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Pre-natal checkups/ultrasounds
Topic Started: Dec 17 2007, 09:05 PM (4,962 Views)
Parker Faye
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Parker's smirk just twitched wider at her murmur, still examining the watch. Now that she mentioned it; he did recall her talking about protective spells on the jacket at least. Of course, his cases recently hadn't been all that dangerous--Gringotts had gotten fed up with, apparently, solo Cursebreakers on the more intense jobs. It was beginning to aggravate him, actually. He could take care himself.

As his thumb pressed to the wheel, he suddenly found Anastasia's hand and own thumb stalling him. He looked up in surprise and confusion, his expression suddenly creasing in worry. Her eyes were filled with sudden panic, her shiny smile eradicated in one fell swoop. He didn't understand.

"Anastasia?" The name echoed from his lips. "What is it?"

Why should she care if he wind his watch? The answer came to mind a moment later--the moment he asked himself the question. As understanding suddenly flew over his face, Parker's lips miraculously turned up in a smile. The vision from Rebecca did foretell him winding the device, he admitted, a bit uneasy. This wasn't some 19th century clock, though. This was a pocket watch, the pocket watch Anastasia had given him for Christmas. Whatever Rebecca insinuated, Anastasia would never hurt him. In his mind, there was no reason to be afraid of his own watch.

His free hand lifting to her cheek, he brought his head down, his gaze intent on her eyes. "Oh. Anastasia, I'm fine. It's just the watch you gave me; it's not some 19th century clock and pendulum. And I trust you, so really, there's nothing to worry about."

His palm closed over hers, her warm skin apparently hotter beside the cool metal. The watch pulsated underneath his palm--oh, so then there were protective spells on it then--and he leaned forward to meet her in a soft, gentle kiss of reassurance.
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you always crash your car; you're like a permanent scar;
and when they call you misfit...it's so hard to stop the rage.
see the misfit in the mirror; see the one that no one wanted; shattered by a world of lies ...
all you need, is reason to believe.
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Anastasia Zytsev
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It had been a reaction. A simple, act first, think later reaction. Anastasia had her hand around the pocket watch and was telling him to stop before her much more logical mind caught up with her, eyes lifting from their hands to see him...smiling. Of all things, he was bloody smiling. There she was, standing there after being emotionally imploded in excitement over the baby suddenly pale and trembling, and he's smiling.

Of course.

She had to admit though, it was a pretty big stretch of imagination. What in the world was winding a clock supposed to do? How would it hurt him when she herself had bought it for him, personally made, and personally charmed?

Still, his words, as comforting as they should have been, caused her heart to beat a little more anxiously as she studied him. He trusted her; that was all good and well, but she wasn't so sure that the thing he was holding was her watch. She didn't think it was. There was something wholly wrong about it all, and she was going to tell him that either way, they could take it to a watch fixer and see if the spells were wrong or something giving her that feeling - call it pregnancy paranoia - but he decided to give her a kiss instead.

Despite her better judgment - as clearly shown through her frowning - she allowed him to pull the watch away from her grasp, and she made no move to stop him from attempting to wind it again.
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Parker Faye
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Truth be told, at that moment Parker didn't care if his watch was wound or not. If his purpose was to know the time, there was a clock hanging on the wall. He'd only been trying to fix it; if Anastasia said she put protective spells on his watch, then she'd put protective spells on it. Initially as he grasped the watch, there had been an utter lack of magical hum.

Now as he tugged it back, his thumb carressing the golden engraving of his name, he realized he'd been mistaken. A pulse seemed to emanate from the clock, metal warm against his palm. It was curious. Lifting the watch again, he left one soft hand on Anastasia's cheek as he examined it. She'd quieted, but Parker could tell she was not reassured.

That was the first reason Parker decided to wind it regardless of his lack of interest in the time. Anastasia's concern for his wellbeing on a day she should be joyous was both touching, and unnecessary. If twisting the dial to prove there was nothing wrong put her mind at rest, then that was what he'd do.

Anastasia was not alone in her worry, however. Ever since Parker had been warned by Rebecca, he had kept his eyes peeled for such a nineteenth century clock. He refused to live in fear of every single clock he came across that needed to be wound. That far simpler reason steadied his resolution. His jaw set, his eyebrow arched with his curiousity, and with a final brush of his thumb against Anastasia's jaw, Parker twisted the dial.

