A/N: Hey everyone! So, I'm sorry that it has been a while. To say school was busy this week would be an understatement. But here's the next chapter for you! If the medical terminology is off, I'm very sorry! I did my best to be as accurate as I could with the technology and trimesters and whatnot, but i could very well be wrong with a lot of it. Unfortunately, this is all that I have already written up and edited, so updates will become slower and farther apart, unfortunately. But I will continue updating as best I can as long as you all let me know that you want me to continue and you are enjoying the story, so don't give up on it if I don't update for a while, please! Review and continue giving the story your favorites and follows, because it's such a motivator for me to get schoolwork done earlier so I can write for y'all! Hope you enjoy! I'll do my very best to get my next update to you!
A little preview for what is to come in chapter 11 to hold you all over till I get around to posting it: Haymitch recalls his last encounter with a certain escort and reflects on how she has affected him now that he is in 13 and he is not. Also, if you're a fan of Haymitch/Katniss banter (which I am), there's a ton of it coming your way!
Thanks so much, everyone!
-ILoVeWicked
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 10
Primrose
Sonograms and ultrasounds were nonexistent novelties back in District Twelve. Only merchant mothers-to-be who could afford trips to more lavish districts, or even the Capitol, traveled to receive their prenatal care.
The pregnant patients my mother tended to at home were typically those of the Seam. Sonograms and ultrasounds were not accessible, and therefore my mother had to rely on her own homemade remedies and procedures to come up with logical, and oftentimes too realistic, diagnoses for children that would likely be born ill, premature, or stillborn.
Like the medicines themselves, these diagnoses were often hard to stomach.
When my mother and I arrived in District Thirteen, we were shocked to discover that the underground civilization had managed to obtain the highest quality technology that resembled what the Capitol used in their hospitals. Mother and I sat, dumbfounded, as we were instructed on the usage of devices that would tell us more than medicine in the Seam could ever drudge up.
In the weeks that followed, I often crept by the maternity ward of the hospital to watch expectant couples see images of their child for the first time. I can hardly wait until I am old enough to perform an ultrasound and bring joy to parents the way Mother is able to. Here, in District Thirteen, babies repopulated. In District Twelve, babies had to fight just as hard for their lives as their parents did.
Days in which my mother performs ultrasounds result in her happiest evenings at home as well. Humming, petting Buttercup affectionately, and giddily recounting her day, Mother's ultrasound days are the days I look forward to most in Compartment E, because even in high-tech District Thirteen, not every day is cheery. Death, although much more easily avoided here, is something that can never be escaped entirely.
Naturally, I was thrilled when Mother gave me permission to sit in on Katniss' first appointment. Practically pulling her arm from its socket, I lead my sister down the maternity wing of the hospital, babbling excitedly about the various types of medicinal machinery that she would get to see used.
Katniss' eyes silently float from room to room, filled with mothers of all shapes, sizes, and stages of pregnancy. She was strangely eager to go to her scheduled appointment with our mother after returning from the forest that morning, but the change in her current countenance seems to indicate that she believes she has made a mistake. Her uneasiness causes me to slow my own pace and to caution my tone as I speak.
To make matters worse, we have the misfortune of wandering past a delivery room with a door that has been left wide open. A blotchy-faced, screaming woman slurs profanities and thrashes in her stirrups all while the midwife instructs her to continue pushing. My sister's eyes grow wide with horror as she points an accusing finger toward the scene before her.
"What is coming out of that woman?" Katniss spits at me, face drained of all color.
"Um, a baby?" I offer with a shrug. Katniss always made it a point to leave the house and go hunting whenever a pregnant patient came by-or any patient, for that matter. There is no way she could know that labor was a sight that cannot be unseen, a lesson I had learned the hard way when I had first naively volunteered to help my mother deliver children, and I sympathize with my traumatized older sister.
"I thought birth was supposed to be a miracle," she states, lips tightly drawn in disgust, though she never really averts her eyes from the gruesome display. I giggle softly and she glares immediately at me. I quickly swallow my laughter, remembering that I am not the one who will be in the sweaty woman's position in a few more months.
"It is a miracle," I insist. The comically skeptical look I receive from Katniss is expected, and I suppress my laughter this time around, opting to smile coyly at her. "Trust me, Katniss. I've seen a lot of women give birth. I know what I'm talking about. It's what comes after all of…that…that is the miracle. Lots of women undergo difficult labors, it's true, but there's nothing quite like holding that baby in your arms."
