Page 298 of As The Shifter World Turns

“After you take care of things here, come back out front to wait for your visit.” The nurse said and basically just shoved us in.

“Daire?” The man at the desk said and my mate nodded. “We have some things to go through before your appointment.”

We sat down like good little soldiers and it was Daire who spoke first. “I don’t want to be rude but who are you and why are you giving us our test results?”

He looked up from his computer screen. “They didn’t tell you?”

We both shook our heads.

“I’m Quinlan from billing and we need to go over some things.”

Billing. Of course it was billing. How else could they have made a stressful visit unbearably so?

“As I’m sure you are aware, your insurance denied your claims.”

We were not aware.

“They should’ve sent you a statement of benefits.” He shuffled through some papers and handed us a copy. It hadn’t completely blindsided us. We knew this could be an issue. In fact we were shocked when the doctor thought infertility was covered. That didn’t make this any less of a kick in the gut.

I glanced at the bill. Just the tests alone were close to eight thousand dollars.

“Obviously, we have payment plans if you need them.” He whipped out a laminated chart. We were not the first nor the last who faced this dilemma.

“I will just pay it now.” Daire took out his wallet.

“Excellent.”

I wanted to tell the man it was shitty to do this, timing wise, but I had a feeling he was just doing his job and had nothing to do with any of that.

We went from there back out into the waiting room as we were directed. And the room earned its name. We waited and waited and waited. And then… we waited some more. Finally, we were called back almost two hours after our appointment. This time we went right into the exam room where the nurse didn’t even take my mate’s blood pressure.

The doctor came in only a minute later and sat on his rollie seat.

“I went over all of your test results and it is safe to say, this will be our last visit.” He tapped on his laptop. “Everything looks within the normal range, with nothing that could specifically hinder pregnancy indicated anywhere.”

“Normal. I thought—when they said we had to come in… normal?” Daire asked.

“Yes, normal. And it’s standard practice to give them in the office if it’s connected to discharging a patient.” The doctor didn’t at all seem phased by my mate's distress which had to be obvious to anyone in the office.

“Then why am I not pregnant?”

I gave my mate’s hand a squeeze.

“Like we discussed at our first consultation, it could be stress or timing or any number of things. But the good news is, there’s nothing physically impeding your journey towards becoming dads.” He closed his laptop.

“Any other questions?” he asked, already beginning to stand.

“What should we do… to help?”

“Eat well, sleep well, and you know that thing you do to get pregnant?” He winked at us and it was pretty eww, neither of us responding. “Just do that a lot.” And out he went, popping his head right back in. “Don’t forget to stop by the desk on your way out to sign your discharge paperwork.”

What they meant by discharge paperwork was paying another six hundred dollars to have our tests read and another two hundred for the doctor to tell us to do it… a lot. We paid and left and it wasn’t until we reached the car that everything just hit me.

“This is really good news.” I pulled my mate into a hug.

“I almost wished there had been something a little wrong so we could “fix it”, you know? Now we’re back at the starting gate.”

I held him a bit closer and brought my lips to his ear. “Didn’t you hear him? All we need to do is get knotty, knotty, knotty.”

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