Nothing happened. The hands spun and then came to a halt. Surprised, Parker's nose twitched and he brought the face of it to his ear, listening hard.

A click echoed as a cog snapped into place, whirring as it continued to spin. Though the hands were turning with each dial's twist, they appeared to be against moving on their own. Instead he could hear a dull and reptative miniature thud. His eyebrow arched higher in confusion. The inner mechanism was functioning then; something was keeping a rhythmic beat.

His breath was quickening, but Parker was now entirely zoned on the mystery that was his malfunctioning watch. Intent as he was on solving it, Parker had not noticed his hand on Anastasia's face had begun to stick there, drenched in a cold sweat. It took him a moment to realize he'd swayed and blinked. As though a hand had grabbed his stomach and yanked it back suddenly, his chest rose faster with the unexpected gas searching for an escape. Scarlet painted his cheeks. His hand gripped Anastasia's cheek harder quite suddenly, his chest--so recently expanding--compressing on itself. Breathing was rapidly becoming a chore, a chore he was finding less necessary with every passing second...

Was it his imagination, or was the room spinning? Across the exam table he could see Marit filling something out on a chart, Jason having accidentally brushed against her for a moment. He gripped Anastasia's cheek tighter, seized with a sudden need to hold on. The rhythm in his ear had turned into a drum, beats growing exponentially. It kept time to his thumping heart, the knowledge that he had been so, so wrong shooting across a spinning mind.

Someone seriously needed to stop playing with a remote. He rocked for a moment, eyes blinking in heightening confusion. A high-speed rewind was flashing across his eyes as though a child had decided to redo the last few seconds. Not the worst idea in the world, actually. Could they pause on the moment he'd decided to wind the damn watch, so he could decide to forgo being a moron? At the very least, could someone just stop smashing a hammer into his brains?

The bloody cliche of his 'life flashing before his eyes' slapped him as his eyes rolled to the ceiling, his knees deciding they didn't want to hold him. Cabinets in the room shook, rattling their own loud alarm to his misfortune. Parker tried to steady himself against the exam table, but it didn't seem to be there anymore...

The entire room was shifting, though Parker could no longer keep track of where things were going. He thought the ultra-sound machine might have come back out, but then that too seemed to vanish. The blurred motion of other people in the room disoriented him further, and he shut his eyes tight. A low hum of people talking, the squeak of cart wheels, the loud buzzing of sudden machines and shrieks of children not wanting their medicine assaulted his ears. Watch pressed against one, louder than anything was that drumming, reptative, thud.

It was a pendulum, he realized distantly, his mistake already well noted. The pendulum inside his watch was acting the part of hammer to his mind, the whirring of spinning hands flying backwards mirroring his racing breath. Tears pressed their way through snapped shut eyes, gluing them shut as he tumbled forward. As his hand slipped finally from Anastasia's grasp, his heart began pumping with utter abandon, adrenaline and blood flooding the veins in his face, rushing back half a beat later. Fight as he might, he could not stop the maudlin sentimentality that gripped him; if this was his time to die, he was going to hang onto happy thoughts until the very moment. Scattered memories flashed faster than he could keep track. He thought of himself with friends on the rugby field, at Tally's wedding, at the Durmstrang Graduation, with his mother informing him he and Mike were engaged, of Christmas when he was seven, of that proud moment when he handed a completed Rubix cube to his mother. He thought of meeting his sister, of teasing his brother recently, his niece crying 'Uncle Paw-ker' with lips that smacked. There was one face that kept bursting in his mind naturally, that of his girl, his Anastasia. He saw when he met her, the moment she'd called him on his forged FBI badge and the resulting drinks at the bar. He saw the night at the Chocolate Duck and the make-up to a fight he refused to think about; he saw their official first date to Barcelona, and he saw when she'd walked into his bar a little over a year ago.

Crete bursting into his mind brought an unnatural smile in place and he sipped the air with a resolute determination to continue surviving. Anastasia beside him could give that strength, he decided with no room for being incorrect a second time in three minutes. Hell if he was going to let her go, he thought, even though his hand had fallen from her cheek in a slow-motion fall.

