that down before you get us kicked out,” Matthew hisses through his teeth.

“I didn’t realize it was two pieces,” Gabriel says, defending himself. He puts the model down, but the baby pops out again. It clatters onto the counter.

“Did you break it?” Matthew asks, horrified. “They’re never gonna let us come with her again.”

“Haven’t you seen these models before?” Liam asks, his brow pinched.

Matthew takes the plastic baby from Gabriel and pops it into the model, then holds his palms up and backs away from it slowly.

“I don’t work in obstetrics,” Gabriel says. “If the ambulance brings me a trauma patient who’s pregnant, I’m having a horrible day.”

Their antics distract me from my anxiety. We don’t wait long for the ultrasound tech to come in and turn down the lights. “This may be cold,” she warns me before squeezing a generous amount of gel onto my bared stomach.

The ultrasound probe is a firm pressure that she moves around my belly, taking measurements and photos as she goes. She talks as she works, telling us what she’s looking at. Counting limbs, fingers, and toes. Measuring the spine, heart, and brain. Making sure everything is developing normally. The scan takes longer than I thought. She works for an hour, some of her work frustrated by the baby’s lack of cooperation. The baby wants to stay curled in a ball, napping. To all of our disappointments, she can’t get any pictures of the face.

“I’ll get what I can but if I can’t get everything you may need to come back,” the tech says. “Try changing position. Sometimes that makes a stubborn baby move.”

I shift onto my side while she switches her focus to the placenta, which she says is nice and high. Liam reaches forward, rubbing his hand across my gel-covered belly.

“Hey,” he says to our baby. “Be good for your daddies. We all want to meet you today.”

There’s a flutter inside me. Like a flopping fish. A quick swipe that’s been driving me nuts for the last week. Is it the baby or gas? I’ve never been able to tell. My rounded stomach doesn’t move. It’s still too early for that. Maybe now I can finally get my answer. “Did the baby move?” I ask the tech.

She drags the probe over and presses, searching. And then we see it. Our baby’s face. The baby is sucking on their thumb.

“There we are,” the tech says, freezing the recording and taking pictures. “Good job, Daddy. Talking to them is so important. They learn your voices before they’re even born.”

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