Page 104 of Unexpecting
″I said I wanted to take the time to get to know someone. I think I know you pretty well now. And I didn’t want to have a baby either, but there are three of them coming and that’s turning out to be a pretty good idea.”
″You really want them?”
He got up off the floor and stood beside me, stroking my cheek gently. “I really want you. The babies are just an added bonus.”
I closed my eyes to hide my tears, but a few trickled out. “I don’t want you to feel—”
This time he put two fingers against my lips. “Stop arguing. Just say yes. You know you want to.”
I looked into his eyes. Now that I let myself, I could see the love. “Say it again. Tell me you love me.”
″I love you,” he said with urgency.
″Since when?”
″Since forever. Since you moved into the house. Since Cooper told me this awesome chick with amazing hair and these funky eyes was moving in and I was to leave you alone. Since the first time I saw you.” He shrugged self-consciously. “I just didn’t let myself admit it.”
I closed my eyes again, but it didn’t stop the tears. And now my chin was starting to quiver. I was really going to be a basket case in a moment, but it was okay because it was not from sadness but from this huge bubble of happiness and love that was about ready to explode in my chest.
″Me too,” I whispered.
″Me too, what?”
I opened my eyes to see J.B. smiling down at me. “I love you, too.”
″And…”
″Yes. I’ll marry you.”
Maybe I wasn’t that sick of the subject of weddings after all.
Chapter Forty-Six
“While the labour and delivery of a baby might seem daunting, it is truly a wonderful experience, the act that finally brings a mother and a child together.”
A Young Woman’s Guide to the Joy of Impending Motherhood
Dr. Francine Pascal Reid (1941)
Cooper was true tohis word, and my mother got married in his living room, soon to be my living room as well, a week before Christmas. It was a nice little wedding, but I thought the best thing about it was that it really brought me and my mother closer together. Which, of course, was Cooper’s main intention.
Christmas came soon after, and J.B. and I divided our time between Christmas Eve with Cooper and Emma and Christmas Day with Libby and Luke. And then I slept most of Boxing Day. And the next day. If the little stint in the hospital did anything for me, it was a wake-up call that I’d been working too hard. I wrapped up at school the day before the holidays began. It was hard saying goodbye to the kids, but I told them I’d bring the babies in to meet them. I was going to work part-time at the wine store until the first week in January, and then it would be nothing but sitting with my feet up and watching mindless hours of television while I waited for these babies to be born.
And that’s exactly what I did. That, and move upstairs into J.B.’s room. He had a much more comfortable bed than I did. And then, even though I had weeks to go, one Sunday morning, J.B. and Cooper set upthe cribs in the spare bedroom, the one Emma had just finished painting a sunny—and very gender-neutral—yellow.
January 12 came, and I had a doctor’s appointment. Dr. Morrissey told me I had to come in every week for checkups now until I gave birth. I’d been pregnant now for thirty-five weeks, and I still didn’t like the woman.
″So does that mean I’ll be giving birth early?” I asked hopefully. I felt like a balloon stretched to the limit with helium.
″It’s quite possible. Most multiple births are premature. I think next week we’ll see about scheduling you for a Cesarean section.”
″I don’t want a C-section,” I pouted.
″I don’t think you’ll have a choice. Your cervix has softened a bit, but you’re not even dilated,” she told me after an excruciatingly painful internal examination. I was glad J.B. wasn’t here to see this, especially the way the doctor had to heave me up into a sitting position. “I doubt it will be anytime soon.”
″Soon sounds good,” I said, sliding off the table, still with her help.
″You’re doing wonderfully,” Dr. Morrissey surprised me by saying. “And congratulations, by the way.” At my look of confusion, she pointed to my left hand. The hand that now wore not one, but two rings. Rings I couldn’t take off because my hands were so swollen.
