Breeding Clinic (Heatverse)

Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

KAT

Liam, Matthew, and Gabriel are already waiting at the doctor’s office by the time I arrive. I’m fifteen minutes early. So what time did they get here?

Liam stands when I enter, shoving his hands into his pockets and taking them out, then wiping them on his pants. He’s nervous.

“Sit,” I tell him. “I’ll go check in.”

He sits back down, his leg jiggling. Gabriel and Matthew try to distract him with a magazine.

“Hi,” I tell the receptionist. “I’m Kathleen. I have an appointment at one o’clock for my twenty week scan.”

“Got you,” the beta says, looking at her screen. “And I see you’ve been here before. Any changes to your insurance or address since your last appointment?”

“No.” I take the short form she hands me. It’s for acute symptoms or issues that the staff need to be made aware of for today’s appointment.

“Fill that out and bring it up when you’re done.” She cranes her neck to look beyond her screen and smiles. “Is that your pack? First baby, huh? ”

I glance at them and smile. “Yeah. He’s more nervous than I am.” And I’m anxious as hell. This is the scan that says if our baby is developing normally or not. I’ve never made it this far before. All of this is uncharted territory.

The receptionist chuckles. “The new parents always are.”

I take the forms with me and join them, sitting to fill out the front and back. Matthew takes it up for me so I don’t need to haul myself out of my chair. I’m only halfway through this pregnancy, but I already feel huge. I’ve had to buy completely new clothes and shoes. My socks are the only things that still fit me. I didn’t realize pregnancy made your feet grow.

After a while, a nurse in powder blue scrubs stands at the door to the back, a chart in her hand. “Kathleen,” she reads from it.

They don’t react to the name until I stand, then they follow me with shared looks between them. The woman takes me to the phlebotomy station where they draw blood for genetic screening, then shows us to a room. “You don’t need to change, just expose your belly once the tech comes in.”

“Thanks.” I sit on the exam chair while they settle on the plastic chairs around the room.

Gabriel picks up an anatomical model of a pregnant uterus. The plastic baby pops out, and he scrambles to catch it before it hits the floor. “Shit.”

“Put that down before you get us kicked out,” Matthew hisses through his teeth.

“I didn’t realize it was two pieces,” Gabriel says, defending himself. He puts the model down, but the baby pops out again. It clatters onto the counter.

“Did you break it?” Matthew asks, horrified. “They’re never gonna let us come with her again.”

“Haven’t you seen these models before?” Liam asks, his brow pinched .

Matthew takes the plastic baby from Gabriel and pops it into the model, then holds his palms up and backs away from it slowly.

“I don’t work in obstetrics,” Gabriel says. “If the ambulance brings me a trauma patient who’s pregnant, I’m having a horrible day.”

Their antics distract me from my anxiety. We don’t wait long for the ultrasound tech to come in and turn down the lights. “This may be cold,” she warns me before squeezing a generous amount of gel onto my bared stomach.

The ultrasound probe is a firm pressure that she moves around my belly, taking measurements and photos as she goes. She talks as she works, telling us what she’s looking at. Counting limbs, fingers, and toes. Measuring the spine, heart, and brain. Making sure everything is developing normally. The scan takes longer than I thought. She works for an hour, some of her work frustrated by the baby’s lack of cooperation. The baby wants to stay curled in a ball, napping. To all of our disappointments, she can’t get any pictures of the face.

“I’ll get what I can but if I can’t get everything you may need to come back,” the tech says. “Try changing position. Sometimes that makes a stubborn baby move.”

I shift onto my side while she switches her focus to the placenta, which she says is nice and high. Liam reaches forward, rubbing his hand across my gel-covered belly.

“Hey,” he says to our baby. “Be good for your daddies. We all want to meet you today.”

There’s a flutter inside me. Like a flopping fish. A quick swipe that’s been driving me nuts for the last week. Is it the baby or gas? I’ve never been able to tell. My rounded stomach doesn’t move. It’s still too early for that. Maybe now I can finally get my answer. “Did the baby move?” I ask the tech .

She drags the probe over and presses, searching. And then we see it. Our baby’s face. The baby is sucking on their thumb.

“There we are,” the tech says, freezing the recording and taking pictures. “Good job, Daddy. Talking to them is so important. They learn your voices before they’re even born.”

“We should get some baby books and read to them,” Matthew suggests.

“Good idea,” Gabriel says. “And music. I read it’s good for their brain.”

She takes a lot of photos of the baby’s face and head. The baby stops sucking their thumb and yawns. My heart melts and my eyes get damp. Liam wipes ultrasound gel off his palm with a tissue and takes my hand, squeezing it.

We did it. That’s our baby, right there. Healthy and happy.

“Do you want to learn the sex?” the tech asks.

Do we? I glance at my pack. We haven’t discussed it yet. “Is that okay?”

Liam glances at the others, who all nod. “Yes.”

The tech smiles and sets the ultrasound probe in its hook. “I’m all done. I’ll go get the doctor to go over everything.”

