A/N Another short author's note, as there's nothing really to explain this week. Enjoy.

Chapter 33

Monday 20 January, 12:50 PM

Leonard walked into the doctor's office, and looked around, he didn't see Penny, but he had seen her car. His puzzlement turned to the realization that she was in the back, for the blood work, so he sat down and waited. It didn't take long before Penny came out of a door, and into the waiting area. She saw Leonard, walked over, and sat down next to him.

"They were taking blood from you?" he asked.

Penny nodded, "Yeah, it seems like I'm going to get stuck, every time I come in here."

It was only a few more minutes before Dr Samuels came out and called them in. Entering her office, she directed Penny to the examination table and had her pull down her pants a bit, and lift her blouse. She then laid back, as Dr Samuels readied the ultrasound machine. She put the gel on the sensor, then started moving around on Penny's stomach. Soon, she stopped and turned the monitor around.

"This is what I wanted to see," said Dr Samuels, as she traced her finger on the monitor. "Here's the placenta, notice how you can see both cords, and where they attach? They are not tangled, which we wouldn't expect, with each baby having its own sac. However, notice how you can see both sacs, these big dark areas. One concern, with multiples, is that one of the cords could be impinged, or squeezed by the other baby. But, with where they're attached to the placenta, the chances of that are reduced. Also, notice how well-formed they are now." Penny and Leonard could see both sacs and both babies. Penny remembering something from quite a few years ago said, "Leonard, look, they're homunculus…es…s…s"

"The word is homunculi, not homunculuses," said Leonard.

Penny pointed and said excitedly, "Look at them. That one, it's looking at me and smiling."

Leonard looked and it did appear as if it was smiling, but Dr Samuels chimed in, "Their brains are checking out if the nerves and muscles work. Sometimes they smile, grimace, or scowl. It really doesn't mean anything."

"Yeah, okay," said Penny sounding disappointed. "You sound like my husband."

Dr Samuels pushed a button, then turned the machine off. She gave Penny a couple of wipes and a towel to clean up, and said she'd be right back, then left the office. She was soon back with a printout of the ultrasound, giving it to Penny and with a grin saying, "If you want to think it's smiling at you, this should help."

Penny looked at the image and smiled back at it.

Dr Samuels said, "Things appear to be going well. They look to be about three inches long and about nine ounces. I see your belly is protruding more this week."

"No, it's not," said Penny. "As a matter of fact, I was going to ask you about why I'm not getting bigger."

"You are," chuckled Dr Samuels, "it's just been growing so slowly, you haven't noticed. But, I can see the difference from just two weeks ago. I'll bet your clothes have gotten tighter."

Penny looked down, at her belly and was surprised to notice that yes, as she sat there, it did look bigger. "No, wait…Leonard, have I gotten bigger?"

Leonard paused, but then said, "Yes, you have. Why do you think you've been more comfortable wearing sweats?"

Penny thought back over the last week or so. She remembered wanting to get out of her business clothes at the conference, because they were tight, and remembered changing into sweats to feel more comfortable, as Leonard said, at home. Maybe I am getting bigger.

"Have you been doing your exercises?" asked Dr Samuels.

"Yes, I have," said Penny, "but, I've been busy the last week or so, and have been slacking off. I'm still doing them, but I haven't been as dedicated. I'll get back on it, now that I'm home. But, there are a couple of things I need to ask you about."

"What do you need?"

"I was on the flight back this weekend," said Penny, "and when I laughed, I started peeing."

Dr Samuels looked at a piece of paper, then said, "That sounds about right. The beginning of the second trimester is when the uterus starts settling onto the pelvic bone, and it can start pushing on the bladder. So when you laugh, the contracting muscles put pressure on the uterus, which then can put pressure on the bladder, which makes you pee. Not all the time though, have you been doing your Kegels?"

"My what?"

"Your Kegels," said Dr Samuels. "They are exercises to help strengthen your pelvic floor. I told you, you should start them, and gave you a sheet about them the first week."

"I'm sorry," said Penny, "I don't remember that."

Dr Samuels got up, went to an opened a filing cabinet, then pulled a piece of paper out. She gave it to Penny, who looked at it and remembered looking at it and trying some of the exercises. "I'm sorry Dr Samuels, I did get this. I tried them, then forgot about it."

"Well, doing the Kegels will help you with your ahhhhhh, problem, and will help keep your vaginal walls more elastic, for when the babies' heads move through them." Dr Samuels grinned as she continued. "And, after you give birth, it will help get your vagina back into pre-delivery shape, so to speak."

