We had one hell of a fight when it came to choosing a doctor because she didn’t think it made a difference whether it was a male or female, I beg to differ.
We ended up with a female in her fifties who thought I was cute because of all the questions I asked. Tony was on a new kick, reminding me that
I wasn’t the first father to be in the universe. Asshole.
And yet the night she went into labor at her damn studio he was as nervous as I was. Sherrie drove us all to the hospital, keeping everything calm, as she yelled out the window at New York city drivers to get the fuck out of her way before she mow them down. Good times.
I made it through labor, I don’t know how and promised never to do that shit again. She was supposed to be the one in pain, but I swear I felt every twinge. That shit’s for the birds.
But I do know in that room my life came full circle. I was a dad, I was a husband. I had the family that I never expected to have and I knew there was no way I would ever leave them. Because me without her, was something I never want to know.
Epilogue
I heard the pitter patter of little feet two minutes before a heavy weight landed on my head and another half minute before one hit me in the chest. I lifted my arms up and around so that the little canons didn’t fall off the bed and crack their skulls.
Two minutes later I heard the waddle. “Shh, boys you’re gonna wake daddy.”
“Too late.” I cracked an eye open and watched her sit gingerly on the bed.
“Were you sick?”
“As usual.”
“And you didn’t wake me why.”
“Because I already had my hair in a ponytail. I prepared from the night before.”
“Do you think that’s all I’m doing, holding your hair while you’re sick?” I sat up and put my sons in the middle of the bed out of danger. Her belly was round as a butterball and almost as big as it was when she was carrying the twins, even though there was only one in there this time.
I didn’t need the ultrasound to tell me this one was
female, shit, everything about her screams I am woman hear me roar. With the boys she was sick for a couple months in her first trimester, with this one she’s been sick since conception and we’re hitting month nine.
With the boys her mind was still in tact, relatively, with this one she’s a raving lunatic half of each day. She cries at the drop of a hat and I’m public enemy number one.
With the boys sex was still on the table, but I respected her space and let her call the shots. With this one she wants sex on tap and I’m just a walking dick that she takes out to play with whenever, wherever, true story.
She’s sick as soon as she opens her eyes in the morning, for about half an hour and the rest of the day she’s on speed. I can’t keep up. And I love every minute of it.
After the initial shock of hearing I’m pregnant, when the boys were barely a few months old I’ve been onboard. I like pregnant Annabelle. For one I get more time with her, she relies on me more, which makes me feel all manly and shit, and she needs more cuddles.
I have no problem reassuring her that she’s beautiful because she fucking glows, so except for the moments of insanity here and there throughout the day, she’s perfect.
I’d barely gotten used to being a new dad when her pregnancy was confirmed. I thought she would freak for sure, but she took it in stride and since I was the one who got her that way in the first place, I was there every step of the way.
I didn’t pawn her off on mom or any of the other women in our lives, but stayed by her side throughout the whole thing just like I did with the first one.
Every doctor’s appointment, every crazy craving, every crying jag, I was the man. I juggled the twins and their crazy mother like a pro. That’s why I’m not pleased that she didn’t wake me when she was being sick.
“Who’s downstairs?”
“The whole gang.” I’d given into her bullshit and bought a house on the island not far from mom’s. Tony and I had put together and bought aunt Jess her own place around the corner and before we knew it Sherrie and Trevor had followed. Now we own practically the whole block.
The only one missing was Travis who had gone off to college a little after the boys were born, but he comes home every chance he gets and had promised to be here for the birth of this one.