The ten minutes it takes the Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor to come feels like a lifetime. He spends a few minutes reviewing the photos and measurements the tech took. “Everything looks good. You’re developing on track. You have an anterior placenta that’s nice and high. Baby looks nice and active. I just want to listen to their heart real quick.”

He adjusts the ultrasound machine and has me lie on my back while he gets the probe where he wants it. A rapid whooshing fills the exam room as he studies the baby’s heart. “That’s a nice, fast heartbeat. Your blood work will take about a week to run. We’ll call you with the results and make a follow-up appointment if you need one, but from what I can see now everything looks good. Lisa said you want to know the baby’s sex?”

“Yes,” I answer for us all.

The doctor moves the probe again, pulling back so we can see our curled-up baby. “It’s a girl.”

“A girl…” I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. We’re having a daughter. After all these years, all of the heartache and failed cycles and loss, I’m going to have a little girl. My eyes grow hot and my vision blurs with unshed tears.

And it’s all thanks to a paperwork mix-up. I’ve never been so grateful for a clerical error in my life. Because it brought me here, to this moment. To this pack who accepts me as I am. Who’s as happy to go out to eat as they are to watch reruns on the couch. To the beta who tries new cookie recipes with me. And the beta who makes me work off those cookies and get stronger. To the alpha who finally put a baby in me.

Liam squeezes my hand and brings it to his face, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. His eyes are bright and shiny, too. “A girl,” he says with wonder. “We made a little girl.”

“Have you chosen where you want to give birth yet?” the doctor asks. When we say no, he pulls brochures from an organizer on the wall and hands them to Gabriel. “Most hospitals do tours once or twice a month for prospective parents. Birthing facilities do them more often, but they don’t take as many patients and their slots fill up fast. I’d pick your facility out sooner rather than later.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Gabriel says, looking through them.

The doctor leaves, and Matthew brings me the tissue box so I can clean my belly and fix my clothes. It’s real. This is really happening. Part of me didn’t want to get my hopes up. Get too excited. Was convinced this was a dream I’d wake up from. Told myself that I was getting too attached to them, which would only lead to being disappointed again like I have so many times before. What pack wants another pack’s leftovers?

But the point of viability is only a month away. It’s time for us to pick a birthing center. Everything suddenly just got very real. We’re having a baby, and I don’t have a proper nest. My house is too small. They live above a bar.

We’re not ready.

My bliss turns to quiet anxiety. I follow them out to the lobby in a bit of a daze. My mind churns over an increasingly long list of things to do in the next twenty weeks.

“I’ve heard this one sucks,” Gabriel says, weeding through the brochures. “No, absolutely not. This one’s too far from a hospital with a NICU.” He pulls three from the stack and tosses them into a trash can.

“I’ll call and get us on their lists for a tour,” Matthew says. He takes the rest of the brochures from Gabriel to look them over while we head out to our cars.

Liam squeezes me against him. “Is everything okay?”

“Hmm?” I say. His question pulls me from my distracted thoughts. “Yes. My brain’s spinning with planning. There’s a lot to get ready for.”

Liam pulls me against him and rubs his hand up and down my back. He kisses my forehead. “We’re here for you. For anything you or the baby needs. Are you coming over? Please say yes.”

“Later,” I tell him, distracted. “There’s an errand I need to run first, then I should go spend time with Waffles. I’ll come over for dinner?”

He sniffs the top of my head deeply and squeezes me. “It’s getting harder and harder to watch you walk away from us. My instincts hate it. Don’t be gone too long. I don’t think I can stand it.”

I sense it too. The urge to stay buried in a soft, cozy nest of their familiar scents. To swaddle myself in a mountain of blankets and pillows that smell like them. Their bed isn’t big enough for a growing pack. Neither is mine. We need a bigger place, and fast. This baby is going to come before we know it.

“Did you mean it?” I ask, needing to hear if what he said once in passing was true. Or if it was only something he said in the moment. “When you said you’d want to have more kids.”

Liam lets me go so he can cup my face, his thumbs stroking over my jaw. “Kat, we’ll give you as many babies as you want us to put in you. How many do you want? Four? Five?”

“Five!” My eyes widen. Five is excessive. “I was thinking of three.” I’m thirty-five. We’d need to have them pretty fast. Omegas stay fertile longer than betas, but still.

“Three?” He drops a hand to cup my rounded belly. “Three is easy.”

That’s easy for him to say before the babies get here. “You might change your mind when we’re buying three different sizes of diapers. And not sleeping for the next five to ten years.”

“Good thing there are four of us,” Matthew says. “We can take turns. Packs make it easier. I don’t see how beta pairs get through it.”

“And don’t forget my mother is dying to get her hands on her first grandbaby,” Gabriel says. “She’s offered to come stay with us and help.”

