Hello!
So I'm back with another chapter! I was so pleased with all of the positive feedback I got from this story! Six reviews already! That's amazing, thank you so much! I really wasn't expecting the reaction that I got and I can't thank you enough for it! :)
But enough of my rambling, here's chapter two!
Mack collected the pile of bills and junk-mail leaflets that had gathered at the foot of the front door. A plain white envelope with her address printed onto it caught her eye as she sifted through the pile. The remainder of the post was mindlessly dumped onto the countertop as Mack slid back down into her seat opposite her husband.
"What'cha got there?" Brady asked through a mouthful of granola. But Mack was already ripping through the letter's seal as he spoke.
"It's from the health clinic," Mack replied once she'd unfurled the single piece of paper hidden inside.
"And?" Brady questioned, the tone of his voice showing that this information made him ever so slightly more nervous.
"I'm definitely pregnant," Mack sighed, a small smile curling at her lips as she continued to read through the letter. "Seven weeks along."
Mack and Brady, despite being pretty confident that their home-pregnancy test had been correct, had wanted to confirm that they were definitely going to have a baby. After all, store-bought pregnancy tests had a reputation for being a little bit unreliable. So one doctor's visit and a lot of papers to fill out later, they finally had some solid answers.
"Really? That far already?" Brady questioned, earning a curt nod from Mack. "Great, cool," he said, sharing Mack's smile as he gazed across the table at her. Right now, she couldn't have looked any more beautiful to him. Even though her hair was thrown up in a messy bun and she was wearing a faded, sky blue dressing gown that he knew for a fact was almost ten years old (he had bought it for her the first Christmas that they were together); the fact alone that she was carrying his child made him whole heartedly believe that she was the most incredible woman alive. It just happened to be a bonus that she was his gorgeous wife. "So, what do we do now? Just wait for nine months?" Brady chuckled, quite obviously joking, although Mack didn't really seem to be catching on.
"No," she said rather bluntly, her smile seeming to have slipped off her face. Her eyebrows furrowed as her eyes scanned the page, concentrating as she tried to pick out the bits of information that concerned her. Which, funnily enough, were rather a lot of them. "I guess nothing until next week though," she finally said, lowering the piece of paper so that she could look over the top of it at the blonde sat across from her.
"What do you mean?" Brady asked, moving another spoonful of granola towards his mouth.
"It says that's when my first prenatal appointment is," Mack answered, her eyes flitting down for a second to check that she was right.
"What happens at that?" Brady asked as Mack let out a heavy sigh.
"It's just a meeting with a doctor to discuss the pregnancy so far...I think," she said, dropping the letter down onto the table and resting her head in her hands.
"Look, I know I'm asking a lot of questions, Mack," Brady started, sensing his wife's irritation with his constant game of interrogation. "But do you expect me to know any of this stuff? I just don't want to sound like an idiot, I want to help out," he continued, putting down his spoon instead of trying to shovel more food into his mouth.
"I know you do," Mack said, laying her hand on top of Brady's. "I'm just still trying to take all of this in. The only reason that I have a mild understanding and a limited knowledge of what I'm going on about is because I've spent the past five nights researching stuff. I'm basically just as clueless as you," she confessed, rubbing circles on the back of Brady's hand with her thumb.
"We can't stay clueless though, we've got to learn somehow or we're going to be in for a pretty big shock later," Brady said, giving up on trying to restrain himself from the food in front of him anymore as he stuffed his mouth once again.
"Ok then, let's set ourselves a challenge," Mack propositioned. "By the time we go to this doctor's visit thing next week, we are going to be pregnancy experts. We don't want to sound like morons, right? They're going to think we're useless."
"Isn't that what we are though?" Brady asked, quirking one of his eyebrows.
"For now, maybe," Mack said, resting her head on her hand again. "But we can fix that, right?"
"Right," Brady agreed, wielding his spoon like a magic wand as he pointed it in her direction.
"We are going to be the most prepared first-time parents there has even been," Mack said, stating it as if it were a fact rather than the extremely uncertain statement that it had been in reality.
