Miranda

Chapter 22

I fumble around with my hand to silence the alarm blaring on my bed side table. I am exhausted, I know I have just slept like 9 hours straight, but I feel like it was a 20-minute nap. I am chalking all this up to working my normal hours plus the reset last night. I pick up the phone and see that I have a message. I always have a message these days. I smile as I look down at it.

Nate:<Morning Sunshine >

Miranda: <Morning >

Nate:< You have reached Nathaniel Harding; I am in court at the moment but I will return your message as soon as possible. >

I look at the clock readout on the phone. 9:30. Court starts at 9 o'clock sharp, he might send another message at lunch if he has time. I need to get up and moving anyway. I don't have to close tonight but I still have errands to do.

An hour later I am clean, dressed, and ready for the day. Sort of, I don't usually drink coffee, but I might need one today. I step into the coffee shop next to the plasma donation center and order the least coffee drink I can find on the menu that still has caffeine in it. I start sipping it as I walk into the donation center and head towards the check in kiosk.

I barely pay attention to the screen as I know all the questions by heart at this point, so it startles me when I get to the final page and the big red DEFERRED box pops up on my screen. I walk over to the registration desk, confused.

"Hey Helen, why am I deferred?" Helen is a retired nurse who works at the center part time, we have had some nice chats while I waited for my turn on busy days. Today I am the only person in the waiting area. She furrows her brow and ruffles through her paperwork.

She looks up to me. "Um, you need to discuss that with Nurse Bennings."

I look at her incredulously, "Helen, just tell me."

She looks like she is battling something in her head, "You know I can't do that Miranda. Just sit down and wait a moment, we aren't busy, it won't take long."

The wait may not be long, but it feels like and eternity. Finally, Nurse Bennings calls me to the back. She is relatively new, so I don't know her all that well.

"Sit down Ms. Bell." She gestures towards a chair in her office. I sit on the edge of the chair like I might bolt at any moment.

"Helen says that you don't know why you are deferred, is that right?"

I nod "That's right, I was just here on Monday, its been over 48 hours, I haven't taken any medication that would defer me..." she hold up her hand to halt my list.

"Yes, and Monday was an oversight, you should have been deferred then but the paperwork for the check in system hadn't gone through yet. There is a note in your file that we called and left you a message."

I shake my head "I never received a message, who did you call?"

She looks at her notes "It says we called your place of business, Joel's Department Store?"

"You called my work?!" I sputter. "What was the message?"

"It would have been to call us back to discuss your test results."

"OK, well I didn't get that message, can we discuss them now?"

"Of course, the donation you provided on last Thursday was positive for hCG and logically so was the donation on Monday. We do have a strict policy that defers pregnant women from donating."

I can actually feel my brain stopping.

"Pregnant? I am not pregnant."

"But indeed, you are Ms. Bell. And fairly well along I'd say based on the levels."