ghosts that we knew: A mockingjay fanfiction

Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 10

Primrose

Sonograms and ultrasounds were nonexistent novelties back in District Twelve. Only merchant mothers-to-be who could afford trips to more lavish districts, or even the Capitol, traveled to receive their prenatal care.

The pregnant patients my mother tended to at home were typically those of the Seam. Sonograms and ultrasounds were not accessible, and therefore my mother had to rely on her own homemade remedies and procedures to come up with logical, and oftentimes too realistic, diagnoses for children that would likely be born ill, premature, or stillborn.

Like the medicines themselves, these diagnoses were often hard to stomach.

When my mother and I arrived in District Thirteen, we were shocked to discover that the underground civilization had managed to obtain the highest quality technology that resembled what the Capitol used in their hospitals. Mother and I sat, dumbfounded, as we were instructed on the usage of devices that would tell us more than medicine in the Seam could ever drudge up.

In the weeks that followed, I often crept by the maternity ward of the hospital to watch expectant couples see images of their child for the first time. I can hardly wait until I am old enough to perform an ultrasound and bring joy to parents the way Mother is able to. Here, in District Thirteen, babies repopulated. In District Twelve, babies had to fight just as hard for their lives as their parents did.

Days in which my mother performs ultrasounds result in her happiest evenings at home as well. Humming, petting Buttercup affectionately, and giddily recounting her day, Mother's ultrasound days are the days I look forward to most in Compartment E, because even in high-tech District Thirteen, not every day is cheery. Death, although much more easily avoided here, is something that can never be escaped entirely.

Naturally, I was thrilled when Mother gave me permission to sit in on Katniss' first appointment. Practically pulling her arm from its socket, I lead my sister down the maternity wing of the hospital, babbling excitedly about the various types of medicinal machinery that she would get to see used.

Katniss' eyes silently float from room to room, filled with mothers of all shapes, sizes, and stages of pregnancy. She was strangely eager to go to her scheduled appointment with our mother after returning from the forest that morning, but the change in her current countenance seems to indicate that she believes she has made a mistake. Her uneasiness causes me to slow my own pace and to caution my tone as I speak.

To make matters worse, we have the misfortune of wandering past a delivery room with a door that has been left wide open. A blotchy-faced, screaming woman slurs profanities and thrashes in her stirrups all while the midwife instructs her to continue pushing. My sister's eyes grow wide with horror as she points an accusing finger toward the scene before her.

"What is coming out of that woman?" Katniss spits at me, face drained of all color.

"Um, a baby?" I offer with a shrug. Katniss always made it a point to leave the house and go hunting whenever a pregnant patient came by-or any patient, for that matter. There is no way she could know that labor was a sight that cannot be unseen, a lesson I had learned the hard way when I had first naively volunteered to help my mother deliver children, and I sympathize with my traumatized older sister.

"I thought birth was supposed to be a miracle," she states, lips tightly drawn in disgust, though she never really averts her eyes from the gruesome display. I giggle softly and she glares immediately at me. I quickly swallow my laughter, remembering that I am not the one who will be in the sweaty woman's position in a few more months.