Page 12 of Dreaming of His Omega
We parked close to the building the OB was in and I started on my way.
“Want me to join you?” Falkanar asked.
“No thanks. I…” I felt like if I couldn't do thiswithTraviel, I didn't want to do it with anyone else.
Instead of being insulted, he nodded gravely. “I understand. I’ll be here.”
“Thank you.”
I walked slowly through an unfamiliar hallway and into an unfamiliar room, then up to an unfamiliar counter and gave my name.
The receptionist handed me a clipboard. “Can you fill that out please? All of our new patients do.”
I took it and started to tell her I wasn't a new patient, but I supposed that wasn't true. I sat down and dutifully filled it out. Some of the information came easily; my name; my date of birth. Although I couldn't for the life of me remember a year. I tapped the pen idly on the paper for a moment. When the hell had I been born? How old was I? I skipped it and went on to the next question. Reason for visit: routine pregnancy checkup. Date of conception... I hesitated. I had no idea. I backtracked. I counted backwards in my head and wrote my best guess. I got to family history and realized I hadnoidea what my family history was. I didn't even know if I had any family. Aside from Traviel. With the form still mostly blank, I sheepishly went up to the desk. If the receptionist was supposed to look at it, she didn't. She took it wordlessly and told me to have a seat. I waited nervously, still wishing that Traviel would just magically appear in front of me.
The nurse poked her head into the waiting room. “Elarian?”
I stood as quickly as I could and followed her down the hall. She had me step on a scale and slid the gauges to find my weight.
“Do you know what you weighed at your last visit?” she asked.
“No,” I said softly. Thankfully, she didn't ask me to elaborate. She simply wrote down my current weight. Then, she led me into a darkened room and gestured for me to get up on the table. I looked around at the machinery and realized I had absolutelynoidea what was going on.
“I noticed you didn't forward any medical records to us. Do you know when your last ultrasound was?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Do you know the gender?”
“No,” I said. “The baby hasn't...” I frowned. How could I know that the baby hadn't been in a good position to find out the gender, but at the same time I couldn't remember ever getting an ultrasound before? “I'd like to know it,” I finished lamely.
“Okay, well then pull up your shirt.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Pull up your shirt, please” she said.
I looked at her skeptically and started to pull my shirt up obediently over my stomach. She grabbed a strange tool and slathered some kind of goop on it. Then, she flicked a few knobs on a large on a computer in front of her, then grabbed a remote and turned on the large TV on the wall in front of me.
“Do I get to watch TV while I'm here?” I joked.
She looked at me skeptically. “That's where the ultrasound shows up, so that you can watch.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed.
She looked at me somewhat skeptically. “Youhavehad an ultrasound before?”
“Yeah, of course I have.” I swallowed nervously. She set the device on my stomach. I sucked in a sharp breath. “That's cold.”
She smiled and continued to rub the device across my stomach. The TV screen suddenly flashed to life. I watched a gray blur appear. The nurse moved it around, mumbling to herself. At last she stopped and said, “There we go. There's baby.”
I clapped a hand to my mouth as the blur took shape. It clearly was a baby. My baby. I gasped. “Amazing,” I murmured. I watched quietly for a moment. “It’s so simple. I thought you had to, you know, stick a thing up there to see it.”
She turned and looked at me skeptically. “You said you've had an ultrasound before.”
“I have. I mean… I'm having some... some memory issues.”
Now she looked alarmed. “Memory problems? You didn't write anything about that on your form, did you?” I winced as she picked up the form and started looking at it again. “Actually, you left a lot of this blank.”
