Free Mother Load by K.G. MacGregor Page A

feeling this woman likes her job too?”
    Anna had already looked away, squeamish at the sight of the needle going into Lily’s arm. It was hard to imagine how she would handle cutting the cord in the delivery room.
    Beth entered just as Seon-Lee was finishing up. “Today’s the big day, ladies. How’s the morning sickness?”
    “Nauseating.”
    The doctor grinned broadly, instantly forming crow’s feet beside her deep-set brown eyes. “Yep, you’re definitely pregnant, all right. Let me start with a quick pelvic check. You know the drill.”
    Lily found the stirrups with her heels and sucked in a deep breath as Beth entered her with a gloved hand.
    “Normal, normal, normal.” And just like that she was finished, snapping off the glove and tossing it into a bin. “Let’s have a listen, shall we?”
    Lily tried not to breathe as the fetal stethoscope slid from point to point around her abdomen. Beth frowned and repositioned the device several times, apparently oblivious to Lily’s rising panic.
    Anna had left her chair to stand beside them. “Is everything all right?”
    “Yes, indeed. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty fantastic.” She positioned the piece and offered the ear buds to Anna. “Go ahead. Hear it for yourself.”
    Anna did and her face lit up in a brilliant smile. “Oh, my God. That’s our baby.”
    Lily could hardly wait for her turn. “I want to hear it too.” She curled forward so the ends of the stethoscope would reach her ears and heard the furious fluttering for herself. “It’s so fast.”
    Beth folded the instrument and set it aside. “Like I said…normal. The fetal heartbeat is about one-sixty.” She then smeared Lily’s belly with cold gel, one hand hovering near the dial on her display. “Let’s have a peek, shall we?”
    “Are we looking for anything in particular?” Anna asked, her eyes transfixed on the blank screen.
    “Nah, this is just a routine check. Sometimes we do these to verify the due date, but we know exactly when the embryo implanted so there’s no guesswork there. Once in a while something will pop up that we have to keep an eye on, but we don’t have any risk factors here so I’m not expecting anything hinky.”
    Though Lily appreciated the reassuring tone, this was anything but routine to her. She gripped Anna’s hand and took a deep breath in anticipation of the image coming to life. Wavy green lines appeared against a black background as Beth slid the transducer across her belly.
    And suddenly there it was—their baby, its head dwarfing its tiny body.
    “Congratulations, ladies. It’s now officially a fetus.” As her left hand waved the transducer, her right moved a pointer to various spots on the screen. A small white image near the center of the kidney-shaped mass pulsated. “See the heart?”
    Lily stared mesmerized at the rhythmic swelling and falling, fascinated at the proof of life.
    “Is that a foot?” Anna gestured to a hook-like appendage jutting from the bottom of the curve-shaped blob.
    “It…is…indeed,” Beth answered tentatively, wiggling the transducer to try to bring the image into focus. “Let’s see if…”
    Lily held her breath for Beth to finish her thought but she didn��t. Her eyes remained riveted to the screen as the wand crossed her stomach, revealing a new angle from near the top of the baby’s head.
    Beth’s forehead wrinkled pensively. “Usually I can look straight down from here, but your baby’s turned to the side a little bit.”
    “Is that okay?” Lily asked, aware of the shake in her voice but unable to control it. She reached for Anna’s hand and gripped it tightly.
    “Sure, they wiggle a lot. Better get used to it.” Beth moved the pointer to the edge of the womb. “The placenta’s forming normally, and”—she marked two points on the screen to measure—“it’s a bit longer than we usually see at eleven weeks…almost four and a half centimeters.”
    Anna chuckled and gave her hand