42. Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Two
“Anticipation over the arrival of a child is often contagious to even the most stalwart of cynics.”
A Young Woman’s Guide to the Joy of Impending Motherhood
Dr. Francine Pascal Reid (1941)
T ime actually flies when you’re expecting, and I was amazed to wake up one morning and realize I was twenty-six weeks pregnant.
I was twenty-six weeks pregnant, and I had turned thirty-six last week. My birthday was a bit of a nonevent, but I didn’t really mind. Brit and Morgan took me out, but since I couldn’t drink and I got tired by about nine thirty these days, it wasn’t much of a celebration. Cooper and Emma and J.B. did a nice dinner for me on the Sunday night, but I threw most of it up and couldn’t even stand to touch the cake, so that wasn’t much fun either. But I got some really nice things for the baby, and J.B. went out and bought me a ton of maternity clothes because I complained once or twice about being bored with what I had to wear. Turning thirty-six wasn’t as traumatic as I fully expected it to be, probably because I was pregnant. If I weren’t pregnant, I most likely would have drowned my sorrows in whatever alcohol was readily available and hooked up with a totally unsuitable stranger. With that as the other option, I much prefer this way to celebrate me being born. Plus, me turning thirty-six and being pregnant was sort of like flipping Dr. Francine Pascal Reid the bird.
I looked pregnant now. I looked really pregnant, but considering there were three of the little darlings in there jumping around, I was just the right size according to Dr. Morrissey, whom I still haven’t developed much of a fondness for. She kept reminding me that pregnancy wasn’t an excuse to snack, which I found ironic since I was still throwing up all too often. The pills the doctor prescribed made the vomiting stop, but also left me tired and bitchy—not a good combination for a kindergarten teacher. It had been over six months, and I had learned to live with the nausea. I kept telling myself it wouldn’t last forever. Luckily, I had discovered an array of foods that didn’t cause me to throw up everything, but unfortunately, most of them involved high levels of carbohydrates.
A couple of weeks after my birthday, two things happened. One, I slipped and fell on some ice outside the store, which led to a nasty bruise on my hip; and two, I had my first Braxton Hicks contraction.
Of course, I freaked out at the false labour the first time it happened, which unfortunately was in the middle of library period with my kindergarten class. Luckily, the librarian has had four children and was very helpful in explaining that I was not in labour before I could call 911.
″Are you sure this isn’t the real thing?” I asked Mavis, holding my side and panting like I imagined I would be doing when I went through the real thing. A few of the kids watched me intently, but most were more concerned with their books. “It feels like the real thing. It hurts a lot. The doctor said I’d be having premature labour so I could really go anytime, you know.”
Mavis shook her head at me with a beautiful smile. “Casey—trust me. You’ll know when it’s the real thing. You won’t be asking anyone about it.”
I questioned Libby about labour pains when I visited her that Sunday afternoon.
″Oh, sure, labour sucks. It feels like your insides are being pushed out your bum. But it’s awesome.”
″How could something being pushed out of your bum be considered awesome?” I wondered in all seriousness.
″Don’t worry about it.” Libby brushed my worries away with a wave of her hand. “I thought you were having a C-section?”
″That’s what Dr. Hobbit said, but I’m still not convinced. I mean, look at my hips! How can they possibly be too small?” I stood up with difficulty to pick up Max, who had rolled off his play mat and gave him a cuddle before putting him back in the middle. He thanked me with a gurgling smile that warmed my heart. Imagine—I had three of these inside me !
″I think it’s the pelvis she’s referring to. Are you just going to ignore her and try popping out the three of them when she’s not looking?”
″No. I haven’t figured it out yet. But my way of looking at it is that this is probably the only chance I’ll have to have a baby and I’d like to see what all the fuss is about.”
″Trust me—you don’t. The end result is great, but face it, if you can avoid pain and ripping and tearing and—” Libby laughed when I winced. “Oh, yes, all of that and more. Haven’t you read any books? Are you signed up for prenatal classes?”
I perked up when she asked me that. “J.B. and I are both taking them. He insisted. I signed us up for a weekend course at the end of December.”
″Sounds like things are going well with the two of you.” Libby smiled as Max rolled over and grabbed the toe of her sock. “Don’t try and eat that, my silly boy.”
″Other than he refuses to touch me, things couldn’t be better,” I told Libby. I was still embarrassed about what happened the night the babies first kicked, and I’ve managed to avoid him as much as possible.
″Touch you, touchyou, or just regular touching.”
″Not the regular touching.” I gave her a brief recap of what had happened in his room because I was feeling sorry for myself.
″Ah. Well, what do you expect? He’s scared of you. You’re a woman, you’re carrying his child—children—and all these things are going on in your body that he doesn’t understand. If I was a man, I wouldn’t touch you either.”
″I was hoping he could move past that stuff,” I grumbled.
