Forever Us

Chapter 8

CRYSTAL

Today is the day we go to the doctor and I am freaking out. I am scared they are going to say something is wrong with me or something is wrong with our baby. Brooks has been trying to keep me calm for the past 2 days but it isn't working. I won't be able to calm down until after this appointment. Brooks and I have spent the past 3 days trying to come up with a way to tell everyone about the baby but we haven't been able to decide on what to do. We are trying to decide between just coming out and telling everyone or doing the dinner with baby portions and see if they catch on to the theme. I did do something special for everyone and had shirts made saying grandma, grandpa, and uncle. I did include Viola and Ray and had them shirts made as well. I am going to ask if the ultrasound tech can print extra copies for Ashley and Ray and for my dad and Viola. I just finished getting dressed and we are about to leave the house. I grabbed my phone off the coffee table and ended up dropping it because my hands were shaking. Brooks picked it up for me and held my hands in his and told me to calm down and take a breath. I nodded and took a deep breath but it didn't help ease the anxiety attack that was pushing its way to the surface. Brooks looked me in the eyes and said I had to calm down to keep my blood pressure down and not put any stress on the baby. I took a few deep breaths and calmed myself down. I nodded and told him I was ready to go. He helped me into the explorer and we headed to the doctor's office. After I got signed in, we sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes before I was called back. The nurse told me to pee in a cup in the restroom and put my label on it and then change into a gown and the doctor would be in soon to examine me and then we would be heading over to the ultrasound tech. Brooks helped me get changed and when the doctor came in Brooks asked if he could stay in the room for the exam. She told him he could but he had to stay up by my head. He pulled a chair up next to me and sat down. The doctor started the exam.

"Ms. Martini, I am excited to say congratulations to you both. There will be a little bundle of joy arriving. Now we need to go over to the ultrasound tech to see where the baby is measuring to give a better estimate as to how far along you are. If you would follow me please." She said as Brooks helped me up off the exam table.

When we got to the ultrasound room, I was asked to lay back and lift my gown over my stomach. The doctor put a drape over my lower half and the tech squirted this cold gel on my stomach and put this wand thing against it. She turned the screen toward me. She moved the wand thing around and stopped when this avocado-looking image appeared. She turned and smiled at me and told me that was our baby. I stared at it for a few minutes trying to figure it out. She showed us what was the head and what was the body.

"From the measurements, I am getting, Ms. Martini, you look to be right at 16 weeks. Have you felt any fluttering?" She asked as she moved the wand and clicked a button.

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"Babies at this stage begin to move their arms and legs around. You may begin to feel little flutters soon which would be either punches or kicks from him or her and they will get more intense until the end of your pregnancy." She said as she clicked the button again. I asked if it was possible to get extras for our parents and the tech told me it would be no problem. After she finished the ultrasound, We went back to the exam room and I got dressed. The doctor came in and told me everything looks good with me and with the baby. She told me to stop in at the desk and get my next appointment set up and she handed me the printouts of the baby. After we got our next appointment date, We left and Brooks took me to get something to eat. We ended up going to Outback and Brooks told me while we were waiting on our food, that when we got done eating we were going to look at baby stuff. When we left Outback we headed to Babies-r-us and looked at prices. Brooks told me to go ahead and pick out a gender-neutral crib and we would go ahead and get it today. I told him we didn't have to do that today and we could wait but he insisted on us getting a crib today. I didn't want to argue with him so I picked out a nice wooden crib that was black and was for either gender. After Brooks checked out and we got home, he took the crib into the bedroom and went ahead and began to put it together. I laughed when I walked into the room and saw him with the instructions in his hand. I shook my head and walked back into the living room. Brooks has changed a lot over the past few months in a good way and I don't think I have ever seen this much excitement from him. It melts my heart to see him like this because of the baby. I laid back on the couch and waited on Brooks to finish the crib. When he finally came out of the room, He asked if I was ready to go pick out dinner. I told him I was and told him I thought we should do the baby-themed dinner. He said that sounded good to him and said we would go ahead and get everything today and set the dinner for tomorrow evening. We went to the store and got what we needed for dinner tonight and got baby carrots, corn on the cob niblets, baby red potatoes, baby back ribs, hamburger meat to make baby meatballs for an appetizer, a mini muffin pan to make baby cornbread muffins, lil smokies to cook in BBQ sauce for an appetizer. I went to the party aisle and got pink and blue toothpicks to use for the corn, meatballs, and smokies. I also picked up picture frames to put the ultrasounds in and pink tissue paper and blue bags to put their gifts in. After we got home and I got dinner started we texted our parents and told them they were invited to dinner tomorrow and I texted Jonah and told him. While I was finishing up the baked chicken, Brooks came into the kitchen and jumped up on the counter, and asked when I wanted to get married. I stopped what I was doing and said whenever you plan it for. He looked at me and said Ok. He got off the counter and kissed me on the cheek as he walked past me and went into the bedroom. After we ate dinner, I asked him why he asked me about when we were going to get married and he told me he just needed to know when. I raised my brow and he shook his head and told me he wasn't going to tell me anything else.