An echoing crack whipped the air as Parker's head hit the ground, no longer the cool marble floor of Mungos, but a hard wood floor filled with cracks and scattered with dirt and hay...

[to: Secrets, 1884. <3.]
Posted Image
you always crash your car; you're like a permanent scar;
and when they call you misfit...it's so hard to stop the rage.
see the misfit in the mirror; see the one that no one wanted; shattered by a world of lies ...
all you need, is reason to believe.
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Riley Mathie
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Riley hadn't particularly wanted to come back to Mungo's after her original horrible experience with the last healer who had taken care of her. However, she was nothing but careful and she knew that her lifestyle wasn't the healthiest for a baby. Therefore she had forced herself to come back at all the regular times - she'd gone into a library and taken important notes - to make sure that everything was following correctly. Then when she had made her decision on how she was going to go about having this child, Riley returned to Mungo's to talk to their Adoption Specialist. She felt like maybe she'd spent more time at Mungo's than anywhere else lately, but that didn't negate that she did feel like everything was going pretty smoothly.

Riley wasn't going to lie and say it was an easy pregnancy. The morning sickness had hit her impossibly hard to the point where she was sick morning, afternoon, evening, or middle of the night. It got to the point where she could smell anything - even her favourite foods - and feel nauseous. That was hard to explain to her company, who had immediately come to the conclusion that she was bulimic. But, pray tell, did she show the 'benefits' of being bulimic? No. She was freaken fat. At 28 weeks she had gained almost thirty pounds and on her little frame? It looked ridiculous. She felt like one of those kids who put a soccer ball under their shirt to 'look pregnant'; everything else was in the right state of thinness and muscle, but her stomach just ballooned out like a clown act. She definitely did not enjoy it.

The list of other things she did not enjoy just happened to be pretty much every other part of being pregnant. At this point it was hard for her to continue dancing. Not only was she unbalanced, but the baby continued to kick her at the most inopportune moment, it was now facing downwards or something to prep for the labour - which she was steadfastly not thinking about - so she had so much pressure on her uterus it wasn't all that fun to partake in any pleasure save for the slowest, gentlest of touches (and she didn't tend to find that in anyone but a lesbian and she hated women), she was having to deal with her legs feeling weak from all the extra pressure in her back, and the newest thing? Sciatica. The damn baby had positioned itself so that she had this lovely tendency of getting sharp, shooting pain from her once-delicious derriere all the way down to her pointe shoes. What her healer recommended for that? To take it easy.

As if she could. Riley had spent a few weeks flitting from here and there once she had found out she was pregnant, spending nights in libraries and lobbies until she had found a way to swing herself into an apartment that was, unfortunately, just as horrible. She was working at a different bar where the pay was at least steady if not decent, and her dancing had taken a turn for the 'less' now that she was having so many issues. She was ready - so, so ready - to be done with this whole ordeal and move on with her life.

Even if she suspected it would not be that easy.

Currently Riley was fidgeting on a bed waiting for her healer to come in...with her possible chosen adoption parents. She'd gone through numerous movies and essays and resumes and background checks until she could find someone who would work for her well enough, and it hadn't been easy. At first she had told her Specialist just to find someone who would raise him well...but the more the specialist told her, the more she began to research on her own. It seemed that for a long time Riley had been able to find some kind of deal-breaker for every single couple who had contacted her through the adoption agency until the Specialist had finally asked her if she really planned on giving her baby up for adoption or if she was just wasting their time. That night she had made a bowl of her 'maybes' and fished a name from it.

Domenic and Carmen Duarte.

They were in their early fourties and had been attempting to have their own children for a good ten years; the papers did not specify anything past them having difficulties. They were higher-end middle class with the careers of family-life lawyer and artist, and lived in a reasonable ranch-style home in Seville. When Riley had watched the video she could feel their sincerity and want in it. Her 'deal-breaker' for them had been that they wanted a closed adoption.

Riley didn't want that.

Therefore she had looked through a few other options, but no one else felt as qualified as the Duartes did. After struggling with it she finally called the specialist and asked if there would be a way to negotiate that part of the agreement. She didn't want money for her child; she didn't want dues. She just wanted to be part of his life. When her specialist seemed uncertain, Riley told her simply to call them up and have them come to Mungo's.

