Best Friends Don't Sleep Together - A.H. Series #1

Chapter 36

"How are you feeling?" The doctor asked me with a small smile when she came in, putting on her latex gloves.

"Mostly fine." I mirrored her smile, even though I didn't feel it.

"You've been under stress lately."

I rolled my eyes, not truly mad, but annoyed. "My mom talked, huh." The downside of a small town is that there are very few ob-gyns and only one woman ... who happened to be the same one my mother went to when she was pregnant with me. If I didn't feel uncomfortable with a male doctor rummaging around my private parts, I would have had a lot more privacy, because the woman that literally helped your mom give birth to you will obviously not care about patient-doctor confidentiality at all.

Dr. Klein smiled tenderly, as she always does whenever I come here. "Your mom and I have known each other a long time, Vivian, do you really think she'd keep from me such details? Especially since they could affect your pregnancy."

"But they haven't ... right?" I asked, hopeful. Sure, I was under a lot of stress, but no actual physical damage was done, other than to my back.

"Have you been feeling weird lately?"

"Maybe a bit queasy now and then, but nothing really out of the ordinary."

"No morning sickness?"

"You said it would stop at the beginning of the second trimester and it did."

"Not always." Dr. Klein mentioned as she grabbed my chart. I watched her face attentively as she read through the vitals the nurse had taken a few moments ago. "Weight gain seems in the norm, but your blood pressure is a little high."

"How high?" I asked, immediately worrying.

"Not high enough to be a problem right now, but we better keep an eye on it." The doctor looked up at me from the chart and, having probably noticed my anxious look, she gave me a reassuring smile. "It's just routine, Vivian."

"I've never had hypertension."

"It can happen during pregnancy, especially when you're submitted to certain levels of stress, like you have been."

I couldn't help but smile sarcastically. "I like how you call it just stress, doctor. Everybody else calls it incident."

"Well, I was referring to ... everything that's been going on in your life," she noted, "but yes, such events can cause high blood pressure. It's called temporal hypertension and it usually goes away pretty easily unless ..." she didn't finish, but I knew what she meant.

"Unless the source of said stress remains present."

"It's not a big deal, we can control this, we just need to be careful." Dr. Klein gave me another one of her reassuring smiles, but I wasn't sure I could believe her. When she noticed, she took a deep breath. "Listen, Vivian, I won't lie to you, the second trimester can be very delicate in ... normal conditions. Your case is ... well, between the car crash and ... the rest, it could be difficult to tell whether there will be problems or not."

"Are you saying I could have a miscarriage?" I nearly gasped, appalled, trying to sit up better, but being unable to because of the awkward position I was in for the check-up.

"It's a possibility ... but we'll do everything in our power to avoid it." She grabbed the machine for the ultrasound. "What's important is that you rest and take it easy." Take it easy. Yeah, I really haven't heard that one before.

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"How was it?" Was my mom's first question as soon as I entered the living room, where she was busy knitting. I sincerely hoped she wasn't making another scarf for me, the last one was itchy as hell.