Chapter 188
June 1st, 2022
It was fairly early morning and Rory and Logan were sitting in the waiting room at Dr. Mueller's office. Rory was a little anxious already since their appointment was running a little late, not by a lot but enough to make her worry about being late to work. Rory usually just came to see a midwife each month, the first couple of times having been exceptions, so even just for that this time felt different, more important. But somehow even this importance, even this morning's little morning delight which had left her cheeks with a healthy glow, was shadowed by everything that happened over the weekend - Gigi's party, the pictures of her and Logan up on some sites along with gossip, agreeing to do the interview... - it was safe to say she had a lot on her mind.
As there were several doctors working at the same clinic, and their appointment wasn't the first one of the morning, Rory wasn't the only round-bellied woman in the waiting room, and friendly, knowing, glances were exchanged. It was like a secret pact of women who knew what they were all going through. Some women were there with their partners, men or women, some with older kids even, and this time truly she was glad to be there with Logan who intertwined his fingers with hers, as their arms rested on the armrest together side-by side.
Suddenly, one of the doors leading to the examination rooms burst open and out came a young-looking nurse apologizing for being so abrupt, clearly being a little more nervous than she was supposed to.
Behind her, out came a heavily pregnant woman, her hand supporting her back, and a husband trailing right behind her, worriedly.
It became clear very soon what this was about, as the woman began panting and cursing about three steps out the door. She was having contractions.
"Just keep breathing, you're doing great," Dr. Mueller who emerged behind them assured, sounding calm and composed unlike the other three.
The contraction passed and the woman was again able to keep moving towards the exit.
"The ambulance is right downstairs," the nurse said, coming around the corner with a wheelchair.
"Take it away! If I wanted a fucking wheelchair… I'd fucking tell you…. I can't imagine ever sitting down again!" the pregnant woman huffed in a moan and barely made it out the door before another contraction hit. They were hitting her pretty close together, but it was an interesting distraction nonetheless, and it did made Rory think about how it would happen this time around, her busy schedule having not given her a lot of time to dwell on that part yet.
"Nadine, go with them. Make sure they get to the ambulance. Bring the wheelchair, just in case," Dr. Mueller instructed.
It was only then Rory observed Logan, noting how he'd been caught in the moment. She didn't really have a chance to comment though, since before she began, Dr. Mueller spoke.
"Rory, Logan - you're welcome to come in and get settled. I'll be just a minute," Dr. Mueller said, familiarly, clearly being a nurse short presently and wanting to save on leg work. She hurried back into the examination room to clean the room up herself.
The two followed her into her office, Logan leading Rory ahead with his hand on the small of her back. It was so instinctive to Logan, and especially with Rory.
"Hi," both said in unison, as they entered the office.
"Quite an action-packed morning," Logan commented, as he took a seat, seeing the doctor hastily gather up her tools and replace them with a clean set in the adjoining examination room.
"Oh yeah - sometimes it just takes a specific position to really get things going. Especially if it's not the first baby," Dr. Mueller replied, casually, as she finished washing her hands and wiped them down with a paper napkin.
Rory smiled at Logan, despite wondering herself as well how much quicker this baby might come, definitely not wantin to do this at home or in a car somewhere, quite liking how inexperienced, and at the same time cute, he was with all of this. He clearly worried, and was becoming more nervous as time went on. Jess had been like that too, but she liked how actually Logan didn't bother putting up this big brave wall for her like Jess had. Or at the very least - she saw through his wall better, in part because he was there every day.
"So, how have you been feeling, Rory?" Dr. Mueller asked, as she finally took a seat.
"Pretty good, my back's been getting a little tired by the end of the day. I've been going back and forth the bathroom like twelve times a day, though, it seems. Oh, and there have been some flutters, though I would've expected to feel more by now," Rory said, having not really expressed the latter as a concern until now.
"When did you feel the kicks with your daughter?" Dr. Mueller asked.
"I'm not sure, but I think…a little earlier? Maybe by a couple of weeks," Rory confessed. Five years was a long time, and she really didn't have a very concrete memory of everything. She thought back to the way she was so focused on getting her career back on track. She'd wanted to show her unborn baby at the time, Em, how she could be strong, independent and successful, and that even if the job wasn't what her original dream had been.
Logan frowned slightly, feeling again like it was something he perhaps should've known. The thought hadn't really crossed his mind that there could be something wrong with the baby. What if there was something wrong with him, his sperm? He hadn't exactly held off on partying during his youth, and by now he'd read that too could affect the quality. But mostly he was just feeling like he was running against the wall again with Rory not telling him something he should've known. She was supposed to be sharing whatever burden, even if it was just a slight worry, with him. It was frustrating, even if he was forgiving - the dream about feeling the loss of her, even if it had been mostly sexual, still imprinted to his brain.
