Chapter 407: Care and Worries
On top of dealing with the pressure from external parties, I also had to deal with my own anxieties. I lived each day worrying about what could possibly go wrong with my pregnancy. After experiencing that mild sign that people refer to as morning sickness, although it happened in the evening for me at first, the symptoms only got worse. I felt nauseous, dizzy, and also lost my appetite for the most part of the day. Most of the food that I liked became appalling both in smell and in taste. Prince Leonard took his time off to stay with me almost all the time unless there was something absolutely necessary for him to attend to. Various doctors and nurses were on standby in the prince’s palace to attend to my condition. I was practically treated as a patient.
"Are you sure that this is normal? Is it really normal for her to be so sick?" Prince Leonard asked the doctor with a frown on his face.
"Yes, it is quite normal for women to experience what is usually referred to as morning sickness during the first phase of their pregnancy," the doctor replied politely.
"Isn’t there something that you can do?" the prince asked.
"Morning sickness is a sign that the body is getting used to the baby. It will pass in a few months," the doctor replied with an apologetic smile.
We both knew by that time that the doctors were also hesitant to administer medicine or any other artificial kind of treatments in fear that it might disturb the baby or lead to the baby’s loss of control inside the womb. Since there were so many unknowns regarding the hybrid baby, the doctors were scared of making the wrong move. What it boiled down to was that I had to bear with it as much as possible on my own. I was swiftly informed beforehand that the first few months of my pregnancy were going to be the most crucial because the risk of a miscarriage was extremely high.
"I advise the lady to stay in bed as much as possible and to refrain from exertion," the doctor repeated his advice once again.
I spent my days in bed as I felt bored out of my mind. Thankfully, Prince Leonard was there to keep me company.
"Maybe our baby is also a girl," I said out of the blue.
I wasn’t sure what I was thinking about that let those words slip from my lips. Perhaps I had been thinking that it might be better for us if our baby turned out to be a girl. That way, she would truly belong to us and we could avoid the intense scrutiny we would undoubtedly face if I gave birth to a boy.
"I agree with you that that might actually be better. It will definitely be less of a hassle. Plus, I would love to have a baby girl that looks like you," the prince said with a slightly dreamy look on his face.
I had to say that I hadn’t gotten used to seeing the wistful face that the prince would make whenever we talked about the arrival of our baby. Before I got pregnant, it felt like the prince was sitting on the fence and wasn’t certain whether he wanted a child. I came to understand later on that that probably stemmed from the fact that he was worried that harm might come my way from the risk associated with the pregnancy. However, now that I was pregnant, there was nothing that we could do but face the risk head-on and hope for the best. That was probably why the prince felt like he could show his hope for the safe arrival of our child.