″All men go through the same thing,” Libby said knowingly. “I mean, you’ve heard the saying that men want to have sex with the slut and marry the girl next door, or however that goes, right? Imagine how happy they are when they get her home and realize the girl next door is a dynamo in the sack. I know Luke thought he was pretty lucky.”
″Didn’t need to know that.”
″Well, anyway, you got the guy all happy for a couple of years because he’s got the best of both worlds, and then his girl next door goes and gets pregnant. Big dilemma, here. It was hard enough at the beginning to go from thinking sweet girl to slut in the bedroom, but now sweet, slutty girl has morphed into one and she’s having his baby. Does he go back to treating her like prized porcelain or keep on with the getting everything that he wants from her? ”
I made a face at Libby’s attempt at an analogy. “The only prized porcelain J.B. has is the new dishes they just got for the restaurant. And I’m not the girl next door; I’m the girl downstairs. And he’s never really treated me like a slut.”
Libby rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Luke had trouble—”
I held up my hand to stop her. “I think if you continue, whatever you say will fall under the too-much-information category. I love Luke, and there are certain words I don’t like being associated with him. So let’s just say I get your point and move on.”
″If you’re worrying about this, does it mean something’s going on with the two of you?” Libby asked curiously. “More than just the normal you’re-having-his-babies thing?”
I leaned my head against the couch. “I don’t know, Lib. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel. All I kept hoping the first couple of weeks was that J.B. would come around and maybe be a little happy I was having his baby, and that was it. Then he got all excited about stuff. He’s reading all these books and did this research to try and find the best triple stroller and everything. It’s really nice. So do I just leave it there, or press my luck and hope for something more?”
″How does he feel?”
″That’s like asking if I have any memories of being in Mom’s uterus.”
″Not a nice image, thanks.”
″Well, you know. J.B.’s changed, but not that much.”
″You could ask him. Maybe ask what his intentions are. Like, does he intend to ever have sex with you again? Just so you know, logistically, it’s going to get pretty difficult. I always found doggie style to work, or you’ll have to get on top. Missionary is out for a while, which was okay for Luke because—”
I raised both my hands in alarm. “Please don’t tell me what’s okay for Luke!”
″For someone who’s had so much sex, you’re a real prude.”
″I am not, and I’m offended by that comment. I’m okay with everyone having sex, but for some people—your husband included—I just don’t want that image in my head. Especially now when it seems sex is the only thing I think about. Do you really want me to start thinking about your husband in that way?”
″Go for it,” Libby laughed. “He’d get a kick out of it. He’d feel all manly, which might bode well for…”
″Stop it,” I cried, and Libby laughed .
″Getting back to J.B. I think you should lay off the whole ‘I never, ever want to get married’ thing, you know. Just in case he’s got ideas and you’re scaring him off.”
I sighed. “I want him involved for the babies’ sake, as well as his own. I’m not looking for a husband out of this. If I was, I would have jumped at him when he asked me before. Or I would have moved to Alaska years ago. Apparently they have tons of single men there. I was thinking of suggesting that to Morgan before she met Derek.” Now it was Libby who winced. “Oh, c’mon, Lib, give him a break. He is a nice guy, and it’s not like Mom is going to start hanging out with Morgan or anything. And she really likes Derek.”
″Who? Mom or Morgan?”
″Both. Mom thinks he’s terrific. She originally wanted him for me, but figures Morgan is almost as good. I guess she never considered it might have been a little awkward with the whole mother-daughter-dating-brothers thing.”
″Definite eww.”
″I know. But Derek seems nice, and he treats Morgan like a princess, which is what she needs. And he’s already stayed over a few times. Morgan says—”
″Do not go there,” Libby instructed sternly, holding up her hand like a traffic cop, much like I did. “I beg you. You don’t want to hear about Luke, and I can’t deal with listening how Morgan might be getting it on with the brother of our soon-to-be stepfather. That’s our step-uncle or something!”
I laughed. “I know. She gave me a few too many details. But give Eric a break next time, will you, Lib? It’s not his fault our mother is a cradle-snatcher.”
It was still snowing when I got home. I saw the giant black Pathfinder in the driveway and knew J.B. was home. Even if I didn’t, J.B. called down from the kitchen as soon as I closed the door behind myself.
″Hey! Casey, c’mon up, will you?” Apparently he was not still embarrassed about the other night, if he ever was. J.B.’s probably had too many women throw themselves at him to bother counting. I had a sudden, intense wave of hatred toward any woman who was throwing herself at him, but told myself to stop.
After climbing the stairs, which leaves me out of breath these days, I could barely get in the kitchen for the plastic shopping bags scattered around. “What did you—Toys R Us?” I asked in wonderment. There must have been six or seven bags sitting on the kitchen floor. “What did you do?”
″You got to see this stuff!” Clearly J.B. was still feeling the adrenaline of the shopping high every woman knows as he started pawing through the bags. “I know you don’t want to breast-feed, so I got all these bottles and a bottle warmer and a sterilizer, and there’s this bunch of toys called Baby Einstein and they make videos and it’s all educational—it’ll teach the babies about music and art, so I got them some of that, and this really cool musical train with these animals and these teething toys and stuffed animals and…”
I started to laugh then. “J.B., you bought so much. You don’t have to, you know. There’s time.” I glanced down at the train and the videos he’d pulled out to show me. “They won’t be using these for a bit.”
