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I’m falling in love with her and it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

“Cara,” I groan, as her body trembles beneath me. She’s clawing at me, falling into a second orgasm and I can’t hold out until she’s done, I plant myself deep inside of her, shove my forehead into her neck, and I groan her name again as I come.

—

“This sound will never get old,” I say, listening to thewhoosh whoosh whooshof our baby’s heartbeat.

We’re at the midwife’s office again for Cara’s fourteen-week appointment and thankfully, the dildo cam, as I’ve taken to calling it, is no longer necessary. Instead, she squirted some clear gel on Cara’s stomach and moved around a device on top of her belly a few minutes ago, quickly finding the baby’s heartbeat.

And I helped make this tiny, tiny little sound. It’s the coolest.

“I think it’ll get even better when the baby’s here,” Pam, the midwife, says, with a gentle and teasing smile.

I like her. She’s kind and patient with a soft voice, but she also talks to Cara in a no-nonsense way about her morning sickness and how everything else is going. So far, besides the heartbeat, there haven’t been any surprises, just the report that everything looks good.

Cara’s even beginning to put on a little bit of weight, which is a good thing considering all the puking she’s done the last couple of months.

But ever since she’s moved into my place, she seems to be feeling better.

“Thank you,” Cara says, and I hold out my hand to help her sit up. She wipes off the gel on her stomach and lowers her shirt.

I’ve had my hands all over her body multiple times since last weekend, and all I want to do is scoop her into my arms, take her back home, and devour her all over again. It must be some primal instinct left over from cavemen.

“Any other questions?” Pam asks. “Because if not, you’ll be able to schedule another appointment for four weeks and if you’d like, we can do an ultrasound for then as well. We like to do them around twenty weeks to ensure the baby is growing properly.”

“Yes,” I say. I haven’t called our babyhimfor fear of pissing off Cara again, but I’m really tired of sayingitall the time as well, like we’re not sure if there’s a baby or a basketball or alien inside her. “We want that.” I look down at Cara. “Don’t we?”

“Can we find out the gender then too?” Cara asks.

Pam nods. “We can certainly try if you’d like to know.”

“We want to know,” Cara says, looking up at me this time as bashfully as I just looked at her. “Don’t we?”

“I do.” I’m grinning.

Parenting has already made me a fool for a baby I’ve never met, but, yeah, I want to know. Boy? Girl? There’s a lot to figure out.

“Okay then,” Pam says, laughing softly at our ridiculousness. We are ridiculous. We’ve done nothing, studied nothing, at least I haven’t. Periodically, Cara gives me some random fact, something she’s been doing since the weekend, with her eyes on the screen. At least she’s finally started looking into pregnancy information like Jenna suggested.

This morning it was, “Hey, did you know our baby is the size of a lemon?”

To which I’d replied,“Can we call it Squirt?”

Yeah, finding out the gender is necessary.

“I’ll leave you two alone then, and when you’re ready, make your appointments up front. You’ll have to go to a different building for the ultrasound, but we can schedule your prenatal visit immediately following, or at least try to. And don’t forget you can call me if you have any questions. None are too small, I promise.”

“Thanks, Pam,” Cara says.

I thank her as well, and after Cara finishes fixing her clothes, grimacing when her shirt doesn’t tuck so easily into her pants, she grabs her purse. “Ugh. I’m going to need new clothes soon.”

She’s taken to wearing only loose sweats and oversized T-shirts at my place, and today it looks like she’s trying to force things into the waistband of her jeans. It looks uncomfortable, and what if she’s squishing the baby? I’m smart enough not to ask. If I’ve learned anything it’s that pregnant women can beemotional.

“We can go shopping after work tonight.”

I have to get back to MadInk, barely having enough time to take her to lunch.

“Maybe this weekend,” she says, and her nose scrunches. “I can probably wait until then. Come on, let’s go get those appointments scheduled.”