We still need to do the whole meet each other’s families thing. But first things first, there’s something I want to see. I plant a kiss on Liam’s scruffy cheek. He shaved this morning but he’s already got stubble growing. It’s all that extra testosterone from being an alpha. “We can talk about it over dinner.”

“Don’t be long.” Liam sees me into my car, shutting the door for me.

I tap an address into my phone, then wave at them as I pull out. The GPS tells me which way to turn. Across town where business centers and restaurants get left behind for subdivisions. Where all of the houses look almost the same.

I pass those too, going out to a country road where the houses get older. Grand Victorians and turn of the century Edwardian houses. The original owners were wealthier and could afford to live farther out of town. They splurged for the upgrades on their kit homes.

They also had large families. This one has five bedrooms, four if we want an office. In the late eighteen hundreds it belonged to a doctor. He saw his patients on the first floor, and the family lived above it. His first-floor office has been converted into the main bedroom. A modern bathroom was added, tied into the kitchen plumbing on the other side of the wall. An octagonal room on the first and second floor makes a turret that the covered wraparound porch attaches to. The attic that used to house the servants is tall enough it could be converted into a family living room and play space.

Overall, the house is over three thousand square feet. It’s only been on the market for two weeks. The plumbing and electrical were all updated, but the roof is original. It probably needs replacing soon. A roof like that could cost thirty or forty thousand to replace. The septic system and well need investigating too.

Practicality tells me not to get too excited. But this house… It’s a dream come true.

It’s been painted sage green with plum and cream gingerbread. The gilded accents are worn and need redoing. But the house looks almost exactly like the realtor’s photos. A blessing, compared to some of the other houses I’ve seen. Those had creative angles or straight up photo editing to make them look better than they really are.

Not this house. This house is gorgeous. It’s my dream house. The house is surrounded with flowers. Whoever lives here now loves to garden. There’s an oak tree in the front with a red swing hanging from it on chains. I can imagine sitting there, a child in my lap. Reading to them, and watching their siblings play on the lawn.

Trees ring the property, old and established. There’s a small creek out back in the woods behind the property. I never saw myself as the sort to live outside of the city. To give up convenience for quiet. But there’s a peacefulness here that I like.

I think about our children, older and playing in that creek. Catching fireflies in a jar and fishing. Walking barefoot in the grass. Planting seeds in the garden with them. Writing my books in that sunny round tower nook while they’re in school. Helping Matthew bake pies from the blueberry bushes we’ll plant in the back. The basement is large. Big enough to turn it into a fitness center for Gabriel. With a small section held aside for Liam to make beer. He mentioned wanting to try it once, but they don’t have the space for the equipment that would take.

In this house, there’d be no shortage of space. A family of seven would fit it nicely. And the schools are good. I play with the GPS, learning how far away it really is. Forty-five minutes to Matthew’s bank. A half hour to Gabriel’s hospital. The same for the bar. And I can work anywhere as long as there’s electricity and wi-fi.

I snap a photo and text it to Jen.

Jen

Gorgeous!

What do they think?

Kat

I haven’t told them yet

Girl…

I know

I’ll tell them tonight

How’d the appointment go?

Good

It’s a girl

Bitch why didn’t you fucking lead with that?

OMG!

I want this house so bad

But I can’t tell if it’s a good idea or nesting instincts driven by hormones

Is this crazy?

I can’t tell anymore

It’s not crazy

But play it smart

I know

I will

I draft an email to my lawyer while sitting in the driveway of my dream house. A month ago I asked her to write up a pre-pack agreement. But then I couldn’t pull the trigger. It was hard to deny the urge to wait until the third trimester. But now… I’ve felt her move. Seen her face. This baby is real, and this house might not be on the market by then. I’ll regret it if I don’t try to get this house.

Part of me can’t believe I’m doing this again. Potentially getting mated. Signing up to get brought into an already formed pack. One that doesn’t need me to survive, only to be their breeder. But those thoughts are my fears whispering dark thoughts to me. Old insecurities rearing their head. Because I was easy to discard once.

But I want to have their babies. I want the future they’re offering me. A big house full of love and life. Snuggling my children in our nest. Reading them bedtime stories and kissing their scraped knees. Dressing the entire family up in matching costumes for Halloween. Seeing their faces light up on Christmas morning. Showing them all of the amazing things in the world.

But this time it’s going to be different. I’m not a young, naive omega anymore. I’m going into it with a clear head and legal protection. Because I refuse to spend weeks in mediation, arguing over stuff . Vacation properties and furniture and cars. Having to sit opposite the pack that didn’t want me anymore while our lawyers fought on how best to split up assets and what to liquidate so I could be bought out. Rejected. It was humiliating.

I have more to protect now. A carefully mended broken heart. A daughter on the way. And the experience to know I never want to repeat that awful separation process ever again.

Once the email whooshes, I know I’ll get the paperwork overnighted to me in the mail in a day or two. I take a deep breath and put my car into reverse. It’s time for dinner. And time to lay all my cards down on the table.

If they’re not all in, I’d rather learn it now.