″Doesn’t matter,” J.B. shook his head. “You know, I’ve never been in that toy store. It’s awesome. The girl who was helping me showed me these bouncy seats, and they vibrate and play music so the babies can even sleep in them.” He pulled out a brightly coloured box. “I had to get three of them, so they wouldn’t get upset about having to share.”
This time I had tears in my eyes as I laughed. “I don’t believe you,” I told him softly. “All this stuff.”
″I know I probably went overboard, but I couldn’t help myself,” he said sheepishly. “Next time you can come with me. But look—look what I found.” Out of one of the bags, J.B. pulled a stack of DVDs. “That Finding Nemo you told me about, plus Cars and Ratatouille and this Dora the Explorer. There were tons of them, so I guess she’s pretty popular.”
″Pretty popular,” I echoed. My niece Madison had enough Dora memorabilia to stock her own store.
″Want to watch one tonight?” J.B. asked eagerly. “We can eat and then watch a movie?”
″Okay,” I told him. I couldn’t stop smiling.
J.B. made a quick pasta dinner for us, and then we headed to the living room to watch Finding Nemo. I’d seen it a few times with Libby’s kids, but it’s one of those movies I don’t mind seeing again. Sebastian the cat settled in his usual perch on the ugly wagon-wheel coffee table, watching J.B. with half-closed eyes.
About two-thirds into the movie, when the pelican flies into the dentist’s office and tells Nemo his father is looking for him, I had another one of the Braxton Hicks’ pains.
″Ugh!” I said aloud and held my side tightly .
″What’s wrong?” J.B. jumped to the other end of the couch so quickly that he frightened the cat, who bolted out of the room.
″Ugh, just—nothing. It’s just false labour. Nothing to worry about—hurts though.”
″Braxton Hicks,” J. B was nodding his head authoritatively.
″How do you—you’re still reading those baby books, aren’t you?” I accused.
″Well, what do you expect? I like to know what’s going on with you,” he said defensively.
The pain abated, and I took a deep breath. “If something like that is going to hurt that bad, then I wish it would just be the real thing,” I complained.
″I really hope it’s not the real thing,” J.B. said. “We haven’t got a crib or car seats or a stroller…”
″We’ve got lots of time,” I told him, snuggling back under my blanket. “At least two more months.”
″Have you felt the trips kick a lot?” J.B. asked eagerly. It was Cooper who first called the babies the trips, and the nickname stuck. Cooper also began trying out new and unusual names—he would lean up to my stomach and start calling out, “Mabel, Maxim, Mohammed—anybody awake in there?” Or my favourite, “Xander, Xavier, Xorianda—stop kicking Mommy’s bladder.”
″I honestly think I might have the next David Beckham in my uterus. I’m going to blame you for that. They really get going when I’m trying to sleep or sitting still.”
″Can I… touch… you?” he carefully asked. I just knew he was thinking about the other night.
″If you like.” I moved closer and so did he, so that we were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch. J.B. put his big warm hand on my belly, but this time didn’t ask to see it naked. He scratched it gently.
″I’m sorry about the other night,” he said quietly after we’d been sitting like that for a few minutes. “When I—when you…”
″It was my fault,” I told him. “Hormones and stuff.”
″It’s not like I didn’t want to,” he assured me. “Or that I didn’t want you.”
″I get it.” I could feel the blush start at my neck and work its way up through my face. I wished he’d stop talking about it so I could stop thinking about it.
″I thought,” J.B. stammered, “I thought we could take things slow. ”
″Slow?” I couldn’t help the snort of laughter. “I think we’re past the slow part.”
″I was thinking,” J.B. said slowly, his fingers still moving along my stomach. “We’ll be kind of busy when these guys come out…”
″Kind of,” I smiled.
″Well, I was thinking, maybe you’d want to go to a movie or something before they’re born. Maybe dinner and a movie one night. Or something,” he paused, keeping his attention on the television.
″It sounds like you’re asking me on a date,” I whispered.
″I guess I am. Trying to get to know you a little more before we jump into anything. There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.”
I bite my lip trying not to laugh again. Jump into anything? “Okay,” I whispered.
″Why are you whispering?” he asked, also in a whisper.
″I don’t—I don’t know,” I said in my normal voice.
″How about Tuesday night?”
″I’m working at the store until six, but after… okay.”
″Okay. We’ll do dinner and save the movie until next time.”
″Next time,” I parroted.
″Well, yeah,” J.B. said, turning to me with a smile. “I thought we should maybe go out a couple of times before we become parents. It’s a little backward, I know, but it still works for me. If you want to, that is.” He suddenly sounded nervous.
″Okay” was all I could bring myself to tell him. But I couldn’t stop smiling.