Own the Eights Maybe Baby Read online

  Not an easy feat. Scratch that. Not possible when wearing a one-piece romper. Yes, that fashion-forward pants connected to the shirt ensemble, which meant, if the bottom had to go, so did the top.

  Her mother had sent it to her ages ago with a Lorraine Vanderdinkle special passively aggressive note, explaining the garment was fashionably chic and meant to spruce up her dowdy librarian wardrobe. Why she chose today of all days to wear it, she didn’t know.

  And to make matters worse, thanks to her brain fog or a possible vitamin C overdose with all the pineapple juice she’d ingested over the last several weeks, she’d chosen a particularly sexy bra. Nobody wore their most seductive underwear to the ob-gyn. If there was an occasion for the demure beige full-support number, it was for the gynecologist!

  It had to be the nerves and the anxiety clouding her addled mind that had led her to make this fashion faux pas.

  However, aside from the possibility that this could be one of the most momentous days of her life, so far, the visit seemed pretty routine.

  She’d peed in the cup, then opened the strange little cabinet door next to the toilet and left her sample beside another cup of pee. This wasn’t her first time navigating the whole pee at the doctor’s office song and dance, but so far, urine seemed to play quite an important role in the pursuit of pregnancy pronouncements. In all her life, she’d never thought as much about pee as she had in the last few hours.

  Jordan was right about her kicking ass with the pee cup. In this case, practice did make perfect. She’d filled that plastic receptacle like a champ, then gave a little fist bump, and instantly felt like an asshat.

  Who cheered for pee?

  Apparently, Georgiana Jensen-Marks.

  The routine blood draw was nothing to write home about. She’d sat there and watched as the tiny vile filled with the substance that would tell them definitively if there was a bun or, in her case, a pineapple upside-down cake in the oven.

  Truth be told, it was starting to sink in.

  As the phlebotomist pricked her vein, she’d stared at the tasteful display of happy women cradling their bellies plastered on pastel-colored pamphlets. Until this visit, she’d never paid much attention to them. Pregnancy seemed so far off—something that happened to other people. Especially because, before she’d met Jordan, she’d spent the last couple of years dwelling in a sexual desert.

  At her last annual appointment, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she could be pregnant.

  In a bout of cleverness during that appointment, she’d written something cheeky about her lack of sexual partners on the health intake form. The nurse, a lovely young woman named Gina, had chuckled when she’d read it. Then, they’d enjoyed some girl talk, dishing about the pitfalls of dating and the difficulties in trying to find a good guy. She’d even recommended her Own the Eights blog to the bubbly woman. It was too bad she wasn’t here today. The nurse who’d met her at the dreaded doctor scale had the warmth of a wet blanket.

  With a scowl, the woman begrudgingly introduced herself as Joyce.

  If anyone could take the joy out of Joyce, it was this lady. Still, she appeared competent, and hopefully, the all-smiles Nurse Gina would be back when she was due for her next visit.

  Next visit?

  This used to be a place she’d breeze in and out of once a year.

  If Jordan and twelve pregnancy tests were correct, there was a good chance they’d be here quite a bit.

  She crossed her fingers, hoping her favorite nurse would return when the door to the exam room opened. Joyless Joyce entered the snug space with Jordan trailing behind; his shoulders slumped like a kid who’d been caught stealing from the cookie jar.

  Georgie adjusted the oversized gown and attempted to muster up as much dignity as one could in a hospital-issued frock and a sexy bra.

  Jordan gasped. “Why are you naked?”

  “Because she wore a onesie to the obstetrician,” the nurse huffed, scribbling something onto a chart.

  “I’m not naked. I’m in a hospital gown, so the doctor can do an exam,” she answered, then smiled at Joyce. “And it’s a romper, not a onesie. Onesies are for babies. I know that much.”

  “What’s a romper?” Jordan asked.

  “What I wore here! It’s a fashionably chic one-piece shirt and pants outfit,” she answered, regurgitating her mother’s words.

  “One piece, like a onesie,” Nurse Joyce countered under her breath as she attended to the chart.

