Marsha Sacks opened the door onto her most perplexing patient she had ever seen in her 14 years of doctoring, including residency.
Part of her wanted to document him, to use him as a paper. If she did that, the news would be all over him, “First Pregnant Man!” He’d be a star, a sensation. She got the feeling that he didn’t want that.
“Mr. King,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Knight. Call me Knight. I got questions.”
“I’m sure you do. Let me check some things first.” She looked through his chart, took a brief physical, touched the abdomen. It was hard, like it had been before. “Okay, shoot,” she said, washing her hands.
“Mal says it’ll take like 90 days.”
“For a cat, yes.”
“An’ I can get pregnant a lot.”
“Possible.”
“How do I know how many fetuses I got?”
“We’ll do an ultrasound in about three weeks. You might want your husband there. We might be able to see how many are there and possibly what sex. In two weeks, we’ll be able to hear heartbeats.” She held up a hand. “This is all theoretical. I have to talk to a veterinarian first.”
“A vet?”
“I’m familiar with wolf pregnancies, not cat ones.”
He munched on a breakfast sandwich. “Do you have a lot of patients?”
She sighed. “As you probably saw from last week, I do not. In the interests of full disclosure, it’s been exposed that I am a shifter.”
“So?”
“Knight, do you tell everyone you meet you’re a shifter?”
“Well, no…”
“Why’s that?”
“Cuz they migh’ look’t me diff’rently.”
“Same thing here. The whole medical community thinks I’m a country vet, not an OB/GYN. And I had my own category in the yellow pages for a couple of years. It didn’t take long to trickle down to the rumor stage among the community. People think I’m going to skip out on their deliveries – which I have, but I have an excellent backup – or I’m going to eat their babies.”
“Tha’s fuckin’ stupid. ‘Scuse my French.”
She smiled. “It is stupid, but it’s the community. They’re not used to shifters having real jobs. You have a job?”
“I’m the cook at O’Keefe’s Pub.”
“I haven’t been there. I’ll make a point to go there.” She paused. “Do they know?”
“No.”
“Are they going to?”
“No.”
“How are you going to explain a new baby?”
“We adopted.”
“And if it’s blond with gray eyes like you?”
“We got lucky.”
She chuckled. “Okay. I’m going to make an appointment for the ultrasound. Let me see if I can hear anything.” She had him lay back and she put the stethoscope to his stomach. She shook her head. “No, nothing yet.” She frowned. “When the child comes to term, we’re probably going to have to do a C-section. Men’s hips, no matter how much you shift them, aren’t built to deliver babies.”
“No pushin’? None o’ those breathin’ classes?”
“I think the childbirth classes are educational. You’ll still be getting contractions, and the child will still be moving around in there, so it will help you to figure out what to expect.” She started to leave, then turned back. “When this is all said and done, Knight…”
“Yeah?”
She shook her head. “Nevermind. I’ll bring it up when we’re closer to term. In the meantime, lots of fluids, and here’s a script for Folic Acid. Take one a day.”
“Okay.” He jumped off the table and started to get dressed, even before she shut the door.