Katniss smiles softly, her thoughts most likely drifting to herself in this scenario, when the wail of a newborn in the delivery room breaks us both from our dazes. The screaming woman is now sobbing tears of joy. In her arms she cradles a placenta-covered, healthy, writhing infant. I watch on with delight, grinning from ear to ear. No matter how many babies get passed on into the hands of their mothers, whether they are sickly and in desperate need of medical attention or plump and fortified by District Thirteen's medicine, it will always bring me an indescribable joy to see a mother hold her child.
Katniss, however, is unimpressed. She was never known as the apathetic Everdeen sister. "I'm sorry, it's still disgusting. Let's get this over with, Prim."
Now, it is my turn to be dragged down the hallway, my sister tearing me away from an otherwise emotional scene.
Our mother is waiting for us at the end of the hall. The expression she wears is unreadable, as it always is concerning issues that stray away from her familiar world of medicine and into her strange personal world. I know very little of Mother's past, but with one look into her distant, pale blue eyes, it is enough to know that my mother, like her daughters, is familiar with having to grow up too quickly.
No woman wishes motherhood on their seventeen-year-old, and I can tell Katniss' impending, permanent loss of innocence disheartens her in ways that she will never utter aloud.
I had my love of healing to bring me back to my mother when she began to reach out for us again. On the other hand, Katniss was entirely our father's daughter and our mother had difficulty making any connection with Katniss that spanned beyond the basic understanding that Katniss would bring us food every night.
My mother and I, I have observed, are very similar in our love for medicine and our use of it. Medicine is an outlet for our emotions and means for communication. By performing an ultrasound on Katniss, Mother is showing her support and understanding for her eldest daughter as best as she can. She may not understand the half of what Katniss is dealing with in terms of the internal battles she faces, but our mother knows, understands, and can handle a pregnancy.
Mother eagerly ushers us into an examination room, happily yapping away about gestation and all of the wonders of the second trimester of pregnancy. Katniss watches with wide eyes, unused to the perky demeanor in our mother due to never having truly seen our mother in her comfort zone. I connect the dots and realize that my mother believes that she has found a way to connect to Katniss, a method of communication that strays away from the cloud of death and destruction that seems to follow our family around and instead focuses on the ray of sunlight that is the birth of this baby.
"Now, you're just approaching twenty weeks, Katniss, meaning you're just about halfway there. The baby's reproductive organs have been formed and its grown to the point where it's going to want to move around, so don't be surprised if you feel any acrobatics going on in there. And your appetite is most likely going to come back, now that we're weaning you off of your prenatal medication, and—Katniss, are you even listening to a word I'm saying?"
Having been under the spell of watching my mother rattle off facts about what the technology here is able to tell us about the magic going on inside of my sister, I have failed to notice that Katniss' attention has been drawn to the corner of the room with rather detailed diagrams of the female reproductive system during my mother's detailed description.
Katniss drops a simulation infant baby doll that she had been examining in surprise of being called out for her lack of focus. Realizing the implications of her action, her eyes grow wide and her face flushes in embarrassment as she scrambles to pick the doll back up and set it gently on the table, only resulting in her knocking over several vials of medical supplies and figurines of the female anatomy in the process. Her face grows beet red in humiliation and I cup my hand over my mouth, half in shock and half to avoid bursting into laughter.
"Sorry," Katniss mutters. A small squeak escapes through my fingers and I clamp my hand tighter over my mouth to keep from any further noises escaping. I fear that Mother is going to want to throw both of us out of the room.
My mother, to both of our surprises, chuckles and rolls her eyes. She gestures toward the examination table and with an unwavering voice, speaks, "Alright, Young Lady, hop on up here. I want to show you something pretty amazing."
Katniss obeys. My mother transitions seamlessly from mother-mode to work-mode as she methodically lifts up Katniss' shirt and folds it gently, just above her bump. Under Katniss' dark, loose, District-administered clothing, her condition was barely noticeable. This perfectly shaped orb of skin before me, however, has made the situation all the more real. She is halfway there, and in twenty more weeks, she will hold her own replica of the doll on the desk. I smile dopily and grab Katniss' hand as Mother grabs a bottle of petroleum jelly from the side table and squirts it onto Katniss' belly, making my sister suck in a breath.
"Cold?" Mother asks, barely looking up from the fixture in front of her as she prepares the ultrasound. Katniss nods, craning her neck to watch my mother's every move while her free hand twitches every so often toward her stomach. The gesture is simple, but protective. I see in my sister's restrained attempts in understanding this newfangled technology that she does not fully trust it, and I give her hand a light squeeze.