Before Riley had a chance to tell her specialist what she planned on doing, the woman had already taken the couple into her office and was talking to them about Riley in return. Riley hoped it wasn't any information on what she wanted out of this agreement; Riley wanted to take care of that herself. She also hoped that it didn't go too in depth - all the couple needed to know was that she had a baby who she needed to be cared for.

Without it taking too much longer, the couple finally entered the room. Riley didn't rise from where she was sitting on the bed though; instead she looked them up and down, waiting to get the kind of feeling she had from the video. Only the tiniest sense of unease pitted itself in her stomach before she was holding out one cold hand.

"Riley Mathie. It's a pleasure to meet you in person." Her voice was polite, but her eyes were busy trying to find what was suddenly off-putting about them. Was she really having second thoughts about the adoption thing? She knew she couldn't raise a child. She didn't have the means or the money. Even if she and Paolo did finally pull off this stunt on a grand scale - so far they'd only been offered small amounts of money - she would not find it inside of herself to drop everything and live off her father's money. They looked nice enough too; the woman was perfectly manicured and smiling, the man looked pretty jolly for a lawyer. What was it?

After they had introduced themselves Riley stopped studying them and gestured that they could take a seat, looking at her specialist. "Lindsay already came and did the tests; I'm up for an ultrasound now?"

Her healer gave her a look, but moved towards the machine anyways. Perhaps the woman was onto Riley's tactic, but Riley didn't care. She leaned back into the incline of the bed and rolled her shirt up to reveal her perfectly smooth, perfectly round baby belly. She'd taken so many great pains to make sure she didn't get stretchmarks or discoloration save for that typical line from the belly button down to the pelvic bone.

As the gel was being smoothed over her skin, Riley turned to include the couple and asked, "Would you like to know the baby's gender?" At their almost instant nod, Riley smiled and said, "He's a boy."

Of course, she already had a name picked out and the onesie that he would wear the very first time he was born, but they didn't have to know that. Not yet.

Idle chitchat was made as the machine started up; as the healer began to find the baby's positioning again, but as soon as the baby was on the screen it was all silent. With the wonderful technology that allowed them to see more than the black and white squiggles; instead, a full 3-D viewage of the child, Riley and her potential adoptive parents watched as the baby yawned, stretched, sucked his little thumb, and hiccup. These were all things that Riley had seen before, and yet...it still made her smile. Every, single time she saw him it made her smile. He was looking a little rounder, a little filled out than he had been in the ultrasound a few weeks ago and that plus the healer's announcement about him being healthy showed her that she was doing the right things to take care of him.

It was the least she could do.

With the machine still turned on, Riley tore her eyes away and looked back at the couple. "I'm not sure what Clare has told you, but I don't have the means to take care of him. As much as I would absolutely love to, I just can't. I'm a traveling, professional ballerina whose paychecks are already stretched to their limits. That is why I started looking for adoptive parents. When looking over all my options, you two really called out to me as people who could and would take care of my son better than I can."

She let the compliment settle for a moment before she finished, quite firmly, "But he is my son. I have named him Mason Demetrius Mathie, and I want an open adoption. I do not want any money or anything else as payment for him, save for him keeping my chosen names and that I can visit him when I want. Obviously you will raise him as your son in the way you plan to, and I will not turn this into a parenting battle. I don't pretend to have any kind of experience in parenting; I do ask that you respect me enough to consider my option on large matters, and as a legal precaution state that should my son come to any major harm in your care, I have the right to find other means to raise him. All your other conditions that I have not mentioned can be met; if you want him," She gestured at the ultrasound, "You will agree to my conditions. Now," Riley looked at her healer and grinned, "If you'll excuse me for a moment, I have to pee like a racehorse."

Her healer stifled a laugh and froze the screen on the last image, helping Riley unhook herself from the machines and clean off the good before opening the bathroom door for her.

Half an hour later Riley was reading and signing the legal papers for an adoption under her own terms, copies of the latest ultrasound tucked into her thin coat pocket. In exactly twelve weeks, around March 13th, the Duartes would be bringing home a pink, wrinkly, baby boy.

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