  “Why’d you wear that? Are there special clothes you’re supposed to wear here?” Jordan asked in a hushed voice, confusion marring his handsome face. Except something was different.

  When she’d left him, the man looked ready to conquer the world. Calm and collected, he’d stayed right outside the door as she’d peed on pregnancy test after pregnancy test this morning. He’d held her hand in the car ride over, gently brushing his thumb across her knuckles. Even once they’d arrived, despite being surprised by the kid factor in the waiting room, he’d been steady—her solid supporter.

  He deflated into the seat next to her, and the giant CrossFit trainer looked as if he’d completed ten Ironman competitions in a row, then got plowed over by a steamroller.

  She touched a long scratch on his cheek below his left eye.

  “What happened?”

  “A nose-picking toddler attacked me with a book. He got me good, Georgie,” her husband answered with absolutely no sarcasm or humor infused into his ridiculous statement.

  “You got into a fight with a child?” She had to have misunderstood.

  “No, not a fight.”

  “Then, what happened?”

  Jordan sighed a deep contemplative sound. “The dads out there were telling me about the baby NFL and all the wait-lists we needed to get on to make sure we have a normal kid. I was so blown away that I accidentally knocked a bunch of those board books off a little table.”

  “A baby NFL?” she questioned. He wasn’t making any sense.

  Jordan’s eyes went mad-professor wide. “Yeah, crazy, huh?”

  Oh yes! Somebody seemed crazy! A certain six-foot-four behemoth of a man seated beside her.

  “Okay, but I’m not sure how that leads to a baby assaulting you,” she pressed gently.

  He leaned in. “It was a toddler, Georgie. They’re a different beast. He faked me out. Kids are smart. They’re deceptively cute. They draw you in and then, whack! You find yourself nearly smashing them like a pancake.”

  In the fifteen minutes she’d been separated from her husband, the man had gone from Mr. Positivity to sounding like a war vet, recalling days on the battlefield.

  “You tried to smash a toddler?” She had to piece this out. Something had to be missing.

  “Not on purpose! It happened when I fell out of the chair.”

  “You fell onto the floor?” she questioned.

  “I told you. The kid had NFL training,” Jordan answered, exasperation coating the words.

  For the love of Pete!

  She looked to Joyce, who’d started typing away on the exam room computer. Perhaps Nurse Scowl could help fill in the gaps in her husband’s explanation.

  “Did you notice anything interesting going on when you went to fetch my husband?” she asked, going for indifferent nonchalance—which wasn’t easy when wearing a black sex kitten bra beneath a potato sack.

  “He was on the ground next to a crying child. I don’t know if I’d call it interesting,” Joyce answered, gaze glued to the computer screen.

  “Do you see that a lot around here?” she continued with a laugh meant to sound playful but veered closer to psycho.

  The woman turned away from the screen. “No,” she answered with the pleasantness of a slug.

  Wait! That wasn’t fair to slugs. There had to be some pleasant ones out there.

  “I need to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Jensen-Marks,” Nurse Joyce said, squinting at a piece of paper in the chart.

  “Go ahead.”
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  Joyce pursed her lips. “A lot has changed for you. Last time you were here, under relationship status, you circled single, then wrote in that the doctor may need to clear the cobwebs because it had been so long since you’d gotten any.”

  Gah! That’s what she’d written last year, and Dr. Rosenstein thought it was hilarious.

  Georgie smoothed her potato sack gown. “Well, that’s certainly not the case now.”

  Jordan perked up and tossed her a little wink. “I can attest to that. There are no cobwebs in my wife’s lady parts, and Georgie’s all about getting some these days.”

  Sweet Jesus! Did he think he was helping?

  “And you’re married now, I see,” Joyce continued.

  “Yes, just last month,” she confirmed, grateful to move on to a less embarrassing subject.

  The nurse raised an eyebrow. “Shotgun wedding, I assume?”

  Georgie gasped. “No! Goodness, no! Getting pregnant wasn’t even on our radar during that time.”

  “Were you having sex?” A smirk pulled at the corners of Joyce’s lips.

