Chapter Twenty-Three
Reid
It was the day. The. Day. Sure, it really shouldn’t be that big a deal. The midwife had even said it was optional, although the more I interacted with her, the more I got the feeling she thought all medical care should be optional, except what she did. I liked her well enough, but she knew from the get-go she was only our midwife while Dr. Shaw was doing a short stint helping people hurt by a fierce hurricane down in the islands.
Thankfully, Dr. Shaw was back in time for today, our ultrasound.
“Did you drink it all?”
I growled at Kayson. It wasn’t becoming, but he deserved it. I’d just pounded more water than I usually drank in a day and had to hold it in my body for the foreseeable future. He should be commiserating and not checking on my obedience.
“I should make you do it, too, to help you sympathize.” Best. Idea. Ever.
“It really isn’t that much water.” He pointed my now-empty water bottle, which I proceeded to fill up and hand back to him.
“Over the course of a day, no, but all at once, already knowing I can’t pee until after our appointment as your baby is sitting on my bladder, yes.” I held my hand up to my mouth like a glass and pretended to drink more, showing him exactly what he needed to do with that bottle.
“Our baby,” he corrected before drinking it down as if it were no big deal.
“Oh no, he is all yours when it is something bad, and mine when it is something amazing.” I filled the bottle halfway and handed it back to him. It seemed to me that evened up the playing field since there was no child doing karate practice inside of him.
“You do realize that makes no sense,” he said, referring to my ownership clause. He wasn’t wrong.
“Ahh, but that is the joy of being pregnant. I don’t need to make sense.”
“Ready to go.” He slammed down the empty water bottle. I’d bet dimes to dollars he was going to have to pee first, mostly because, like a rookie, he didn’t empty before he filled.
“More than.” I took his hand and headed out to the car, the car we were going to need to upgrade to something more family-ish. I still hadn’t gotten to the point where I was ready to concede to a minivan, but the more I looked at other options, the more it was on the table. All I knew for sure was that climbing in and out of Kayson’s car was getting harder and harder by the day, and my truck had two seats, so a new vehicle was in the works.
We got to the doctors in time to check out and read all the class sign-up sheets they had. They even had pre-parenting sign language classes and a list of preschools. I mean, sure, I knew you had to think about things early, but I planned to focus on growing then evicting a human. Classes and preschool would have to come later, except the birthing class. I needed all the help I could get on that one.
We got called back, and Kayson was already doing his I-need-to-pee-but-I’m-not-going-to-say-a-thing dance. I was so winning the contest he hadn’t even known he was participating in.
Baby elephants cavorted on the wallpaper border as if they could magically warm up the steel and medical equipment feel of the place.
There was a knock on the door before a doctor and nurse walked in. Normally, a twofer would’ve had me nervous, but the nurse went straight to the ultrasound machine, and I figure out quickly the doctor was here for the same show we were.
“It is nice to meet you, Reid.” The doctor started speaking before they even made it through the door. “I apologize for not being here for the first half of your pregnancy, but I will be here for the rest.”
It wasn’t like we could be mad at a doctor for going to save lives in places with minimal if any medical access.
“Thank you.”
“Have you been feeling well?” Dr. Shaw asked as they perused the file he was holding.
“I’m not puking anymore, if that is what you mean, but I really need to pee.” Just as I said the word pee, Kayson shifted. Oh yeah, he was leaving the room first.
“I imagine that’s true.” The nurse chuckled, but not in a mean way.
“Shall we make a start, Nurse Nancy?” the doctor asked, and she nodded in reply.
“This will be cold,” she began as she lifted up the paper gown I was wearing and covered the wand with goop, “but worth it.”
She placed the wand on my belly, and I jumped just a little. “I told you—cold.”
Or made of icicles.
“Ohhhh, look at that, honey.” Kayson grabbed my hand as a black inkblot-looking thing appeared on screen. “We grew a blob.”
“I knew I picked the best alpha.” I squeezed his hand back.
“Here we go,” she said gleefully, ignoring our antics like a professional as Dr. Shaw gave us the side glare of disapproval. “This is your baby.”
And just like that, she began to outline a little figure on the screen. I could make out most of it, but as she put a word to each body part, it became a thousand times more real.
“That’s—baby’s head.”
She slid the wand over slightly.
“And here are the hands and feet. Would you like to know the gender?”
“Yes,” we said in unison. We’d not argued even a little bit on that one. Kayson wanted to design decorations for the baby’s room, and I wanted to start picking up random items as I saw them. True, we could’ve gender neutraled all things, but the way we figured it, it was a surprise no matter when we found out.
“It’s a girl.” And then she went into pointing out ovaries and I didn’t even know what. I was too overwhelmed by knowing the sweet baby I was carrying was a girl.
“A girl.” Kayson kissed me, earning him a cough from the doctor, not that either of us cared. “We’re having a girl.”
“You’re having a girl,” the doctor reconfirmed.
“We just need to take a thousand measurements so relax while we press on your bladder and make you hate us.” Nurse Nancy looked like she was about to bust a gut, and Dr. Shaw gave her the full-on evil eye. “What, Doctor? You know it’s true.”
It so very much was true. By the time she had removed that wand, I barely made it to the bathroom. Not that Kayson made it until I had even gotten my pants back on before he was racing out the door.
“We’re having a little baby girl.” Kayson beamed as we exited the office, making our way to the car.
“We are.” My hand settled on my growing-by-the-day belly.
“Let’s go buy all the things.” Kayson was practically bouncing as we reached the car.
“She probably won’t need all the things.” I rolled my eyes. I knew the second they said girl that this sweet baby was going to be spoiled like nobody’s business, but no need to start that before she even arrived.
“So can we go buy some things?” he asked as he climbed into the driver’s side.
“We could.” I let my hand settle on his thigh as he started the ignition. “Or we could go home and snuggle up on the bed with that baby book and look at names.”
“That always leads to frustration,” he whined.
He wasn’t wrong. Between family names that sucked, modern names that were too weird, and names that were far too common, we’d managed to never accomplish a darn thing.
I even joked with him we should name the baby Valentine for when we met. He, being a rational human being, scoffed at that. I, being pregnant and therefore far less rational, was starting to think it was our best option.
“But now we have a gender, so it should, in theory, be easier.” Or at least we had George and Earl off the list of possibilities. Gotta love family names.
“In theory.” He didn’t sound any too sure as he pulled away from the parking lot and started back to our place.
“Fine. I will just pick a name and tell you at the birth.” I smirked. Problem solved.
“Works for me.”
Wait. What? He had to be kidding, except he looked almost relieved. Seemed baby namin’ was left to me, which suited me just fine since I already had a pretty good idea where I wanted to go with things now that I knew it was girl.
“It also means we can spend our afternoon taking care of how dirty you are. You, my sexy mate, need a shower.” He slowed to a stop and turned just enough to wink at me before continuing on.
“She wiped the gel off. I’m fine.” Which was partially true. I still had far more of that yuck on me than I should, but I’d been in so much of a hurry to pee that I hadn’t bothered wiping off the globs she missed.
“Too bad.” He turned down our street. “I was planning on making sure you were good and clean.”
Yes, please.
“Oh, I see. Upon second thought, I am very, very dirty. Please take me home and help me get clean and then dirty and then clean again.”
“Can do, mate. Can do.”