3.5. The Second Bad News

"What is it this time?" she questioned in a squeaky voice. She could feel her tear ducts getting busy already. 

"Mrs Lips, you must understand—"

"That you guys are a bunch of careless, useless crap? Just tell me what you've done wrong this time. Let me guess,  there was a mix-up in the name?"

The woman winced and gulped visibly, darting her brown eyes around the room, as if she felt Kiersey would attack her any minute and was searching for any form of defence.

"What is it?" Kiersey screamed, standing up from the chair. The woman's fidgety ways and expression was greatly pissing her off. If she kept on delaying the news anymore, she might just jump over the desk and scratch her eyes out.

The elderly woman blinked and swallowed again. She wouldn't take her eyes off the sheet of paper. "The reason there was a mix-up was because the sperm sample had been tagged for discarding. We did a recent check up of our inventory and . . . less suitable samples were to be taken off nitrogen and discarded. The interns placed the particular sample in the space tagged for your husband's and discarded his by mistake."

Of all the alarming information she just heard, only one stood out in her muddled, swollen brain. Abject fear and horror washed straight through her. "What do you mean by less suitable samples? You had the guy tested for disease, didn't you? You have a record of his genetic testing?" Her voice broke at the last statement. Her heart started to knock away in the small space of her chest.

The woman's eyes turned sad. "A different set of people were responsible for collecting and storing donations then. The guy wasn't tested, and . . . 

" . . . and the records were slightly incomplete. The label used on the sample were not that good then, some information were starting to wear off."

Kiersey slumped in her seat and felt herself sliding down to the floor. A girl could only take so much. Tears ran down her face as she stared in horror. Her ears couldn't believe what they had just heard. Everything all felt like a nightmare—her worst nightmare. This couldn't possibly be happening to her.

So many bad news in the course of three days. What other bad news could she get that could up these?

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head vehemently. No, no! This couldn't be happening to her. This couldn't be happening to her poor baby. The clinic staff were joking. April Fool's day had recently passed by and they still hadn't gotten it out of their systems yet.

"Mrs Lips, I'm terribly sorry about it." The voice came from somewhere nearer to her.

Kiersey continued to shake her head. She wanted to scream at the incompetent bitch to stop calling her that. She wanted to scream her lungs out and wish it all away. She wanted to howl and bawl her eyes out till her spirit left her body. She just couldn't cope with all these. All the agony and bad news that had come her way recently.

She wished she had done the AI at home by herself instead of coming to this sorry excuse for a hospital. A government hospital, for crying out loud!

A warm hand rested on her bare shoulder and squeezed lightly. Kiersey stopped shaking her head only because she had gotten whiplash. The hand on her shoulder did nothing to assuage her agony.

The shake seemed to have taken it all out of her. She suddenly felt drained and slumped back in her seat. She placed a hand over her expanding middle section and silently let the tears fall. 

Why was her poor baby subject to all these? First it had been at the risk of abortion, then she'd only just found out it's father could be anybody and nobody, and worst of all, he could have a genetic disease that could affect it. She hoped with all of her being the anonymous guy was clean. It would break her if she found out he was also a carrier of the Triple A Syndrome. Her baby would be doomed.

She didn't think she'd ever be emotionally prepared for it. She had watched her elder sister suffer from TAS. Her poor sister had had them all; achalasia, Addison's and alacrimia. The poor girl. Her parents had both been unaware carriers of the gene. It had dominated in her sister's traits, Kiersey herself had been a carrier. It hadn't shown up at all in her brother.

It had been too late when her parents found out what was really wrong with their daughter. Way too late. Kiersey had watched her sister go sick each day. She had watched her lose weight, lose her appetite. She had cried and cried when her skin got dark with the disease and when she couldn't swallow food anymore and had to be fed through tubes. She had watched her sister sob in agony with no tears coming out of her eyes.

And Kiersey had stood on a chair outside the operation room with the small windows in it's doors and watched as they operated on her. She had seen the EKG connected to her sister flatline into infinity as she stopped responding to treatment. She had watched Kelli die.

She had been just five then. Kelli had been a year older, but had always been a twin sister to her, rather than an older one. And Kelli had died from Triple A. 

She so didn't want the same thing for her own baby. Although she was going to keep him/her, no matter what the donor's genetic testing was (if she found out at all), but the onslaught of emotions that she knew so much about was still something that made her eyes water.

What has this goddamn hospital gotten me into?

"Mrs Lips?"

Kiersey opened her eyes and said, "For fucks sake, can you stop calling me that?" Then she proceeded to extract her handkerchief and wipe her tears away, drawing in the lingering scent of the Vix to calm her tight nerves.

"I'm sorry," the doctor sputtered, standing stiffly away from her. "What happened is our fault and we promise to find out the donor's whereabouts."

"What kind of hospital takes from every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes bringing his dick? Without even testing and proper documentation?" Kiersey queried. Anger and hurt married in a quick ceremony in her head, her limbs, her soul.

"This particular donor was an exception. The staff on ground that day was an elderly woman. She must have started to get confused in the brain earlier than we thought."

Kiersey raised her head to look at the woman. "Where is the woman now?"

The woman scratched the base of her neck nervously. "Uh, she retired a few months after that day and died sometime last year."

Kiersey's heart sank in dejection and she looked back down. Why did she even think the woman would have been able to help her. A woman that was already confused two years ago, even if she was still alive, she'd have gone into the full stage of dementia.

"But there was an intern on ground then. I understand that the donor came sometime during a night shift, so not many people were around."

Kiersey looked back up at the woman, wondering where she was going with the talk.

"The guy didn't eventually work here, but I could find his last address and contact for you."

Kiersey's sunken heart floated back up. He would be able to tell her something about the donor so she could find and know his genetic test. "Yes, please."