"Well there could be various reasons for that - just the general position of the baby. Or your own sensitivity - and this could have something to do with your scarring for example. But overall anytime between 13-25 weeks is normal but we'll take a look for sure later on," Dr. Mueller explained.
Rory exhaled, hopefully. Her mind wandered - thinking about whether the doctor herself had kids and how she managed the balance between her career and family.
They went over Rory's blood and urine test analysis results, which looked pretty good. However, just like last time, her blood pressure was a little higher than the doctor would've liked. She was told to start measuring it more frequently and she got a prescription for the same drug she'd been on last time. But since this was the second time this had happened, this didn't worry Rory too much.
Logan, however, was a little more concerned, thinking of a lot of questions.
"Okay, let's take a look," Dr. Mueller spoke, once Rory had settled onto the examination table, her shirt raised and elastic skirt waist lowered for the ultrasound. With her belly this prominently displayed, Logan really got a good look at the size of it - not so tiny anymore, was it?
"This may be a little cold," the doctor said, but it was rather redundant by now. Generally these things were just done by a technician but this was what money got them - an actual doctor to consult them on these things. She checked her internally as well - because she needed to check the position of her scarring and whether that'd be an issue along the way.
"So I'll just take a few measurements and check all the baby's organs so this might take a bit," the doctor warned, but the low squishy thumping and a couple of little moves the baby made while their legs were visible, was certainly assuring, while she did her thing. Both Rory and Logan knew those were good signs and it helped Rory sense a little better how small of a flutter meant the movement of the baby's legs.
Logan observed in awe, dying to feel some real kicks himself. But seeing the baby, seeing it being more than just a small blob, was already pretty great. He tried imagining what the baby would look like but it was hard without knowing the gender.
"Okay, everything looks good - the heart, the brain, spine, the arms and legs. I believe you can see yourself," the doctor explained, pointing out some organs in the image that she'd frozen for them. "Blood flow to in the umbilical cord looks fine, placenta is placed almost as ideally as we could hope considering the scarring," she added. "There's also a good amount of amniotic fluid, and her size matches with the due date we have on the records, overall we're good," the doctor continued.
"It's a 'her'?" Rory asked, picking up on the word instantly.
"Oh, I thought you knew, I'm sorry - did you not want to know?" Dr. Mueller asked.
"We didn't know, but we wanted to," Logan said.
"I just didn't see a note on your file that you didn't want to knew and just figured you knew, my mistake," she added apologetically.
"No, it's fine. So it is a girl?" Rory asked, internally feeling a little conflicted as her gut feeling had been that it was definitely a boy. But what did she know - maybe the difference she felt was just because this was a completely different baby, not about the gender.
"It's a girl!" the doctor repeated.
"It's a girl…," Rory reflected, taking Logan's hand and squeezing it. Surprisingly enough having a girl calmed her a little. She knew girls - it was familiar turf.
"A girl…," Logan chimed as well, the thought sounding a lot more daunting. While he knew what raising a girl was like, at least when the girl was 4 years old and loved books, having seen now for nearly 6 months how Rory did it. But this felt like a lot more responsibility than he'd realized. Each litter reality check was making this more real to him, and this was just the beginning.
Rory was handed a paper napkin to clean her stomach off and she got some final instructions about her next appointment.
They were just getting back to the doctor's office, when she suddenly remembered she was due work pretty soon. "Oh shoot, what time is it?" Rory suddenly recalled, having completely lost track of time basking in the idea of a little girl. The idea of another little girl, however, gave her a burst of those same emotions she'd felt when expecting Em - wanting her to see her as someone successful. With a boy, being the caring part-time working or stay-at-home-mom, much like Dean's mom had been, didn't seem half as bad. But with a girl, feeling like she wasn't working towards anything bigger stung.
"9.30-ish," Logan checked his phone, not thinking much of it. He was still expecting a little Q & A opportunity with the doc, now that the examination part was through.
"Oh, shoot, I'm going to be late," Rory said, having gotten a feeling they were pretty much through with the appointment anyway. She knew the rest - she'd see the midwife twice before they shifted the appointments to a two-week interval. There was a birth plan to put together, read up on pain management not that much had changed in that department, but as last time had proved - it didn't really matte since nothing had gone accoring to plan. She'd gotten what she needed from this appointment - her medication and confirmation that the baby was fine.
"Don't sweat it, you'll get there in a bit," Logan soothed her, not really understanding why she was feeling so urgent about getting to of her classes were through by now, it was mostly consultations, meetings and a few final tests to do, and as far as he knew today was not a testing day. It was just work - he couldn't imagine any severe raminifications if she was a few minutes late.