  Georgie knew where this was going. Oh, how she needed Nurse Gina! Gina would have been all high fives and sweet giggles upon hearing about her recent wedding, not hardened features and disapproving glares.

  A bead of sweat ran down her back. “Yes, we engaged in sexual activity.”

  There! She’d make it sound clinical—like something you’d read in a nature magazine. Nobody begrudged animals for getting some!

  “Were you using protection consistently?” Joyce asked in a tone that said she already knew the answer—which was pretty damn clear when one made an appointment for a pregnancy check.

  Georgie shifted in the chair as another bead of perspiration slid down her spine. “Define consistently.”

  The crabby nurse scribbled a note. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Georgie turned to her husband, who winced. Even he knew this wasn’t going well. With her eyes, she asked him to swoop in and say something funny or charming. Anything to make her look less like an irresponsible woman whose wedding ceremony had included firearms.

  “Alcohol consumption?” the nurse asked.

  “Only a glass of champagne at our wedding,” Georgie answered.

  Jordan took her hand and tossed her another wink. “And with all the pineapple juice Georgie’s been downing, she might just have a piña colada in her belly.”

  Oh, Jordan!

  The nurse frowned. “So, you’re binge drinkers?”

  “No! Nothing of that sort,” Georgie answered.

  “My wife’s right! On our honeymoon, we didn’t touch any alcohol.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief, but Jordan wasn’t done.

  “You see, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with my wife’s sex drive if I’d ingested alcohol. I needed to be at peak performance. It got pretty wild, if you know what I mean,” he added, tossing Joyce a wink.

  Did he think he was helping? She looked like a binge-drinking sex maniac!

  Georgie adjusted her potato sack. It was time to shift gears.

  “Will Gina be back soon?”

  “Who?” Joyce grunted.

  “Nurse Gina. She usually goes through all the health questions with me,” she answered, praying her favorite nurse was in the vicinity.

  “Oh, her. She moved to France with her boyfriend, Pierre. She told everybody some blog taught her how to meet a nice guy,” Joyce replied flatly.

  France?

  And a blog that helped her find a good guy?

  “How lovely for her,” Georgie answered with a pinched grin.

  She wanted to be happy for the woman. It was most likely her advice that helped the kind Gina find love. But now, she detested this Pierre for taking the compassionate nurse and leaving her with this grouchy sourpuss. She wanted to kick herself for suggesting Gina check out the blog in the first place.

  Was this a little selfish?

  She glanced at the scowling Joyce.

  Nope, she was all for selfish at the moment.

  “It’s poppycock!” the crabby nurse remarked.

  “What’s poppycock?” she asked, treading lightly. And who still used the word poppycock?

  Joyce turned toward them. “All that internet mumbo jumbo! All those talking heads, filling the void with nonsense.”

  “Not all of it is nonsense. There are places with helpful information, like CityBeat,” Jordan offered.

  Joyce reared back. “Did you say city freak? Is that a porn site?”

  Jordan waved his hands. “No, no! Not freak! Beat. Beat with a b. Like, ‘Beat It.’”

  The poor man was zero for two in the spell-it-out department.

  “Beat it?” the woman gasped in horror.

  “It’s a song—an old popular pop song,” her husband stammered, his crimson cheeks matching his red scratch.

  Joyce looked ready to call the cops and report a pervert in the building when somebody tapped out a cheery knock on the door. Before the addled nurse could request backup, a man with glossy blond hair and cheekbones for miles entered the room. He flashed a smile that glinted in the light like a toothpaste commercial.

  Who the heck was this made-for-TV doctor?

  “Joyce, you delightful creature, I’ll take it from here,” the man purred, sending another dazzling smile toward the grouch.

  He was like Baywatch meets ER with a dash of General Hospital flare thrown in.

  “That’s your gynecologist?” Jordan asked under his breath.

  “I don’t know who this is,” she whispered back.

  The TV doctor flashed his pearly whites. “Let me help you out with that. I’m Chad Beaver, MD. And you two must be Georgiana and Jordan—or else I’m in the wrong exam room. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened, would it, Joyce?”