"Definitely," Brady grinned, raising his hand out in front of him in anticipation of a high five, which Mack gladly delivered. "Team Baby Grape is officially a go," he announced, slouching back in his chair.
"Team Baby Grape?" Mack questioned as her left eyebrow almost disappeared into her hairline from raising so far.
"Yeah," Brady chuckled, finding Mack's perplexed expression extremely comical.
"What on earth are you talking about?" Mack asked, staring at Brady as if he had three heads.
"Well you know how people start calling their babies things like peanut or whatever?" Brady started, Mack's train of thought promptly chugging along beside his in understanding so far.
"Yeah," she said with a small nod.
"Well I have just decided to call our's Grape," Brady finished simply, completely derailing Mack's train of thought this time.
"Grape? Why grape?" Mack asked, her eyebrows now knitted together as she tried to fathom out Brady's thought process and see where she took a wrong turn.
But it turns out that the only reason behind Brady's nickname choice was the bowl, which held his wife's breakfast contents, in front of him. To answer Mack's question, he picked up one of the small, green pieces of fruit and gently tossed it in her direction. The grape bounced off the tip of Mack's nose before her reflexes could kick in, leaving her sporting a considerably shocked expression. It did help her to understand where Brady had plucked the name from though. That didn't mean that she liked it though.
"Brady, we're not referring to our unborn child as Baby Grape," she said, shooting her admittedly quite childish husband a disapproving look.
Long story short, they ended up referring to it as Baby Grape. The name somehow seemed to stick, even after Brady gave in and agreed to think of a new one. It just kept slipping out.
And just like the letter had stated, one week, many tests and lots and lots of very personal questions that Brady found sitting through rather awkward later Mack and Brady were walking out of the health clinic hand in hand with giddy smiles on their faces.
"That was insane," Brady breathed, gently swinging his and Mack's hands back and forth.
"I know, it's all becoming scarily real, isn't it?" Mack sighed, sliding her free hand over her still pretty flat stomach. There was a hint of roundness to it if you looked at it from the right angle but Mack was indignant that it wasn't a baby bump yet.
"At least we know that Grape's healthy," Brady chuckled, moving his arm up to wrap around Mack's shoulder to give it a reassuring squeeze.
"Yeah," Mack said, her grin softening at Brady's touch. But her expression soon changed when Brady's words set in. "Wait, you just called it Grape again, didn't you?"
"I can't help it!" Brady chuckled, holding his hands up in surrender.
"You need to stop, you're going to get me saying it soon," Mack teased, giving the blonde a light jab in the ribs with her elbow.
"Well it needs some sort of name, it's a real thing, we just saw evidence of it," Brady replied, referring to the slightly fuzzy ultrasound that they had just sat through a few minutes ago.
"I know, it's crazy, huh?" Mack sighed, relaxing back into Brady's touch as he replaced his arm around her shoulders.
"It's really in there," Brady said, sliding his bunch of keys out of his pocket as they approached his dark blue car.
"Yeah, our little Baby Grape," Mack smiled, mentally slapping herself once she'd realised what she'd said. "Oh god. I told you I'd start saying it!" she cried, although her frustration was masked by her laughter, which Brady easily exceeded. The blonde's laughter continued the entire car journey back home, only to be briefly interrupted by the couple's signature karaoke session that took place every time they were in a vehicle together.
Hopefully Baby Grape liked music because if he or she didn't then they'd have to endure some rather painful car journeys.
Ok, I know that wasn't the best but I still really hope that you enjoyed it!
Baby Grape was the best nickname that I could come up with at half past eleven last night so I apologise for it being so terrible. Leave me some name suggestions in a review so that I can go back and change it to something better. Or if you happen to like it (which I seriously doubt) then let me know too, help me put my mind at rest!
I want to thank you again for the wonderful feedback because it really does mean the world to me! And I want to get you involved with this story as much as I can so if you have any little things that you'd like me to include in chapters then don't hesitate to let me know. I love to hear your ideas!
I think that's all for now though! I'll get started on the next chapter as soon as I can!
Thank you for reading!
-cherrygorilla
