The day before Christmas Eve finds Imogen and me in Dr. Katz’s office, the ultrasound machine glowing a bright black and white beside her bare belly.

“Let’s see if we can’t find out this little one’s gender.” She smiles at us, and takes the wand to my wife’s stomach, searching.

Imogen squeezes my hand, which is wrapped tightly around hers, as we both watch the screen. This is the first doctor’s appointment I’ve been allowed to come to … mostly because I didn’t know about all of the other ones but I’d let that slide. Today was a happy day.

“Now, there is the baby’s head, and it’s arm. Look, baby is rubbing its face.” Dr. Katz details our little one’s movements.

I watch, mesmerized, as the little life we created dances. It’s a little hard to tell what is what, but every so often I’ll catch the glimpse of a foot or a hand.

“Slippery little sucker,” I whisper to Imogen, whose favorite movie is Pretty Woman.

She laughs under her breath and shushes me by putting a hand on my arm.

Dr. Katz is hitting a lot of buttons, moving the wand and measuring and not making any noise.

“Is everything okay?” The panic in my chest rises a notch.

“Everything is fine, why?” Imogen looks up at me.

“She’s not saying anything.” I motion to the doctor.

Dr. Katz smiles. “Theo, everything is fine … I’m sorry I didn’t preface because Imogen has been here for sonograms already. If I don’t talk a lot, it’s only because I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Oh, okay, good.” The breath I had trapped in my lungs comes whooshing out.

“Relax, Dad,” Imogen teases.

“All right!” Dr. Katz sets the wand down and wipes the blue goo off of Imogen’s stomach. “Let me get the picture up that will show you exactly what you’re having.”

My heart pounds in my chest, and I feel Immy’s hand become slick with nervous sweat. This is it.

The doctor passes through a few images, and then clicks on one, bringing it up into full view.

“There is your baby!”

Both Imogen and I tilt our heads from left to right, trying to make out exactly what we’re looking at. It takes a few seconds before she speaks.

“Okay, I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

All three of us laugh, and Dr. Katz circles three areas with the drawing tool on her computer program.

“See these three dots here? Those are all of the indications of the female reproductive system. Which means … you are having a baby girl.”

“A girl?” Imogen bursts into tears, and it only takes one look at her beautiful face to know that they’re the happy kind.

“We’re having a little girl,” I say in amazement, and then bury myself in my wife’s hair.

A baby girl … one who will look just like Imogen but have my eyes. Or maybe her eyes and my dark hair … who cares though? All I know is that my heart just expanded to make room for the other most important woman in my life.

“Oh my goodness, I get to buy all of the little pink frilly outfits now!” Imogen claps through her sobs.

This has us all laughing again.

As soon as we calm down a little bit from our emotional high, Dr. Katz gives Imogen a rundown of her next appointments and tells her to start taking things a little more easy. I listen intently, completely on board with doing whatever it takes to get our baby girl into this world safely.

“There is going to be so much pink in your life.” Imogen grins as we walk out of the doctor’s office.

“Good. It’ll break up the New England neutral stranglehold you’ve put on the house. If I have to walk into one more beige room, I’m going to go insane.”

“If it was up to you, everything would be covered in wood paneling.”

“That’s right. Full seventies, baby.”

“Come off it, you weren’t even born in the seventies.” Imogen rolls her eyes as we get in.

I start the car and pull out of the parking lot, driving through Chatham in all of its snowy, Christmas glory. The bandstand is decorated with wreathes and twinkling garland, and the glittering glow of fairy lights line the shops, streets and trees down Main Street. It looks like a storybook, and I dream about one day taking our daughter to a Friday night summer concert in the park.

“Would the queen like her Taco Bell?” I offer, knowing she’s probably hungry.

My wife was always hungry as it was before she was pregnant, growing up with a mother who was constantly on a diet would do that to a woman. But now? In the amount of time we’d spent together in the last two weeks, which was more than we had in the four months we’d been separated, I’d seen her consume more calories than Michael Phelps did on a daily basis.

She looked like every ounce of food she put in her mouth was going straight to her baby belly. She was still the petite, slim Imogen I knew … only now she had this cute little bump sticking out.

I find her adorable. And sexy, and gorgeous, and … Imogen is the most beautiful person I’ve met inside and out. I haven’t pushed the issue of us with her because it just feels so nice to be with her. To laugh and joke and not talk about divorce or what happens next. Maybe, right now, this kind of healing is what we need.

“Actually, I’m feeling more like soup. A good hot cup of chowder, and oh! Maybe a cheddar biscuit.”

I can’t help but laugh. “That’s my New England princess. All right, one cup of chowda and delicious buns, coming right up!”