A New Life

-Charlie-
“Babe, you ready to go?” Sean asks from the living room.
“Yeah, just struggling to get my pants on!” I respond, pulling my yoga pants up my prosthetic and over my widened hips.
“Amputee thing, or pregnant thing?” He asks from the bedroom door, chuckling.
“Well they’re yoga pants and they stretch around my fat self... so amputee thing.” I respond, finally standing.
“Charlie.” He sighs. “You’re not fat. Please don’t think that.”
“I know, Sean.” I smile. “I’m pregnant.”
“Which makes you even sexier than you already were.”

His hands run down my sides and cup my ass, bringing my body closer to him. Apparently my growing bump severely turns him on. Who knew? He nips at my neck, roughly grabbing at whatever part of my body his hands can find.

“Sean. We have to go. Our appointment is in forty minutes and it’s a thirty minute drive.” I say, tugging away from his roaming lips slightly.
“That means we have ten minutes still.” He murmurs, pushing me towards the bed.
“You horny man.” I giggle.
“My sexy wife is pregnant with my baby. Of course I’m fucking horny!” He exclaims.
“Well let’s hold off on the sex for right now and go make sure our baby is okay. Then when the doctor says we’re all good, we can come back here and you can have your way with me.”
“Any way I want?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Any way, every way, whatever you want.” I agree with a wink.

He holds out his hand and I chuckle, shaking it and sealing the deal.

“Let’s go. We’ve got a baby to take care of!” He shouts, swinging me up into his arms and heading for the car.

We get to the gynecologist’s office with five minutes to spare, signing in right before our time slot. With the name Couturier in the Philadelphia area, our gynecologist has labeled us as “priority” patients. I’m okay with being a normal patient, but the convenience of being a priority is kinda nice. Almost as soon as we sign in, the nurse calls us back under our alias names “Mr. and Mrs. Colemann” and we head back to the treatment room. She takes the basics, my blood pressure, weight and measurements of my size before going off to find the doctor.

Dr. Roberts comes in a couple minutes later with a big smile on her face.
“Hello, Charlie!”
“Hi Dr. Roberts, how are you?” I ask.
“I’m doing fantastic. The question is, how are you doing? I noticed you bumped your appointment up a week. Is everything okay?”

She sits down and starts looking over my medical records quickly.

“Well... I had an incident a couple weeks ago that we’re kinda worried about. I got up in the middle of the night and had to pee so badly and Sean wasn’t home, so I hopped to the bathroom. But then I slipped on the way back and fell. I took most of it between my knee and elbow, but we’re obviously just a little nervous it might have hurt our baby too.”

She nods her head and puts my records down.

“What’s the surface in your bathroom?”
“Tile.” Sean says, reaching for my hand.
“And you said you took most of it between your knee and elbow?”
“Yes.” I respond. She stands next to the table and pulls my shirt up, gently pressing along my stomach.
“Have you had any pains anywhere along any of these areas?”
“Not really. A little bit the next morning. Just soreness, though. Not really any pain.”
“That’s good.” She says. “Okay I don’t feel anything abnormal, which is a really good sign. And a fall like that really isn’t something to be too worried about as long as you didn’t fall right on the baby, which it sounds like you didn’t.”

I feel Sean breathe a sigh of relief next to me and squeeze his hand.

“So our baby is okay?” He asks.
“As of right now, I don’t see any issues. But we can go ahead and do an ultrasound so we can check all the other vitals like your baby’s heartbeat and everything and just make sure everything is perfect.” Dr. Roberts assures us.

Sean and I both nod our head and she has me lay back on the table. I lift my shirt up and pull the band on my yoga pants down a little, exposing my belly. Sean intertwines our fingers and kisses my hand as she squirts the gel onto my skin. It’s cold and I twitch a little on instinct.

“Now before I do this, you’re far along enough that we can find out the gender if you want. Is that something you have discussed, or no?”

I look at Sean, remembering our conversation from last night.

“I know I suggested waiting, but now that I know we can find out tomorrow, I kinda don’t feel like I can wait another couple months.” Sean said, cleaning up the dishes from dinner.
“I’m so glad you said that.” I sighed. “I really don’t want to wait, but I was going to say I’d be willing to if that’s what you wanted.”
“So tomorrow we find out?” He asked, turning to face me.
“If you’re sure you’re okay with that.”
“I just- I have to know, Charlie. I’m so excited and I can’t wait!”

He smiled so brightly at me and it made my heart skip. I felt a little knock against my skin and quickly pressed Sean’s hand to it. Ever since the night in the bathtub, our little baby had been kicking up a storm. Sometimes it feels like it has a thousand feet. And it always responds to Sean’s voice.

“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll know a lot more about you tomorrow.” He said, leaning down to kiss my stomach.
“Only a couple more months until we’re parents.” I said, smiling big.

“We’re definitely ready to find out.” I say, smiling at Dr. Roberts.
“Fantastic. Let’s see your baby.”

She turns on the machine and presses the ultrasound head against my skin, moving it around. The first time she did this, I got nervous because there was nothing on the screen. But then she explained that they always use the sound part first to hear the heartbeat. Then they’ll switch over to the visual part to look at it.

A strong thumping starts coming from the machine and tears fill my eyes. I look over at Sean, who already has a single tear running down his face.

“Very strong.” Dr. Roberts says, smiling.

Without warning, the thumping seems to double and I look at her, surprise on her face.

“That’s not normal.” I say, my palms starting to sweat.
“No, it’s not...” She says, fiddling with the machine.
“Is that bad?” Sean asks, his hands starting to shake.
“Well. I’ve heard this sound before. Plenty of times. But... I didn’t think.... In your past appointments I haven’t....”

She pauses, quickly switching over to the visual function of the machine. She searches for a second and then I see her nod her head. I look at the monitor and recognize the familiar sight of our baby. Sean squeezes my hand and I look at him. His eyes are glued to the monitor and I can see a smile peaking at the corner of his mouth.

“Wow.” Dr. Roberts says, a huge smile on her face. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this before.”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Well....”