Page 27 of Better Than Baby
Irene hummed as she paused the wand, zeroing in on what I thought might be the baby’s skull. It was a great picture, but she moved quickly so I wasn’t always sure what I was seeing.
“Yep. If this little one would turn, we could get a better look at their face. Andoooh, ask and you shall receive.” Irene grinned. “Daddies, say hi to your little one.”
Holy shit.
My heart skittered and somersaulted. This was a much clearer glimpse than the original one two months ago. At ten weeks, we’d been looking at a peanut, but this was a baby. Our baby…with a tiny nose and itty-bitty lips. So freaking beautiful.
Aaron and I smiled at Lena as if silently thanking her for making this possible.
Irene did a thorough job of explaining what the doctor wanted to see, pausing to show us the baby kicking and losing their thumb and searching for it.
“I could stay here all day,” Aaron gushed. “This is for sure the cutest, most talented baby ever. Admit it, Irene. You know you want to.”
She draped a warm towel over Lena’s stomach with a snort. “Prettiest, most handsome baby I’ve seen all hour. How’s that?”
Aaron gave her a playful stink-eye. “Hmph.”
Lena wiped the excess gel away and sat up. “Is it strange that I can’t feel him or her kicking yet?”
“Not at all. They still have a ton of room in there to wiggle around. In your final trimester, you’ll actually be able to see his elbows and feet pushing on your belly,” Irene replied.
“You said ‘he’ again,” Aaron singsonged.
“Sorry. Bad habit. But I do know what you’re having, so if you’re interested…”
“We’re not,” he said quickly. “Are we, Matty?”
“Nope.”
We’d debated the topic to death over the past two months and had ultimately decided we wanted to be surprised. We didn’t need or want a bunch of pink and blue things, and we had nointention of sharing the baby’s name even if we knew the sex, so…what difference did it make?
And speaking of names, that was a whole other conversation.
Aaron claimed he was easygoing and joked about naming our child after his favorite diva, but c’mon…I knew that guy inside and out. There was no way he didn’t have a solid top five nailed down that he weighed by meaning, syllables, and possibly how the monogram would look on custom towels.
“I think Lena knows what we’re having,” he commented, waving to her in the parking lot before sliding into the passenger seat of our BMW.
“Really? What makes you think so?” I fastened my seat belt, checked my rearview mirror, and put the car in reverse.
Aaron tapped his temple. “I see things. She gets quiet, and I could have sworn that she and Irene shared a knowing glance.”
I snickered. “Okay…and based on that look, what are we having?”
“A girl. I’m loving Hortense today. Thoughts?”
I steered toward the exit. “Hortense for a girl, Horton for a boy. I like it.”
“Oh, no. People will think we named him after Tim Hortons. That’s a no. If we were to have a caffeine-inspired moniker, why not just go with Frappuccino?”
“You don’t like Frappuccinos,” I reminded him. “And what’s the nickname? Frappy?”
We burst into laughter.
“That’s terrible.”
“Hey, you were the one who claimed nicknames matter.”
He shifted to face me. “That’s because I got cheated, and I refuse to do that to our kid.”