Rory shot a look at Logan hadn't seen in a while towards him, which definitely made him pull back a little. Clearly she didn't want to have this discussion here either.
"I won't hold you much longer," the doctor said, sensing some tension, and filled the two in on the basics just as Rory had expected. She knew that high blood pressure was a potential risk for both the baby and herself, but she knew the last time the meds had helped. She felt it was something she couldn't really do a lot about - if her body cooperated then it did, if it didn't it didn't. What she was more worried about, however, was that perhaps if her body was responding similarly to this aspect of pregnancy, perhaps there was a possibility for another bleed. But she kept repeating the manta the doctor had told her the first time in her head - there was nothing to predict what had happened. Still even in this context, the worry of what kind of a mother she'd be dominated her mind.
"Do you have any questions?" the doctor asked after about a 5 minute lecture, during which Rory's leg had already began bouncing a little, feeling she needed to get going.
"I do," Logan said, but sensed Rory wanting to hurry out of there. Still he asked it. "How bad is this this blood pressure thing - assuming the drugs work and she manages it. What could the implications be?" Logan asked.
"If we manage it, then there's no concern. But if it remains an issue - it can influence the blood flow to the placenta, abruption of the placenta, preeclampsia, a premature birth or small size of the baby. It could also damage Rory's other organs and on some occasions, especially with geriatric mothers the problem could persist even after labor - it can influence future cardiovascular diseases," the doctor explained.
"Right," Logan exhaled, becoming even more concerned.
"But we expect the medicine to work, she has responded fairly well until now. But naturally lifestyle plays an important role here as well - keeping active, eating heart-healthy - the usual," she added.
"Okay," Logan sighed, realizing trying to change either of those things in Rory's case was near-impossibly, as he had done a lot in that area already.
"Thank you, but we really must be going," Rory hurried things up, and this time wasn't taking 'no' for an answer, and began to rise.
"Okay, thank you," Logan said, disappointedly and followed her lead.
"Do call, if you have more questions," Dr. Mueller urged.
With a billing system they didn't really have to hang out by the reception and could simply walk out of there. But the silence during the elevator ride downstairs to the parking garage was definitely tense.
Logan was confused - they should've been happy to find out it was a girl, focus on the positive and work towards reducing the negative. But Rory's reaction - dismissive, almost avoidant - he didn't understand it. There was only one thing he could think this could've been about.
"So you'll be a little late, what's the big deal? It's almost the end of the school year - what are they going to do? Fire you?" Logan tried to make it light and fun.
But as a response there was nothing. Crickets.
Rory spoke the minute the car doors closed, Rory taking a seat in the driver's seat, aiming to drop Logan off on her way to work.
"What's the big deal?!" Rory huffed, and pulled angrily out of her parking spot. "What's the big deal?" she repeated, channeling a lot of underlining reasons through her body in this moment.
"Easy there," Logan cautioned himself, beginning to regret what he said. But he was confused above all.
"It's a big deal because it's the last shred of respect I'll probably get. Showing up on time like I actually care, like I don't consider myself above the schedule, doing what I do well and setting a good role model to my 11th graders today by not being late," Rory blurted as she drove out of the garage.
"It's bad enough I'm going to have to tell them that I won't be teaching them next year, their senior year. In a couple of days they'll read from some magazine, or probably from Twitter, how I'm marrying the Huntzberger heir and becoming a woman of leisure, if they haven't already," Rory rambled, feeling like a horrible example in this moment. She'd almost thought she was over it - but clearly she wasn't, the idea that she was having another girl only having made it worse. She didn't want her girls to have that kind of a primary role model.
Rory was determined to do her job as well as she could, and now as the workload had eased up a little she was again beginning to enjoy the work. But now that there was the interview coming - she was just expecting more judgment than before. She could just picture some of her students talking behind her back, but not even negatively but looking up to her for 'landing the whale' like some of the girls she'd known in high school and college would've. She didn't want to give them that kind of a role model either. Her beliefs and actions were contradicting.
Logan suddenly felt like the carpet had been pulled out from under him - the feeling of loss he'd dreamt of seeming almost imminent. He'd been very much on the mindset from the appointment - the baby and Rory's health as his main concerns. Sure, he understood that this wasn't easy for her - but he'd also gotten the impression that she was accepting things and making peace with it.
Rory pulled up at a road-side parking spot, she'd already earlier agreed to drop Logan off so he could go home to work. The spot was no more than a few minutes walk from their home.
Logan delayed a second longer, wanting to say something. Considering she was pregnant, he felt that perhaps apologizing or soothing her would've been the good choice, but for a moment he just felt like she was being ungrateful too. This couldn't just be a one-sided road with him on his toes. "Sorry if marrying me is so hard for you," he said, and got out of the car and walked towards their house, leaving Rory wordless.