Katniss peers up at me, eyes expectant and somewhat fearful, and I repeat the gesture with a sincere smile, letting her know everything is going to be just as mother says, amazing. Her body relaxes and she leans back against the examination table.
A few clicks and beeps get the machine revved up while my mother waves a wand through the jelly over my sister's swollen stomach, and suddenly the screen before us lights up. Katniss skyrockets back up again, curiosity taking over as she watches the screen slowly project an x-ray image. My mother laughs slightly as a steady thumping sound fills the room.
"Hear your heartbeat, honey?" Mother asks. Still clutching my hand, Katniss nods slowly. The thumping grows quicker in pace in a matter of moments. My mother takes in my sister's cowering form and smiles sweetly. "Relax, dear. Your heartbeat is going crazy from all of the nerves. This has been a routine procedure for hundreds of years." Katniss huffs and falls back against the bed. Her heartbeat does not slow, but it eventually steadies.
Then, we all hear it. A swishy, fluttering beat that effortlessly falls into a complementary cadence with Katniss' heartbeat. My sister's body, stiff as a board, has propelled back into a sitting position once again, face contorted in fear.
"What's that? Is something wrong?" she chokes. My mother and I exchange an all-knowing glance before we both openly laugh at my sister's unwarranted despair. Katniss folds her arms over her chest and glowers at us.
"Ha-ha, very funny. Katniss doesn't understand medicine," she mutters sardonically. Through my fits of giggles, I find her hand again and clasp it in both of mine.
"Katniss, that's your baby's heartbeat!" I inform her.
"And this," my mother adds, turning the screen in our direction, "is your baby."
I recognize the grainy outline of a fetus and take in the special features of my niece or nephew. I make out a head, a torso, and all four limbs. It may be biased of me to say so, but having seen many ultrasound images in my short history with working in District Thirteen, my sister's baby is already the most perfect baby I have ever seen.
Shrugging myself from my own fantasy, I gaze down at my sister and see that she is wrapped up in a world of her own. Her shaky fingers trace the outlines of the tiny body before her, mouth forming the shapes of words she wants to say, but cannot bring herself to mention aloud.
My mother, who has been looking on with tears in her eyes, I now realize, speaks for Katniss as she continues tracing the wand over the actual baby, for none of us wants to let the image go away. "Incredible, right?"
"Incredible," the awe-stricken Katniss repeats softly.
"It's the most beautiful little bean I have ever seen!" I gush, noting the adorable bean-shape of my future family member. Katniss giggles gaily and rubs her thumb lovingly over the face of her baby's image.
"Little Bean. I like it. Reminds me of my Little Duck," Katniss says with a far-away smile that sends my own heartbeat skyward.
We are silent for several minutes, in a world of pure, unharmed happiness. The sound of the two heartbeats working in tandem swirls around us, beating like drums in a symphony of joy. It truly is magical.
"Katniss, if you would like to know the gender of the baby, I can tell you now," my mother says after we have all soaked in the precious silence. My sister wipes her teary eyes and shakes her head.
"No…let's be surprised,"she replies meekly. I gulp back tears of my own, knowing that she believes that information is something to be disclosed if and when the child's father is the one holding her hand as they examine their child's ultrasound sometime in these next twenty weeks.
Eventually, our appointment time is up. My mother prints a picture of the ultrasound for Katniss, which she immediately takes, folds up and places in her pant pocket.
Mother secretly prints two extra copies of the ultrasound, and long after Katniss has gone to fulfill her daily duties as Mockingjay, the healer I owe so much to slips me the photo to me with a twinkle in her eye.
The photo sleeps with me under my pillow that night. I can tell my mother has placed her copy behind her wedding photo due to the slightly smudged fingerprints on the glass covering the photo that she cleans every day and the slightly folded corner of the wedding photo revealing a trace of a grainy bean behind it. I catch Katniss peering at her own copy, cradling it in her hands alongside her pearl, before retiring to bed as well.
The photo, and the baby inside of it, means the world to our broken family. It is preserved documentation that we were all happy at the same place and time, and all connected by the Little Bean that brings us all our own individual hope. In this snapshot of our lives, we were a family without struggle, without starvation, and without strife.
Thank you, Little Bean, I think happily, sending the message of love and appreciation to the bump resting across the room from me before drifting off to sleep.