The waiting room for the Santa Maria Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Fertility Clinic was much what one would expect from a private medical practice: clean, bare and professional, with only a few touches of personality or comfort found in the décor, likely last updated a decade ago. The air conditioning made the waiting room just too cool to be comfortable, especially for the couple sitting directly under the vents.
The fact the woman of this couple was in a thin tank top and bristling with goose bumps made no difference, she simply refused her boyfriend's suggestion to move seats on principal. She was sure they wouldn't be much longer, even if their appointment should have started fifteen minutes ago.
The resigned looking older nurse at the check-in counter faced the assembled patients.
"Danielle Christiansen? Doctor Roth will see you now."
Danielle Christiansen, Danny to her family and friends, began rising from her waiting room chair. Sensing she struggled slightly, her boyfriend Alex White put out a hand to help her.
She swatted it away with an exasperated snort.
Together they walked away from the waiting room and down the hallway to Doctor Roth's office.
Sitting at his desk, Doctor Elias Roth stood from putting notes into his computer to greet his patient as the couple entered. He was an older man, ex-military, with a voice roughened from heavy smoking in his younger days. He hadn't lost much of his bulk since leaving service, and still set his watch by the same sharp crew cut and moustache combination he'd sported for decades. He held a no nonsense demeanour toward his work, and had no qualms in giving his honest opinion irrespective of feelings, but Danny found him a surprisingly gentle presence as her Obstetrician.
"Well, let's a get look at you then," Doctor Roth said to Danny once they had greeted each other. The doctor motioned for Alex to close the door while he bent down in front of Danny.
Danny stood somewhere just over five feet in flats. She had hazel eyes, a button nose, and light red hair had she had let grow a couple of inches past her shoulder blades. A light speckling of freckles across her face was made all the more prominent by her pale complexion.
"Hmm," said Doctor Roth, studying Danny. "I'd say about...12 weeks, maybe 4 days."
Danny blushed slightly and smiled. She was pregnant with Alex's twins.
They were now at the end of Danny's first trimester, pregnant with her boyfriend's children: a boy and a girl if their eight week scan was correct.
Danny was very aware of her figure; a tiny waist that exaggerated the fullness of her butt and thighs, and a bust that was slightly too large for her slim frame. Danny was quietly proud of her physique and how attractive it made her feel.
Her pregnancy compounded this feeling for her as she watched her waist thicken, her belly to fatten, and her slightly large breasts to become slightly larger and heavier again. Even at this early stage, she could glimpse the outermost portion of her bosom if she looked at herself from behind in the mirror. It was her hope that as her pregnancy progressed they would become bigger still, but so far she was happy and excited by her new proportions.
Doctor Roth looked her up and down and grunted.
"Alright, let's get you on the scale then," he said.
Because of her physical size, and for fact she was carrying twins, Danny's pregnancy was considered 'at risk' by default. But at this early stage, there were no worrying factors or expected complications, and so the plan was simply to monitor and obverse.
Before coming to Santa Maria, Danny had seen a crabby old woman of an OBGYN who took every concern the couple presented her with as a personal affront on her training and her time. Surprisingly, rather than Danny, it was Alex who had put his foot down, pleasantly stating to the stunned professional that they would 'be fucked if they were going to put up with her and her bullshit for the next six months', before taking his partner's hand and walking out of her office.
Danny spoke with her friend Laurie and got the details for the obstetrician she had seen through her two pregnancy's, and even though this was only their second visit with Doctor Roth they were very pleased with the change. Rather than be affronted by their worries, Roth took it as a personal challenge to quash them and raise the couple's confidence in his abilities as a physician. He listened to them, gave his two cents, but made it clear it was up to them how they would all proceed through this pregnancy. It was his suggestion that they regularly check Danny's progress so that anything troubling could be caught early.
Today's visit was simply to get a baseline for Danny's vitals and do a secondary ultrasound to confirm the genders of the babies and, in Doctor Roth's words, 'so the Doctor could see what they were working with'.
She had dressed for the occasion in an olive coloured wrap skirt and a dark blue sleeveless tank top that didn't fit Danny's burgeoning figure. Her growing breasts rose and bubbled within the plunge neckline when she moved, and more than an inch of skin showed where it rode up on her belly. Danny wasn't afraid to show that her changing body was making her feel sexy, and seeing that she was starting to outgrow her pre-maternity her clothes only made Danny excited to see herself get even bigger.
Danny stepped onto the scale, and Doctor Roth took her weight. He sat Danny down, took her blood pressure, pressed his stethoscope all over her. They went over sleep, diet, exercise; anything that Danny might worry over without a knowing hand to guide her until their next appointment. All the while Alex sat and listened, offered information, and nodded when Eli told him what he would need to do for Danny.
Danny smiled and held Alex's hand, squeezing it softly. Alex had been a model partner to this point in the pregnancy. Though falling pregnant was largely Danny's want, Alex had been supportive and active throughout.
He was a big man, towering over Danny at around 6'5". Alex worked as a personal trainer and put a major emphasis on his own fitness, resulting in bulging muscles and a low body fat percentage that made plenty of women turn around to give him a second look, and not a small amount of men. Alex had dark features and a square jaw would have given him a menacing presence if not for his soft eyes and a broad smile that rarely left his face.
Doctor Roth put down his pen.
"Right then, let's get you up onto the bed and have a look at these kids," he said.
Danny and Alex walked across Doctor Roth's room to the exam bed while he set up and turned on the ultrasound equipment.
Danny popped up on the bed while the doctor turned on switches and wheeled the machine closer. Looking around his office, she called out to Doctor Roth, "What is that thing?"
Doctor Roth turned from the panel he had been watching. Danny was pointing at a partially reclined chair placed near the bare wall at the end of the bed. It was covered in tan faux leather, padded without being particularly plush, and had a pair of leg braces sticking out into the air.
"Birthing Chair," Roth grunted. "Some women wanna use'm instead of lying down flat. That one's only in here for women to get an idea of what it's like to use though; the one's we use for actual delivery are down the hall."
"Huh," said Danny, still staring at it.
Roth looked at her, and followed her line of sight, still eyeing off the chair.
"I can do this in the chair if you want to."
