Read Online The Heart Doctor and the Baby by Lynne Marshall - Free Book Online

examination table with her feet in stirrups.
    She glanced at the ceiling with a new perspective on the patient’s side of the experience. The room was cold and the thin sheet offered little comfort on top of the oversizepatient gown. Her personal gynecologist smiled at her from between René’s legs.
    â€œReady?” she said.
    René nodded, her throat growing tight with anticipation.
    She and Jon had agreed not to discuss the mechanics of their situation. He’d done his part when the time suited him, and now she’d do hers. She still laughed to herself about how he’d made his deposit on Valentine’s Day. Could she consider it romantic?
    â€œHere it is,” her doctor said, raising a thin catheter connected to a syringe with the sperm inside. “Future baby, right here, if we’re lucky.”
    The doctor chattered as René felt cold hands and necessary invasive instruments get placed, and finally the deposited sperm around her cervix.
    â€œI’m going to put a sponge cap over your cervix. Leave it in place for eight hours.” Her doctor friend patted her hip. “Good luck. Now lay here for thirty minutes. My nurse will let you know when you can get up.”
    If there was a chant to will one sperm and her egg to meet, she’d chant it. Failure was not an option. She pulled her feet out of the stirrups, moved farther up the exam table and relaxed.
    Maybe daydreaming about a perfect ending would enhance the process. In her case the perfect ending was a pregnancy.
    She let her mind wander and, instead of a chubby baby face appearing, a different scene played out before her, shocking her slightly. She’d told Jon that Mr. Right wasn’t going to walk through her door anytime soon, yet the vision of him standing on her porch the night she’d hit him up with her artificial insemination plans gave her pause.In a once removed and cockeyed sort of way, he was Mr. Right.
    She couldn’t help but wonder if in another situation, if she wasn’t pushing so hard for a baby right now and if he wasn’t counting down the days to his freedom, that maybe things could have been different between them. In all their years of working together, they’d never once looked at each other in an interested way. And it was useless to speculate about things that would never be. She didn’t have the luxury of time anyway, and this day was what it was—a day to hold her breath, keep a positive attitude and hope for the best.
    And if optimism could affect her state of mind and the cells in her body and, most importantly, her uterus, she figured she had the best chance ever to get pregnant.

CHAPTER FIVE
    J ON hadn’t been intentionally avoiding René for the past month, but he’d figured he’d done his part in their deal, and there was no point in making her uncomfortable just because he was curious. Beyond curious. Besides, he didn’t want to get involved.
    Since he’d donated and signed her contract, he’d stayed out of her way and figured things would play themselves out however they were meant to be. It surprised him to acknowledge—as a scientist first and foremost—he could be so fatalistic. Since agreeing to take part in René’s plan, he’d started realizing all kinds of new things about himself. Such as, he really, really hoped this pregnancy would take.
    What was up with that?
    Jon welcomed his next patient into the exam room as if a special guest. “Mr. Grosso, how are you doing?”
    â€œNot so great.” The man gingerly rubbed his chest.
    Mrs. Grosso beetled her brows. “He still tender.”
    â€œYeah, tender.” He massaged circles around his sternum.
    â€œThat was a big operation, and right about now your skin nerve endings are coming back to life in the area where they opened your chest.”
    â€œIt feels strange. I can’t explain.”
    â€œBut you’re not having chest