Penny looked at Leonard and he was smiling and nodding his head, she just rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"So try to incorporate them when you do your yoga, and before bed, it will help," said Dr Samuels. "You can also use the incontinence pads, so you're protected against leakage. But, tampons can cause infections, so please don't use tampons."

"Okay," said Penny. "Also, I don't get tired, like I did a few weeks ago. I feel like I have a lot more energy."

"Yes, you're in your second trimester," said Dr Samuels. "Your body needed a lot of energy to get the pregnancy started and start all those changes, but now it needs less to keep it going. So, while you feel like you have a lot more energy, it's just relative to what you felt like in the first trimester."

Dr Samuels continued, "On another subject, the little ones will need nutrients to really start growing, and you may find that you are getting hungry, more often, and wanting to eat more. However be careful with that, your weight is right where we want it to be, at this stage. If you are hungry and start thinking you are eating for two, or three in your case, you may eat more than need to. Follow the guidelines I gave you, okay?"

Penny nodded.

"For right now, this is the best time during your pregnancy, so just enjoy it," continued Dr Samuels. "You have good energy, the worries of starting the pregnancy are in the past, and the weight, extended belly, swelled ankles, all of the negatives are in the future. You might think about going out and buy several maternity outfits. So you don't have to wear sweats all the time."

Penny giggled at that.

"Any other questions?"

"Not that I can think of," said Penny. "Back in two weeks?"

"Yes," said Dr Samuels, "that's where we will be until about the seventh month."

Penny and Leonard rose, thanked Dr Samuels, and then went out. They stopped at the front desk, to make an appointment. It would be at the same time, in two weeks. After that, Leonard and Penny left the office, Penny going home, and Leonard back to work.

Tuesday 20 January, 7:30 AM

Leonard and Penny kissed and got in their cars to go to work. In Leonard's case, he had Sheldon in his car this morning. Amy had an early meeting with her department chair, about her possible PhD candidates, and so Sheldon was going with Leonard. It had been several months since Leonard had to take Sheldon to work, and he declined all of Sheldon's offers to play a driving game. They arrived at the university and went to their offices. Once Leonard got to his office, he unloaded his bag, hooked up his computer, then dialed the phone, for a phone call he had to make.

After the second ring, he heard, "Anthropology Department, Dr Hofstadter speaking."

"Hello Father," said Leonard.

"Leonard," said Alfred, "how are you?"

"I'm fine," said Leonard, "just wanted to call you with an update, to...well, several things."

"Is the baby okay?" asked Alfred, sounding concerned.

"Yes," said Leonard, "The baby, er babies, are fine."

"Babies?"

Leonard chuckled, "Yes, Penny is having twins."

"Well, that's great news," said Alfred. Then he paused and said, "It is, isn't it?"

"Yes, dad, it is," said Leonard. "We found out before Christmas, but you had already gone to Europe. I knew you'd be back today, so that's why you're getting a phone call."

"Well, that's fantastic then Leonard," said Alfred. "I should be able to come by before school, next fall, to see them, if that's fine with you."

Leonard said, "It is, and it will be great to see you, and fun for you to see your new grandchildren."

"I'm excited to see them," said Alfred. "I'll make the plans."

"Also, I got major work news."

"What's going on?" asked Alfred.

"I'm now a full professor, and have tenure," said Leonard.

"That is great news, Leonard," said Alfred. "I'd like to ask you more about it, but now, I have a meeting I have to attend."

"That's fine dad," said Leonard, "I just wanted to let you know, I'll talk to you later, goodbye."

"Goodbye, Leonard."

They both hung up, and Leonard started looking at his setup, for the experiment.

Tuesday 21 January, 10:30 AM

Penny's phone intercom rang, and she picked it up and said, "Penny Hofstadter."

"Hi Penny," she heard Dan say, "can you come up to Tim's office? We want to talk to you about some things, er…about the conference."

"Sure," said Penny, "give me about five minutes."

"Okay, see you then," said Dan.

Penny finished up the paragraph on her report of the convention, made herself a cup of tea, then walked out of her office, going to Tim's. About three minutes later, stopped at Tim's secretary, letting her know she was here. The secretary told Penny she was expected and to go right in. Dan and Tim were sitting at a small table, as she entered, and they waved Penny over to join them.

After she sat down, Tim asked her, "Well, what did you think of the convention and how do you think we did, as a company."

Penny said, "I'm working on the report right now. If you give me until this afternoon, I can give you the report."

"Oh, I'm not worried about the report," said Tim, "just give us your thoughts on the weekend, off the top of your head."

