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.