Chapter 3 - The Ultrasound at Dawn
By 6:00 AM, the morning sickness had taken over. I was kneeling by the marble bathroom sink when a discreet knock sounded at the bedroom door. A middle-aged woman named Mrs. Higgins entered carrying a tray of ginger tea, plain toast, and a thick manila folder.
"Mr. Vance sends his regards," Mrs. Higgins said with a warm, knowing smile. "And he has arranged for a private obstetrician to arrive at nine. A specialist in high-risk, multiple pregnancies."
My head snapped up. "Multiple? How did—"
"Mr. Vance employs the best doctors in the country, Clara. When he saw your medical records from yesterday morning—which were automatically pulled through his hospital network—he noticed the hormone spikes. A standard doctor sees one heartbeat and stops looking. A specialist looks closer."
Three hours later, Dr. Evelyn Vance—Arthur’s niece and a brilliant maternal-fetal specialist—rolled a portable ultrasound machine across the Persian rug of my suite. I lay back, my heart hammering against my ribs as the cold gel hit my skin.
Dr. Evelyn pressed the transducer to my lower abdomen. The room fell dead silent, save for the rhythmic, accelerated static of sound waves.
Then, a high-pitched, rapid-fire sound filled the room. Whoosh-whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh.
"There's alpha," Dr. Evelyn smiled, pointing at the monitor. "There's beta."
She shifted the wand slightly to the left, and a third, distinct pulse joined the chorus.
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"And there's gamma," she whispered, turning the screen so I could see. Three distinct, tiny crescent shapes huddled together on the black-and-white monitor. Triplets. Identical triplets, sharing a single placenta, fighting for life against all medical odds.
"Triplets," I choked out, tears spilling over my cheeks. "After eleven years of nothing... I'm having three."
