Chapter 19
Devyn
Iwatched Bolo pace as I sat on the examination table.
He’d locked down every emotion on his face when I’d mentioned that he seemed worried.
That hadn’t been my intention. He was allowed to be worried.
But I was also glad he was here with me.
I wasn’t scared yet and maybe that was the wrong answer, but I knew it had to do with the fact that he was here with me.
If he wasn’t, it might be a different story.
It had to be fairly normal to get sick while you were pregnant.
Right? I’d probably just picked up a bug somewhere.
He’d stepped out of the room for about twenty whole seconds while I’d climbed into the gown.
It was a good thing he hadn’t given me a chance to even put a bra on before leaving the apartment or he’d have opened the door on me still undressing.
I didn’t mind so much. I was just glad I wasn’t alone.
Plus, it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me naked before.
And it wasn’t like he wasn’t going to see more moving forward.
I didn’t plan to leave him out of this process if he was interested in being in here with me.
The determined set of his mouth told me he wasn’t going anywhere unless I was with him.
I bit back a pleased smile. His overprotective nature might have been annoying to some, but I liked it.
He was making me feel…safe. And cherished.
And he was making it incredibly clear to me that he wasn’t planning on leaving me. He wanted this to work. And so did I.
I’d never felt like I needed this type of protection or concern from a man—I was a bit stubborn that way—but now that I was pregnant I just…it was nice. I’d always wanted the partnership my parents had. Knew that it would be life changing, but I still had been doing life just fine on my own, too.
Now, if I felt vulnerable to the world, Bolo was here with me.
With us. And I couldn’t even describe to the old me how steadying that was.
I didn’t want to give it up and this…thing…
between us had really just started. What was going to happen five years from now?
Ten? How would that morph and grow as our love did?
It was exciting to think about. But that was also why this was scary.
If I was feeling this now and he was taken away from me?
Could I go back to doing life on my own?
Despite the worry of what could happen and everything he’d told me, I really wanted to be with him.
That feeling was growing daily and soon would become a need.
I still needed to talk to the women his MC brothers were with—their old ladies, as Bolo called them—but I was getting more comfortable with the idea.
It was because I was starting to fall for him.
How could I not? He was showering me with attention and sweetness and hell bent on proving to me that he was with me in this process.
What woman wouldn’t melt for that? And of course there was the way he made me feel so safe.
Then add in how gorgeous he was and that whole bad boy vibe wrapped up in that mostly happy-go-lucky personality and I had no chance.
There was a knock on the door and Bolo stiffened until he saw a woman poke her head in. “Hi, I’m Dr. Williams, but you can call me Natalie.”
“Hey, Doc,” Bolo said, crossing those huge arms over his chest. He’d stopped in the corner, giving the woman plenty of space to come into the room.
He seemed to be very aware of his size and that women may not want to have to squeeze past him.
Despite standing in the corner, he still managed to take up the entire room, or at least that was how it seemed.
I could only imagine what would happen if he actually tried to project himself in a space.
“Hi, I’m Devyn,” I told her with a smile, as she scooted by him and reached over to shake my hand.
She also shook Bolo’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you both.” She looked over at Bolo. “And you’re…Dad?”
“I am.”
“He is.”
We said it in unison, causing her to smile.
She was pretty. And young. It made me wonder if there was something going on between her and Drifter.
Since Drifter had claimed they were friends.
I caught Bolo studying her—not staring in a disrespectful way, but in a way that said he was going to interrogate Drifter later about her, too. I bit back a smile.
She sat down on a stool in front of the computer. She was reading through the information the nurse had already entered there. “Dax told me you were running a small fever and had a high blood pressure reading?”
“Dax?” I asked, confused.
“Drifter,” Bolo told me. “His name is Dax.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I nodded at her.
“How far along are you?”
“Um…I think about twelve weeks? I think?” I silently did the math in my head, trying to remember when our night together had been without having to pull out my phone to check my calendar.
“Have you seen a doctor yet?”
“No. Well, just to get a blood test to confirm the pregnancy. I had an appointment with an OB in three days, but…” I didn’t finish because obviously we were here with her now.
