"Tomorrow? Are you sure?" Kylie rubbed her forehead in confusion. She could have sworn that Nathan's check-up was scheduled for today; she'd checked her Blackberry twice before undergoing the complex preparations involved in taking an infant out of the house for an extended period of time. But the Blackberry would only confirm the note she made to herself, and Kylie had to admit that she'd had a lot on her mind the last six months. (And the nine months before that, as well...)
But Doctor Saunders' receptionist just smiled apologetically, and swiveled the screen around so that Kylie could see it. "Says right here, Tuesday morning, eleven AM. I'm sorry, dear."
Kylie chuckled ruefully, and rummaged around in her purse for her Blackberry. Once she'd found it, she adjusted the sling slightly before Nathan could begin fussing about his new position, and pulled up her calendar. The whole thing had come to seem effortless, now. "Let me just make a note of that," she said. "I'm sorry, Marie, you probably think I'm such a scatterbrain." (Being on a first-name basis with everyone in her pediatrician's office--another thing Kylie hadn't expected a year or so ago.)
Marie shook her head lightly. "No, of course not, dear! You probably just made a little typo with the date or something. Folks do it all the time...and better to come in a day early than a day late, right?"
Kylie tapped a few buttons, moving the little note that read 'doc appt' from Monday to Tuesday. "Good point," she said absently, saving the changes and closing the calendar. With that done, she looked back up at Marie and smiled. "And at least it gets me out of the house. When I decided to do the stay-at-home mom thing, I was worried I'd get overwhelmed, you know? But it turns out that the biggest danger is boredom!"
She reached down and gave her son a reassuring pat on the head. "I know that once he starts crawling, I'll look back on days like these and wish for a little more boredom. But right now, it's just nice to talk to someone who can talk back."
Marie giggled, turning her monitor back to face her. "Oh, you know you're always welcome here, and so is little Nathan! I just wish we had an opening so that you wouldn't have a wasted trip."
Kylie shrugged. "No worries. It's not far or anything, and like I say, it gets me out of the house." She slipped her Blackberry back in her purse. "So I'll see you tomorrow at eleven, then?"
"Sounds good!" Marie replied, making a note on her computer and giving Nathan a little wave. "Bye bye, baby!" Nathan gave her a sleepy smile, before burrowing his face into his mother's side.
"Bye, Marie!" Kylie said, giving the receptionist a wave of her own and heading back out the way they'd come. Already, she was thinking about what she was going to do when she got home. First thing first, she needed to pump; Nathan had eaten his fill just before they'd gotten here, but her breasts were already aching. She might have given birth to one child, but her body seemed to think that she was Octomom or something.
Kylie got into the elevator and hit the 'B' button. She wondered idly if she shouldn't talk to Doctor Saunders about that tomorrow, during Nathan's check-up; maybe there was something she could do about the excess milk. At least maybe she'd know why Kylie's breasts always seemed to have enough milk to run their own dairy farm. She giggled at the mental image. "'Kylie's Milk'," she said out loud. "With absolutely no bovine growth hormone, because there's absolutely no bovines!"
The elevator dinged, and Kylie headed down the hallway towards the stairs. Technically speaking, she knew she should probably make an appointment with her own doctor to ask about something like that. After all, Doctor Saunders was a pediatrician, not an ob/gyn. But Kylie always seemed to get better advice from Doctor Saunders. Her old doctor...well, Kylie hadn't minded seeing a male gynecologist the way some women had, but she had to admit, there was something nice about being able to talk to a doctor who knew exactly what she meant when she said, "My boobs hurt."
Kylie opened the stairwell door with one hand, neatly balancing the weight of the child against the weight of the purse and diaper bag, and started down the stairs. After the first week or so, she'd found that she didn't even think twice about all the stuff she had to carry; it just became automatic to her. She was thinking more about her breasts, now; she almost wished that Nathan would start crying just so she'd have an excuse to nurse him. But no, he was almost entirely asleep now. Kylie would just have to wait until she got home. She reached into her purse with her free hand, checking to make sure the car keys were there.
Kylie got to the bottom of the stairs, opened the door, and headed out into the hallway again. She made a right, then a left, then another right, the corridors of the clinic as familiar to her by now as her own house. She could probably find her way out to the parking lot in her sleep, if she had to; Kylie giggled again, imagining herself sleepwalking through a hospital. She could picture it, wandering around with her arms sticking out in front of her, eyes open just enough to see but still sound asleep...the mental image seemed peculiarly vivid, somehow, like she'd seen it in a movie or something. Did 'Rosemary's Baby' have something like that in it?
Kylie took one last right, then headed down another small flight of steps to a windowless door. She opened it...and stopped. This wasn't the parking lot.
Instead, she was in a white room with a low, padded table in the center of it. There seemed to be a lot of equipment surrounding it, hoses and tubes and all sorts of things whose purpose Kylie couldn't begin to guess. Doctor Saunders was there, along with two of the nurses; they looked like they were getting the whole bizarre set-up ready for something, probably the patient that Marie was talking about. Oddly enough, the room smelled vaguely like maple syrup.
"Oh!" Kylie said, as she took it all in. "I'm sorry, Doctor Saunders, I didn't mean to interrupt anything. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere." She leaned back out, looking for a sign on the door that would tell her where she'd wound up. "I can't think how it happened."
Doctor Saunders looked up at her and smiled. Suddenly, the words 'can't think' seemed to take on an echoey quality in the back of Kylie's head, like someone was remixing her last sentence in her mind. "Oh, Kylie, glad to see you again!" Doctor Saunders said. "It's so good of you to volunteer like this."
Kylie furrowed her brow in consternation. "Volunteer?" she asked, almost as much to herself as to Doctor Saunders. She didn't remember volunteering for anything. She reached half-heartedly for her Blackberry, but her motion trailed off into a vague wave as she struggled to think of how she'd gotten here (can't think...) and what she'd volunteered to do (can't think...) She barely even noticed Nurse Crane undoing the sling and lifting Nathan out with practiced ease.
"Yes, you volunteered to donate milk," Doctor Saunders said patiently. Behind her, Nurse Crane took Nathan through another door and out of sight. Kylie didn't even feel the briefest stab of worry, though. These women had been helping her take care of Nathan ever since he was born; he'd be perfectly safe with Nurse Crane for an hour or so, while she...she...
"I need...to give milk," Kylie said absently. That was why she came down here, she remembered. Her breasts ached with the need to pump, and what with her having so much milk, it only made sense for her to go ahead and pump while she was here at the hospital. They'd be able to make good use of her excess milk, and relieve some of the discomfort she was feeling at the same time. She couldn't think how she'd forgotten about it. Her hands found their way to the buttons of her blouse and began to undo them slowly, automatically.