lying on the couch beside Luke when I’m not driving him to his PT appointments.
If only I felt a little better, maybe we could hit the sheets together. That still hasn’t happened since before his injury.
“Come on in,” I say to Josh and Nicki, and I unlock the door.
“I brought green chili enchiladas!” Nicki says, and she tears the foil off the top of her pan once we’re in the kitchen. I want to gag at the smell of the sauce.
“Thank you,” I say. I try to inject some enthusiasm, but it’s definitely not there.
“What’s wrong?” she asks me. “You look a little green.”
Luke’s eyes widen as he looks at the tray of food and back at me.
“Can we tell them now?” I whisper to Luke.
He chuckles and nods.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt, and the entire room goes quiet for a few beats. “And I haven’t been able to eat anything green for the last week,” I add into the silence.
And then there’s the eruption.
“Oh my God!” Nicki shrieks. She runs over to me and squeezes me.
“Is she serious?” I hear Josh say to Luke over Nicki’s squeals.
I giggle at the commotion and the excitement and the love in this room.
This is just everything I ever wanted out of life, all coming together in this one room.
“When are you due?” Nicki asks.
“April nineteenth.”
“Oh my God, our babies are going to be cousins and best friends!” She’s giddy with excitement.
“Way to knock up my sister, man,” Josh says to Luke, punching him in the arm.
Excited chatter falls over the four of us as Nicki and I talk about everything from morning sickness to baby room themes and I listen to the boys as they discuss financial security and Josh chips in his two cents on the best car seats on the market.
This is family, and when I was dumped and fired on the same day back in Chicago just a few months ago, I never could’ve imagined this would be my future. When I bumped into a hot guy at the bar and ended up taking him back to my hotel room, I never could’ve imagined that a few months later, I’d be married to him and having his baby.
I’ve always been a one door closes and another one opens kind of girl, but I never would’ve guessed all the doors that would open simply by moving from Chicago to Vegas.
Life moves incredibly fast.
Maybe it took Luke’s injury to slow us down a little, and if there’s one silver lining to look for, one door opening, it’s that.
As I look at the laughter in this room, I’m just glad I’ve slowed down enough to enjoy the ride.
* * *
When I told Luke about the genetic testing, he didn’t want to get it done.
“Will the answers on that test change anything?” he’d asked me, and when I really thought about it, I knew he was right. No. Whatever those tests say, we will love this baby with everything we have.
But when I told him the test also tells us gender a full two months earlier than without the test, he was all in.
And so he goes with me to my next doctor’s appointment. He wears his knee brace under his jeans and a ballcap pulled down low, and we head into the exam room when the tech calls us back. She takes my weight and blood pressure, and the doctor comes in a few minutes later.
“Want to hear the heartbeat?” she asks.
“Of course,” I say.
She squirts the same jelly they use for the ultrasounds on my stomach, and Luke sits in the chair beside me. He reaches for my hand as the doctor moves her wand around, and nerves flit through me at the silence.
Why is it so quiet?
She moves the wand a little to the left.
Is everything okay?
She clears her throat.
I glance over at Luke, whose eyes are glued to the wand, and I’m just about to voice the questions in my mind when the sweet little whoosh-whoosh-whoosh calms every fear.
I let out a breath. “There’s baby,” she says softly. We listen for a few beats. “Baby’s heartbeat is one-forty-seven. Perfectly normal.”
I let out a breath of relief, and Luke does, too.
We head back to the lab for my blood draw that’ll get sent out for the genetic testing, and that’s it. We head home after the lab techs let us know we’ll have results within a week.
Within a week we’ll know if it’s a boy or a girl. Blue or pink.