“You’re carrying the life we made together inside of you. Your body growing to take care of our child is amazing. I can’t wait to see you with a big belly,” he says.
“I love you,” I blurt out. “I mean, you already know that, but I'm glad that you’re happy about this.”
“Happy is not the word I would use to describe how I feel, baby.”
“I know,” I whisper. “This is bliss.”
“Yeah,” he says, walking towards me. “This is bliss.” His hands frame my face and he softly kisses my nose then my lips.
***************************
I wake up feeling the sun warm the skin of my back. Last night, after Asher fed me a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich, we lay in bed and talked about the sex of the baby. I said I wanted a girl. Asher was still stuck on having a boy first. Really, I don’t care what I have as long as he or she is healthy. I smile into my pillow, thinking about the ring on my finger, the child growing inside of me, and the man who put both of them there. I pull my hand out from under my pillow and hold it up in front of my face, watching the light reflect off the gems. The diamonds are shining so bright that I could go blind by looking at them.
“You awake, baby?” I scream and almost fall out of bed from flipping over at the sound of his voice. “Jesus, what the f**k?”
“You scared the crap out of me.” I say, holding the sheet to my chest. “I thought you were working today?” I look at the clock and see that it’s ten thirty.
“Took the day off so we could go to the doctor.”
“Doctor?” I ask, confused.
“You’re pregnant and need to get checked out. Your appointment is at one.”
“Oh…yeah, of course.” Yikes, I knew I needed to go to the doctor, but hadn’t even thought about calling to set up an appointment. “You just beat me to it,” I say, playing it off and grabbing the shirt at the end of the bed.
“Come to the kitchen. I made you some tea.”
“Tea?” I ask in disgust. I'm sure my face shows how revolted I am at the idea of tea. “I only drink tea if I'm sick,” I say, shaking my head at him.
“Baby, you’re pregnant.”
“I know that. I took four tests yesterday to prove it,” I snap. First, he offers me tea then he reminds me that I'm pregnant. Seriously?
“You can’t drink coffee when you’re pregnant,” he says softly, and I realize that I just sounded like a total bitch. It must be the hormones.
“That’s not funny, Asher.”
“Baby,” he starts laughing, “it’s the truth. No coffee when you’re pregnant.”
“Is that a rule? Where did you see this?” I ask, starting to panic. This can’t be true. What was I going to do if I couldn’t drink coffee?
“It’s in that book that you brought home yesterday.”
“Did you check Google?”
“Baby,” he says again, shaking his head, and I can tell he’s fighting a smile. “We can ask the doctor today and see what he says about it. But for now, come eat something so we can shower and get ready to go.”
“Fine,” I grumble, getting out of bed. Once I ate breakfast and showered we headed out to the doctor’s office.
“Well, there you go,” the doctor says, pointing at the screen beside my head. We had been at the doctor’s office for a while. First, they ran a urine test to confirm what I already knew. Then, we had to wait for the ultrasound machine to free up. Now, I am looking and listening to our baby. Tears start to pool in my eyes from the overwhelming emotions I’m feeling. I can see little arms and legs and the heartbeat is so loud in the background, it drowns out all the other noise. Asher is squeezing my hand so hard that I lost the feeling in my fingers. He has a look of amazement on his face. He bends his head and kisses my nose, smiling. The doctor types some information into the computer then clicks several times on the screen.
“From the measurements, I would say you’re about fifteen weeks along,” he says, looking at me. I immediately feel guilty for not knowing sooner that I was pregnant.
“Is everything okay? I mean, is he healthy?” Asher asks.
“Everything looks perfect.”
“I was on the shot and had no idea I was pregnant,” I blurt, not wanting him to think that I'm going to be a horrible parent.
“You would be amazed at the number of times I’ve heard that story. It’s not as uncommon as some might think.”
“Really?” I was so glad I wasn’t the only one this had happened to.
“Really!” He chuckles.
“You’re far enough along to know the sex, if you would like to find out?” he says, looking back at the screen.
“Um.” I bite my lip and look at Asher. He nods his head, so I take that as a yes.
“Yes, please.”
“Okay, let’s have a look,” the doctor says, moving the wand around a bit. “I hope you like the color pink.” He smiles.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, looking up at Asher’s pale face. “Babe, are you okay? You look sick,” I say, trying to sit up. I didn’t expect this from him. He seemed so excited.
He swallows and shakes his head. “I'm having a daughter.”
“Yeah,” I say slowly, hoping that he isn’t going to start freaking out. I need him to be together. I didn’t even remember that I needed to make an appointment. I didn’t know that I couldn’t drink coffee until he told me. He had to be the one to hold it together.