Not only had they gone sideways, but they’d also gone upside down, inside out, outside in, and any other twisted, discombobulated comparison one could imagine. All he could do was be grateful they’d made it out in one piece as husband and wife.
Georgie squeezed his hand. “We need to go inside. I don’t remember ever seeing doctors examining patients in the hallway.”
He gazed down at his beautiful wife. Tendrils of her chestnut-colored hair framed her face. She met his gaze with her blue-green eyes. The same eyes that had seared into his soul from the first awkward moment their lives collided.
She smiled up at him, trying to keep it light. But he knew his Georgiana. He’d caught glimpses of her through the half-closed bedroom door while she was getting ready for the appointment. It had taken her four tries to twist her hair into her signature messy bun. Then there were the wardrobe changes. She’d gone from jeans to leggings to yoga pants, to some strange one-piece contraption of pants already attached to the shirt. She’d switched outfits at Mach speed before pausing in front of the mirror and pressing a trembling hand to her abdomen.
She was worried—and so was he. They hadn’t discussed having children. Their lives revolved around each other, their blog, and their businesses.
Where did a baby fit into all that? He didn’t have the foggiest notion.
One thing he did know, however, was that biology didn’t care about your plans.
Life always found a way, and it didn’t concede to your agenda. It didn’t agree to return at a more convenient date. It didn’t compromise. It didn’t have to. They may have slipped up and given biology the upper hand. But from this moment on, he’d willed himself to be smarter and to be steady. If a baby were coming, he’d be prepared to do whatever it took to make sure this child had every advantage he never had.
This child would never be bullied.
Never teased or ridiculed.
In his dusty Colorado Plains hometown, he’d grown up a skinny kid on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. They’d always had food on the table, and when his mother was still alive, she’d kept their home bright and tidy. But his father’s mechanic’s salary could only stretch so far. While his dad had done his best after his mother passed away, the man’s heart had hardened from grief, and a rift had formed between father and son. A vast chasm only breached thanks in large part to Georgie. He and his father had grown close again, but he wanted a different upbringing for his child.
“Hey, Sovereign of Scat! This was your idea. I was fine staying home and tearing into those Slim Jims. And I just thought of something!” she added.
He reached for the handle, chuckling at the moniker she’d given him during their stint at the bridal wilderness boot camp. “What’s that?”
“I could wrap pineapple slices around the beef jerky. Doesn’t that sound amazing?” she answered as he held the door for her.
His ninety-nine-point-nine percent pregnant prediction notched up to ninety-nine-point-nine-nine until they entered the waiting room, and thoughts of numbers and percentages vanished from his thoughts as his jaw nearly hit the floor. He figured ob-gyn offices were like any other doctor’s office. Quiet, orderly places where patients sat, sedately waiting to be called for their appointment.
But not this place!
This place looked like a toy shop that swallowed a tiny library.
Children’s board books littered the floor while blocks lay strewn everywhere. The real kicker? Nobody seemed concerned about the noise level. Toddlers crashed toy trucks together with the gusto of deranged demolition operators. Parents holding tiny bundles sat together, talking like two-year-olds, cooing and producing animated expressions. Interspersed with the insanity, pregnant women rested, rubbing their ample bellies. A few outliers sat in chairs on the other side of baby ground zero, staring at their phones or leafing through magazines.
He glanced at the clock near the check-in desk. It was like pregnancy on steroids in here, and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock in the morning.
“Name, please?” the receptionist inquired.
“Jordan Marks,” he answered, trying to get his bearing as a LEGO whizzed past his face.
The woman at the desk gave him a placating smile. “No, sir. Unless you’ve got a uterus, I probably need her name.”
Georgie stepped forward. “I’m Georgiana Jensen-Marks, but you probably still have me as Georgiana Jensen. I recently got married and changed my name.”
“Congratulations! And you’re here for…” the woman trailed off, typing away on her computer. “Ah, here it is! A pregnancy check.”
Georgie’s body went rigid. “Yes, but it’s probably a mistake. You know how those home tests can be.”
The woman nodded. “Accurate.”
Georgie glanced at him. “See, I’m accurate.”
“No, dear,” the receptionist said, leaning forward with a distinct crinkle to her brow. “Those home pregnancy tests are quite accurate. How many have you taken?”
“Twelve.”
“Twelve!” the woman echoed, nearly knocking her glasses clean off her face.
Georgie lowered her voice. “Could the results be skewed if you’d ingested a lot of pineapple?”
The receptionist’s crinkle deepened. “How much pineapple?”
“An obscene amount,” Georgie answered, looking from side to side as if she were expecting the pineapple police to bust in.
The woman sat back and gave them the once-over. “You’ll have to ask the doctor about the pineapple. But right now, you need you to go back and give us a urine sample, and then it looks like a blood draw as well. Head over to the nurses’ desk on that side of the office,” she said, gesturing past the preschool pandemonium portion of the space. “And sir, you can wait over there with the other dads and dads-to-be.”
He observed the men. Most appeared as shell-shocked as a group of WWII soldiers in a foxhole.
And what was this other dads business?
Was he already lumped in with them?
Panic welled in Georgie’s eyes.
“I’ll sit here,” he offered, gesturing to the farthest chair from the group of men. “In the adults-only section.”
Adults-only?
What was wrong with him?
The secretary shook her head. “No, sir, the nurse will be calling for you to come to join your wife from that side of the practice.”
A hallway ran past the check-in desk, connecting two sides of the office with the waiting room situated in the center. He glanced at the women, sitting quietly, checking their phones—far, far away from the mayhem on the other side. He wanted this—the adult section or whatever you wanted to call it. He scanned the dad zone to find a half-naked toddler twirling in a sea of toys.
“What happens on the quiet side of the office?” he asked.
“Our non-pregnancy related appointments,” the receptionist answered.
He glanced at the carnival gone off the rails section of the waiting room.
“We’re not one hundred percent sure Georgie’s pregnant. That’s why we’re here. We’re very close to sure, but that should be enough to get me into the quiet zone, at least for today, don’t you think?”
The receptionist’s placating expression was back. “Here’s the receptacle for your urine sample, dear,” she said, ignoring his plea and handing Georgie a plastic cup.