Fragile

It had been two months since Nora noticed some major changes in her body and behavior. Her belly was getting rounder, her breasts had grown, and she was loving the transformation. To stay comfy, she opted for baggier clothes since she was feeling extra sensitive. Luckily, the nausea had subsided, and she was really starting to embrace being pregnant. Her hormones were all over the place, making her feel frisky all the time. Today, they had an appointment for a scan to find out the genders of their babies. Nora was caught off guard when they headed towards the elevator instead of going out the door.

"Surprise." Liem said with a smile. He was very proud of talking his mother into this. It did not take much convincing due to what had happened in the past. They had the resources and manpower to build this.

"Are we not going to the Sacred Tree Hospital?" Nora questioned. She felt like she had cabin fever. The last time they went out was to the Sedai home a month ago for a few days while there was construction being done to their kitchen. 

"No, since Allurai, you and Leilanna are all pregnant, we decided to build our own clinical facilities upstairs. We now have a floor that is prepared to handle your deliveries, check-ups and medical emergencies now." Liem said, proudly. 

"Are you excited to find out today?" Cerez said to Nora. She gave him a nod. They boarded the elevator and made their way up to the new clinic. The doors opened to a pristine clinic. It looked like a hospital ward. She saw a familiar face. 

"Janel!" Nora beamed and went and embraced her friend. Janel wrapped his arms around her and hugged her gently with a smile on his face. Cerez and Kadir looked puzzled, but shrugged it off. They would ask for more information from Liem later. Janel did not make them jealous anyway.

"Look at you. You look beautiful. These men got straight to work right away." He grinned at his friend. It had been months since they had their last session, and he was thrilled to get the invitation to be her attending doctor.

 "Guess we will get to work and take a look." Nora grinned. "You will be here with me for this?" she said joyfully. Janel nodded with an enthusiastic smile. She misted up. 

"I'm so happy," Nora said as she started to weep. Her emotions surged due to the influence of the hormones. It was going to be nice to have a friend outside of her Bind, and Allurai to talk to. She felt so isolated, her spouses had each other, and she could not be herself around Allurai or her spouses. She had started to back off from visiting, mainly because Dorien was curious about Northern culture and was asking too many questions. She was glad.

"Oh Nora, do not cry." Janel embraced his little friend tighter. He felt a bit of paternal love along with friendship with Nora. He wiped her tears. "I am happy too, my friend, I missed you." Janel said. She sniffled and laid on the bed of the scanner. There was no need for her to change, there was no need for anything to touch her. She was grateful that the world was not a primitive medieval world. The scanner looped around the bed twice. A three-dimensional image of her came up as Janel zoomed and spun the image. Two small-perfect twenty-week-old fetuses appeared. Nora was overcome with emotion.

 "Wow. I still cannot help but become overwhelmed when I see them. They don't look like monsters now." Nora said in a weepy tone, her hormones shifting her into an intense mood.

"One girl," Janel said with a surprised gasp as he spun the image, carefully inspecting each of them. "Two girls." Janel said, breathlessly in shock, dumbfounding the men in the room. Janel felt like he needed to sit down from the shock. "They are. Dizygotic. Nora, you have a habit of beating the odds. Do you know how rare this is?" Janel said. Janel started to feel worried about her, this would attract so much more attention to her. He felt like they should be very careful with announcing this. He knew she was cautious. Liem was as well, the other two he did not know as well. Janel and Liem's gazes collided. The poor boy was in a state of shock as well. Nora looked at the display. They were close in developmental age, so she could not determine if they were both Liem's. One of them could possibly not be. They did not have very distinct features yet. The image was not in color either. Nora suddenly thought back to the day that they had begun their ruse. She was still ovulating. She happily dismissed the guilt she had been carrying around. 

"They are so small." Nora looked at the little avocado-sized babies on the display. She felt three hands run over her stomach tenderly. She looked up and exchanged loving glances with the owners of those hands. 

"Is this dangerous? Should she even walk around?" Cerez asked. He started to panic for her.

'Female pregnancies are already very sensitive and prone to miscarriage. This is a very rare pregnancy. Nora is unaltered, it does not make the pregnancy less risky. Everyone has been affected by Morrits Syndrome. We have. On rare occasions, women die before giving birth or during labor. We have been lucky so far. I should probably have her scale back out of the kitchen, and we should slow things down.' Cerez worried. He had grown to actually love Nora. 

"It could be. Now that we know, certain precautions have to be taken. She is healthy. The placenta and their amniotic sacs and fluids all look extraordinarily healthy. It is necessary to monitor her pregnancy very carefully with one female. With two, I will have to keep a very close watch," Janel explained. He would have to add another staff member to take care of the clinic. He was certain it would not be a problem. He took a small thin metal device and swiped it past his Interface. Nora opened her interface.

"Me too," Nora said assertively. All three of her spouses followed suit. Janel swiped the device which uploaded the program to each person's system. Janel felt very awkward for Nora, being that so many of them would be monitoring her health. He looked at Nora, she gave him a helpless shrug. A robust software suite was instantly added to her interface's operating system. She looked at all the various measurements. It was very comprehensive, she admired the developer.