  The nurse replied with a surly harrumph.

  “Forgive me for asking,” the doctor continued, oblivious to Joyce’s discontent. “But aren’t you the More Than Just a Number CityBeat couple?”

  “That’s us,” Jordan answered with a grin.

  “Joyce, we’ve got internet royalty in our office. Isn’t that exciting?” the doctor remarked.

  The nurse’s eyes went wide, likely thinking they were part of the internet porn industry.

  One thing was for damn sure—they weren’t winning any points with Joyce today.

  Georgie glanced around the tiny room, hoping Nurse Gina and Dr. Rosenstein would materialize. Could she be hallucinating? Could an overabundance of pineapple cause delusions? She shook her head, trying to clear the gynecological mirage, but Dr. Beaver and Nurse Scowl were still there.

  “Where’s Dr. Christine Rosenstein? I always see her,” Georgie stammered.

  “Dr. Rosenstein got married about six months ago,” the man answered.

  “She did?”

  “Yes, some blog helped her meet her soul mate, and they moved to Australia,” the doctor answered over his shoulder as he washed his hands in the tiny sink.

  Georgie blinked vacantly at the backside of the shiny doctor.

  Every health professional she trusted with her vagina had left the continent thanks to her blog!

  “Did you ask to make an appointment with Dr. Rosenstein when you called?” she asked her husband through a plastic grin.

  “I called the office and said you needed to be seen today. I didn’t ask for a specific doctor,” he answered through a wide, fake grin of his own.

  “I’m the new doc at the practice, and I’ve taken on all her patients. It looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other because someone is close to eight weeks pregnant,” the man answered, drying his hands with a paper towel.

  “What?” she blurted.

  If she’d had coffee in her mouth, she would have spewed it all over the room like an angry, spitting alpaca.

  “It’s the number between seven and nine,” Joyce mumbled under her breath, then logged off the computer and left the exam room.

 
“Isn’t she the best?” Dr. Beaver remarked, watching the crotchety nurse leave.

  Georgie couldn’t think about joyless Joyce or the fact that her obstetrician was named Dr. Beaver. Yes, it was the humor of a twelve-year-old to laugh at something as childish as that. But holy freaking semi-aquatic rodent! Her obstetrician’s last name was Beaver, and he just dropped that she was two months along in this pregnancy!

  She stared at the doctor, her mind spinning. “How can I be eight weeks pregnant?”

  The man sat down on a stool and leaned in. “Well, Georgiana, it all starts with a happy little egg who’s hoping to meet an eager little sperm.”

  Georgie shared a look with her husband, who appeared as gobsmacked as a happy little sperm running into a hopeful little egg.

  “Dr. Beaver, I know how it happens. I just didn’t expect to be so far along,” she offered.

  The shiny ob-gyn pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “I picked up your labs, and the blood doesn’t lie. According to what you reported as the first day of your last period and taking into account the amount of hCG hormone detected in your blood sample, I’d put your due date around the twenty-second of June.”

  “You’re kidding,” Jordan breathed.

  Dr. Beaver’s features grew pensive. “No, I’m science-ing.”

  Her husband squeezed her hand. “Georgie, that was the date of the Denver Trot last year. What are the chances we’d have a baby due the same day a year later?”

  “Fairly high if you’re not practicing safe sex,” the doctor answered, glancing at Joyce’s notes in the chart.

  It didn’t seem real!

  Last June, she’d met Jordan. They’d fallen in love while competing in the CityBeat Battle of the Blogs. They’d gotten engaged on live TV only a couple of months later, and now, they would be welcoming a child all in a year!

  Talk about hitting life’s significant milestones like a speed racer!

  “How accurate are those blood tests? Is there a chance it could be a false positive? Or could it be my cycle recalibrating?” she asked, throwing out the equivalent of a pregnancy Hail Mary.

  Dr. Beaver frowned. “There’s basically no chance that you’re not pregnant.”

  “But how are you so sure?” she queried, like a spunky, prenatal Nancy Drew.