"Okay," said Penny a bit nervously, "the presentations went great. There was a lot of excitement, for the product, from quite a few of our prospective and current customers. They like the low number of side effects and the reduced cost. As far as I know, Karen and I answered all of the questions. Roger did a great job overall. It was just a great weekend."

"That's what we are hearing," said Dan. "Good reports from a lot of people. We'll get into the job, you did, in a bit. Can you give us a bit more depth on how Karen and Roger did?"

"Roger was a huge asset," said Penny. "Although his knowledge of what we were doing was somewhat limited, he had studied the material, on his own, and did a good job with the questions he could answer. And, he was smart enough to understand that when he didn't know, that he should call for either Karen or me. His main job was to keep the material full, and he always had everything in the right place, made sure they were full. But, his help with answering questions was very handy for us."

"Good, good," said Tim. "What about Karen?"

"I couldn't have done it without her," said Penny. "Her knowledge was top-notch, quick to answer questions, without having to look it up. She did a lot of the research for the material, and wrote some of the presentation, and had the slides up, during the presentation, right on time. She willing did whatever was needed to make sure the launch, and the convention, was successful. She deserves a lot of the credit, for the success of the launch."

"Hard-working?" asked Dan.

"Yes, very," said Penny, then she got curious, "Why?"

Tim ignored her, "As for the success of the launch, we have heard quite a bit about you. And, we did get an interesting call from Al Denizon, my counterpart in Dallas. Something about you being rather upset with one of his teams and rather snarky with one of his DMs."

Penny looked worried, but answered calmly, "Sir, all I said was my whole team had to be invited to dinner, or I wasn't going. After all, I couldn't have done it without their help, and they deserved it as much as I did. And, I wasn't going to take crap from someone, who was questioning my…my…bonafides," remembering a word Amy had used. "If he wants to count defending myself, from one of his sexist DMs, as a problem, or make it sound as if I was the problem, because of something I reacted to, there's nothing I can do about that."

Dan chuckled, "No, no, he wasn't upset, he mentioned that it was one of the smoothest and best launches he's seen. And, he thought Inflamix was a good launch. As for not inviting the rest of your people, he was impressed by your stand."

"Why was he impressed?"

"You protected your team," said Tim. "That's not something everyone would have done. Most people would worry about upsetting someone higher up. But, you didn't let it bother you."

"Well," said Penny, "to be honest, after I found out who and what he did, I was worried about it."

"No need to worry," said Tim. "You did a good job with that. As for that other thing, there is nothing wrong with what you did. From what we heard, the DM was a sexist ass, and Al will handle it. The presentation, and being able to give them the material and the presentation itself, was big. It will make it easier for their sales team to hit the ground running. As a matter of fact, with Al's and my recommendations, the president of company sales read it and decided it's going out to all our teams, across the country, to get the salespeople up to speed on Embryno."

Penny was stunned, that her and Karen's work was going out to the entire company, but, the thought of Karen now had her wondering about being asked about her. "Sir, I asked about why you were asking me about Karen, why are you?"

"Well," said Tim, "remember when we told you about possibly getting Karen a sales position?"

"Yes," said Penny, then she remembered what Karen had said to her. "Is this about her moving from intern to a regular employee?"

"That's it," said Tim, "there is a lot going on, behind the scenes, that hasn't been announced yet, and we have been rearranging some of the sales territories, and she will be getting one of the new territories. Well, it is an old territory, that's been reconfigured. She will become a regular employee as a salesperson."

Penny was thrilled, having worked with her, she knew she would be able to handle it. "That's so wonderful, sir," said Penny, with a smile. "She definitely deserves it, and, I won't say anything to her."

Tim paused, and look at Dan. Dan leaned over and whispered something to Tim, Penny thought she heard, Texas. He nodded and said, "Actually we were hoping you would say something to her, letting her know."

Penny was puzzled, "I'm not her boss, she's just on loan for the team, she doesn't really work for me. The team is finished since Sunday, so shouldn't her boss tell her?"

"Penny," said Tim gently, "the district manager, of her territory, would interview and hire her, letting her know she's been hired. But, that district doesn't have a manager right now. So, we have to do things a bit differently. Dan and I decided to place her, in that position, based on her work and other recommendations. We want you, as her current boss, to tell her."

"But, I'm no longer her boss," objected Penny.

Tim and Dan looked at each other, then Dan spoke up, with a smile, "Penny, with your sales record, and the job you did on the two launches, we want you to become the DM, for the new district that includes Karen's territory. So, as her DM, it would be your job to tell her."

Penny looked completely confused, her eyelids began blinking rapidly, and her mouth dropped open. Penny was silent for a few seconds, then sounding confused said, "Wait, what?"