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Hermione applied online for a brochure, being the bookworm she was, scheduled an appointment for that weekend, and read up on everything she could get her hands on. That weekend, she made sure Ron was awake and they drove to the nearest muggle hospital.
They arrived at the hospital, half an hour early for their appointment, and approached the nurse sitting behind the shiny white desk of the prenatal care department. Hermione walked up the woman and said, "We have a 12:00 appointment with Dr. Livingston."
The nurse gave them a weak smile, obviously tired. She said, "Ah yes, he can see you now, I'll take you back in a moment." She grabbed some folders and motioned for them to come through the doors to the cold, linoleum hallway of the inner-hospital. They were escorted into a room and a handsome young doctor was sitting at his desk and said, "One minute, sorry, just finishing up an e-mail here."
Ron looked at Hermione and whispered from the side of his mouth, "What on earth is an e-mail?"
Hermione just laughed at him and said, "I'll explain it later."
The doctor turned around, picking up the folders the nurse left on his desk and slid on the floor until he came sitting in front of his desk facing Hermione and Ron. He gave them a large smile and motioned for them to sit down. "Now, I assume, you Mrs. Weasley have made all the necessary arrangements and read all the books I recommended. Before either of you begin, I know how hard this must be, I myself had the same problem, so my wife and I tried the same thing, and we have 4 children now. I know how you feel, exactly, and I want to tell you that you are making the right choice given your situation."
"Thank you so much Dr. Livingston-" Hermione began.
"Oh, please call me Tony." He said.
"Tony, then. I did study them, yes. But I think we're ready, I just wanted to make sure that you'll be our doctor for this whole procedure. I plan a lot, and I do not like to deviate from the plan. I know your credentials, and I trust you and only you in this." Hermione said, nervously, while Ron sat there trying not to look disinterested.
"Of course. Anything to make you more comfortable. Now, this might take awhile, but we have to have you fill out your criteria, and put you through some tests to make sure that you're able to have children Hermione, just to double check. We are going to take an ultrasound, and a blood test. We can do it all today, but you may have to wait awhile longer, if that's okay. While you're waiting, you can fill out these forms. These are criteria for what kind of traits you would like to have in a child looks-wise or personality wise. Now, obviously we aren't programming the DNA, but this is just giving you the gene pool you would like your child or children to be made up of. When we take the sperm from our donors, we catalog their traits. This is just an easy way for us to match you and the donor. It's not required, but we definitely recommend it." Dr. Livingston handed them the clipboard and gave them directions to their next destination. "You're going to get an ultrasound right now, they're expecting you, so go now before they get a long line. I'll check back in with you later, and here's my card if you need anything. My cell is on the back."
As they were walking out of the office Ron said puzzled, "Hermione, what's a cell?"
"How many times have I explained this to you. A cell phone is a portable telephone." Hermione said laughing.
Ron blushed. "You mean that ugly thing that your parents always call us on?"
"Yeah, that thing." Hermione laughed and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her. When they arrived at their destination the woman knew who they were and sent them inside. She laid Hermione down on a bed, and rubbed cold gel on her stomach. Hermione shivered at the coldness and the woman said, "That usually happens, still haven't figured out a way to make it warmer."
Ron made a move to pull out his wand but Hermione almost imperceptibly shook her head at him and pulled his hand from his pocket and sighed. The woman picked up the little connection to the ultra-sound machine and moved in over Hermione's uterus and cervix. She looked for a minutes and then finally decided that everything was okay. She paged the doctor who came and made a few more checks. "Well, Mrs. Weasley, looks like everything's okay." Hermione still wasn't used to being Mrs. Weasley, that was always Ron's mom. She smiled as she though about it and looked at the doctor.
"Oh, thank you!" Hermione yelped and Ron nodded along with her.
The doctor directed them to the place where she'd get her blood drawn. Hermione sat calmly, knowing the routine, and the nurse wrapped the rubber around the top of her arm and put the needle into her arm. Hermione calmly watched the blood drip into the little bag. She looked over at Ron, and he looked a little green. "Ron, are you okay?"
"Uhm, not really, can we just get this over with?"
The nurse looked at him and smirked a little, "It's almost over, don't worry. You can leave the room if you'd like though, sir."
While they were waiting for the results of the results, they sat in the waiting room, looking over the paperwork. They filled out the required forms and skipped over the rest of the papers by Ron's suggestion, Hermione could tell he was still pretty uncomfortable.
"If you don't want to look Ron I'll just pick these out myself. This was supposed to be the both of us doing this together, but clearly you still don't give a shit. I don't want you to lie to me, but we've already started this process because you said you would support me. I know what qualities I'd like this baby to have, and most of them come from your personality, but actually now that I think about it, being a stubborn git is one trait I'm glad that baby won't inherit from you. I could care less of the race, or appearance, or even personality of this baby, because I will love it regardless, because it is OUR child. But if you're going to continue to be this apathetic about our future child maybe you should just leave," Hermione said looking at him square in the face. At least he has the decency to look a little guilty.
"Just go ahead and pick them out if you know what you want Hermione," Ron said.
"You always see things in black or white Ronald. My point isn't that I want to pick out all the traits, my point is that I want you to care and participate in this. It is ridiculous that that is all you took from what I said. That would be all you listened to, right? Maybe you forgot that just one bloody week ago you said you wanted to do this with me. I know you are upset that this baby wont' be a part of you, but it will be. I mean, we could ask for a donor with red hair and freckles, we could ask for a donor who is tall and handsome, but you're acting like you want nothing to do with this baby. It's a child we're bringing into the world, our child, a new life, and it is something to cherish, so help me look," Hermione said.
"Yeah, you're right, I did say that. I'm sorry Hermione, I'm just still a little nervous about this," he said with a little hesitation. "But we are not giving the poor child red hair." They both laughed and began pouring over the pages of donor traits, well Hermione was but Ron was trying to save face with her, and Hermione too engrossed to notice he wasn't as interested as she was. When they were all finished they handed that to the nurse as well and went to sit back down again.
"Great, your results have come in and you guys are all set. I've set up the day for the fifth of next month, so make sure you guys are prepared. It really should take too long. The appointment is at 7:30 in the morning, so that you can stay in the hospital and make sure everything went fine. It's not as serious as surgery, but it's still good to make sure there are no complications, okay? Be here at 7:00 and we'll get you into gear. See you then." He shuffled them out of the office, and bid them goodbye.
