Free The Incubus, Succubus and Son of Perdition Box Set: The Len du Randt Bundle by Len du Randt Page B

an
article.
    ‘Mrs. Greene?’
    Everyone looked
up.
    Justin and
Rebecca both put down the magazines and stood. ‘Follow me, please,’ the doctor
said and Rebecca and Justin followed her sheepishly as she led the way to her
office.
     
     
    *    -    -   
-    *
     
     
    ‘And how are we
doing today?’ Doctor Taylor asked as they entered her office.
    ‘Fine, thanks,’
Justin answered for them both.
    ‘Please, have a
seat.’
    The two of them
sat down behind her huge wooden desk.
    ‘Are you still
taking your vitamins?’ she asked.
    Rebecca nodded.
    ‘That’s good.
And you haven’t experienced any problems like cramps, for instance?’
    She shook her
head.
    The doctor wrote
a few notes in a folder. ‘The last time you were here we did the ultrasound
scan and could see the Amniotic sac, right?’
    ‘Yes,’ Rebecca
confirmed.
    ‘Well, let’s
take a look and see if we can see the baby this time, shall we?’
    Justin and
Rebecca followed the doctor’s lead and stood up. She directed Rebecca to
another room where she had to swap her clothes for a hospital patient gown.
When she was ready, the three of them went to the ultrasound room and Justin
simply had to look at the massive painting against the wall again. He
wondered if he would be able to paint like that if he ever picked up a brush
and just ran with it. He chuckled to himself when the probability factor
entered his mind: less than zero .
    ‘All right,’ the
doctor said. ‘Let’s see what we have here.’ Like before, she lubricated the
long electric toothbrush-looking gadget and then turned to face the screen. Justin
turned too, and after a few seconds, a black spot appeared on the screen.
‘There we have the Amniotic sac,’ the doctor said, almost in a tour guide-like
tone of voice. She twisted her hand and a few seconds later, Justin could see
what appeared to be a small finger shaped object inside the black spot area.
    ‘Is that...?’
    ‘That’s the
baby,’ the doctor said and Justin squeezed Rebecca’s hand. The doctor zoomed in
and clicked on two separate ends of the floating finger. The computer
immediately spat out and estimated age. ‘Seven weeks and two days,’ she said.
‘Now let’s find the heartbeat.’ For what felt like an eternity the doctor
twisted and turned. She zoomed into the image and zoomed out. She frowned. Then
she zoomed back in and twisted some more.
    ‘Is there...a
problem?’ Justin asked.
    ‘There is a
heartbeat,’ the doctor said as she twisted her hand again. ‘But it’s very
faint.’
    Faint? What
on earth does that mean? ‘Uhm...faint?’
    ‘At this age the
heartbeat should be much stronger. Faster.’
    Well check
again! What am I paying you for? ‘How much
stronger…?’
    The doctor
pressed a button and the machine spat out a copy of the ultrasound screen. She
repeated the process twice more. ‘A lot,’ she said. Then she told Rebecca to
get dressed.
    Justin’s mind
raced as he walked back to the doctor’s desk. He sat down and the two of them
waited in awkward silence until Rebecca returned.
    ‘It’s still too
early to know anything for sure,’ the doctor said once Rebecca joined them. ‘So
I want you to wait until the end of the weekend and come back on Monday morning
so that we can see what’s going on.’
    ‘Exactly what is going on, Doctor?’ Justin asked.
    Doctor Taylor
looked at him like a mother would when trying to explain something to a child.
‘The heartbeat is not as strong as it should be,’ she said. ‘This isn’t
uncommon for some pregnancies at this stage.’ She sighed and placed her one
hand over the other. ‘You have to realize that one third of all pregnancies end
in miscarriage.’
    Justin almost
choked. Miscarriage? What are you talking about? Justin didn’t speak his
mind. He just stared at her blankly.
    ‘But like I
said; it’s still a bit early to know for sure. Make the appointment for Monday,
and we’ll see if there has been an improvement