“Okay. Well, with your…age.” She looked up and gave me an apologetic look. “And possibly high blood pressure, that’s going to put this in the high risk category.”
My brows shot up. “I’m only thirty-five…”
Her smile turned wry. “Unfortunately, the medical field considers that a geriatric pregnancy.”
“You’re kidding me?” Bolo asked, looking as surprised as I was.
“Sorry,” she told me again.
“No, it’s…fine. I just didn’t realize,” I replied, but inside I was cringing. Geriatric? Ouch! Like I would be using a walker on my way to the Labor and Delivery ward. My lips twitched at the thought.
“The good news,” she said, spinning on her little chair to focus on me, “is that means we’ll be keeping a closer eye on you.
If you’d like to stay with my practice, we’ll go ahead and start regular ultrasounds for you.
In fact, there’s a Maternal Fetal Medicine practice next door that I like to work with as well. ”
“Okay. And yes, I’d like to move forward with you.
” She was the only one so far that hadn’t just turned me away and told me to call back when I was ten weeks along.
I had a feeling I was getting placed in the ‘we’re going to watch you closely’ category as a favor to Drifter.
Which meant I owed him, too. And of course none of this was possible without Bolo.
Of course, I wouldn’t be pregnant if it wasn’t for Bolo…
“I’ll do the first ultrasound here today, if you’re okay with that?”
I nodded, excited, even though I wasn’t feeling very good, to possibly get to see my baby.
“At twelve weeks we should be able to see everything we need to.
“Okay,” I said. I was excited at the thought of getting to see my baby for the first time.
Bolo stayed quiet as the doctor kept asking questions and going over things with me. He was in the chair in the corner, though the chair almost wasn’t big enough to hold his huge frame.
“Any other symptoms you’ve been having?” Dr. Natalie asked, turning back to her computer again.
“Awful morning sickness.” I gave Bolo a guilty look, then focused back on her. “I’ve lost a couple of pounds already.”
I did my best to avoid Bolo’s gaze. I hadn’t exactly told him that I’d been losing weight.
Natalie nodded. “I’ll go ahead and prescribe you Zofran, but you can also try these as well.” She handed me a paper with some medications written down that I could pick up on my own, without a prescription. “We need you to be able to eat though, so if those don’t work, use the Zofran.”
“Thank you.”
“She has a fever today, too,” Bolo reminded her when I didn’t bring it up.
The doctor nodded again. “Dax mentioned that as well.” She came over and took my blood pressure. The nurse had done it when we’d first been shown into the room. “One thirty-eight over eighty-nine. Still hasn’t come down from earlier.”
“That’s not too bad…is it?”
“Not yet, but I would want you much lower than that at this stage in your pregnancy.”
Swallowing, I sat there as she examined me and answered any questions she had. I didn’t like that there could be a potential problem. Especially this early. That couldn’t be good.
“Do you have a blood pressure cuff?”
“No,” I told her.
“You’ll need to get one. Take your blood pressure in the morning and evening and keep track of it. Then next week, when we meet again, I’ll get those numbers from you.”
“Okay.” I looked over at Bolo and his eyes softened a bit as he gave me a quick reassuring smile.
“And my last question is if you’d like to give some blood for NIPT?
It stands for Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing.
There are some insurances who won’t pay for the testing because it’s a screening, not a diagnosis.
But it analyzes small fragments of fetal DNA within your bloodstream,” she said, nodding toward me.
“It’s a preliminary screening. If anything were to come back positive, we’d need to conduct further testing to find out if it was accurate, or not.
Also, it will tell you the sex of your baby. ”
I looked over at Bolo questioningly.
“Any risks or side effects?” he asked.
Doctor Natalie shook her head. “Nope, it’s a simple blood test.”
He glanced back at me. “I’ll pay for it if your insurance rejects it, if you want to do it.”
“Sure,” I said, nodding eagerly. I was excited to find out the sex of my baby, not that I cared either way. And if there was anything wrong, I’d rather find out early to see if any preventions could be done. I made a mental note to look up what those conditions were.
“Perfect. That’s usually done between ten and thirteen weeks, so with you being twelve weeks along now, it’s perfect timing. Go ahead and lay back.”