First of all I would like to apologise for taking so long to update, as you know I'm at college and it's pretty hectic most of the time. Now this chapter is a little shorter than the others but contains some drama. I hope that you all enjoy reading this chapter as much as i enjoyed writing it :)
To say Hanna wasn't in the best mood was an understatement. She hadn't managed to get a wink of sleep as Lexie had been constantly moving and kicking for the majority of the night. Hanna was becoming increasingly irritated at the fact that she couldn't even perform daily tasks without assistance. She remembered the time that her shoelace had become undone in public and she couldn't even bend down to do it up, thankfully a kind passer-by helped her. Since that incident, Hanna had vowed to only wear boots or slip on shoes, anything with laces was simply forbidden.
"Morning." Caleb smiled, noticing Hanna making her way into the kitchen, to presumably make herself something to eat. Before her pregnancy, Hanna never really made the time to have breakfast, she simply opted to grab a coffee on her way to work. But since finding out she was pregnant Caleb made sure that Hanna had a least something to eat, even if her thought that it was unhealthy; most mornings Hanna craved something which was high in carbs, much to her dismay.
Hanna had been working out throughout her pregnancy, nothing to strenuous but just a light workout most days, as she believed that it was important and eventually would contribute to regaining her slim figure, post birth.
"Do we have any bagels?" Hanna questioned, searching the cupboards.
Caleb moved from the kitchen table, where he was going over important paperwork to help her look, "I think we have some in here." He addressed opening the cupboard to his left.
"Sit down, I'll make you one." He stated, pulling out the bag of bagels from the cupboard and setting them on the side.
"Are you sure?" Hanna questioned, not wanting to take advantage of her husband.
"Yes. Now go and sit down." Caleb laughed, patting her butt.
Hanna pressed a kiss to his cheek before making her way over to the couch. One she had plopped her exhausted body down on the couch she turned on the Tv and flicked aimlessly through the channels until she settled on watching a re-run of one of her favourite episodes of friends.
Caleb joined Hanna on the couch, handing her a bagel with jam and a mug of tea. "I can't believe we're going to be a family of three in a matter of weeks, maybe even days." Caleb remarked, pressing a hand to Hanna's stomach.
"She's been kicking and punching like crazy." Hanna chuckled, taking a bite of her bagel.
Caleb adjusted the placement of his hand and smiled when he felt his daughter press her foot against his hand. "What time are we meting Aria and Ezra?"
"I said that we would meet them at twelve." Hanna informed.
"I just need to finish signing these papers for the new software release and them I'm pretty much ready to go." Caleb replied, taking a sip of his coffee; which to his annoyance was now cold.
Noticing that it was already past eleven, Hanna hurried and finished her bagel in order to go and get ready.
"We'd better get going Han." Caleb called as he finished packing the dishes away and cleaning up the kitchen. That was one of the many things that Hanna loved about her husband, the fact that he was so domestic and never complained about anything. He always offered to do the little things that really mattered to Hanna, especially now that she could barely do anything for herself. Some days he felt helpless. Hanna often suffered with crippling back pain which left her confined to the comfort of their apartment most days.
During the early stages of the pregnancy Hanna was still able to go out to work, meet with her friends and generally enjoy herself.
"Two secs, I just need to grab a jacket." Hanna replied, disappearing into their bedroom to find something that would keep her somewhat warmer than the thin blouse which she was currently wearing.
"Remind me to stop and get gas on the way." Caleb remarked as he opened the front door. He knew that he couldn't exactly rely on Hanna due to her constant forgetfulness which she called pregnancy brain, so he tried to keep the matter at the back of his mind just in case she forgot to inform him.
When they arrived Aria and Ezra were waiting outside Babies R Us, "Hey, you made it." Aria addressed.
"Yeah, I was going to call you and ask if we could meet later but I decided against taking a nap" Hanna informed. After the night that she had she was in desperate need of a nap but she decided to get on with her day.
"Sleepless night?" Aria sympathised with Hanna, she knew how exhausting pregnancy was.
"You could say that, anyway let's get started." Hanna chirped.
After some deliberation, mostly on Hanna's behalf they headed for the clothes section of the store first. "Oh my god guys, look at this." Hanna squealed with excitement, picking up a tiny onesie.
"I like it, it's feminine but not too frilly." Caleb replied. He was all for dressing his daughter in feminine outfits but he didn't like the idea of dressing his daughter as if she was modelling for Dolce and Gabbana.
"We have to have these." Hanna practically squealed, picking up a set of tiny knitted winter hats.
"Well it is going to be pretty cold until march." Caleb pondered, he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop his rather determined wife from purchasing them, she could be quite persuasive at times.
Hanna placed them gently into the trolley before making her way towards the jackets, everyone else in tow.
"How about you guys go off and look at the technology, that's more up your alley." Hanna suggested, by the look on Caleb's face she could tell that he was a little unamused. She couldn't say that she was surprised, since she had dragged him to almost every babywear shop in the city over the past few months.
"Okay, we'll find you when we're done." Caleb smiled, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
"Dude there's so much stuff." Caleb remarked as they made their way through the numerous aisles of baby related items.
"Believe me, you don't need as much as you think." Ezra informed.
Cale raised his eyebrows, "Really?"
"Yeah. We must have bought a few hundred dollars' worth of stuff that we either never needed or used a couple of times and then never again when Luca was little." Ezra informed.
"I think Hanna believes that we need just about everything from this bloody magazine that she studies, every night without fail she sits in bed and flicks through it. You can tell how much she reads it by how worn and tatty the pages have become." Caleb chuckled.
Ezra laughed, "You'd be surprised at the number of magazines and books available for expectant parents. Aria must have collected them, by the time Luca was due she had a stockpile of easily over a hundred of the damn things. I was tripping over them wherever I went in the house, I even found them on the floor in the bathroom."
"Tell me about it dude, Hanna's new habit is to take a bath and spend hours in there reading fashion magazines like vogue. She then leaves them on the floor for me to trip over when I go to the loo."
"How's she coping with not working?" Ezra inquired as they navigated their way to the technology aisle.
"Oh well you know, she's getting pretty fed up." Caleb admitted. It was true, Hanna was constantly on a mission t find things to do to occupy her time, even sorting out their DVD's into alphabetical order.
"How long is she taking off after the baby's born?" Ezra questioned.
"At least six weeks, she's planning on breastfeeding and wants to establish a really good bond with the baby before she goes back to work." Caleb replied as they turned the corner and made their way down the aisle filled with baby monitors and all types of electrical equipment.
"Good luck." Ezra chuckled.
Caleb let out a small laugh, "Is it really that bad?"
"Well Aria was a hormonal mess for the first month or so, she was either feeling really down and doubting that she wasn't a good enough mom, or she was on top of the world."
"Okay. I can't believe I'm admitting this but I don't know how I'm gonna be able to live without sex for six weeks." Caleb admitted.
"There's other things you can do besides actual sex." Ezra winked.
"Mhm." Caleb mumbled. He was sure that he could find other ways to keep the spice in their marriage, as long as Hanna was willing to cooperate.
Hanna admitted to herself that she had probably left things a bit late, the nursery was still incomplete and she was only a few weeks away from her due date.
"Have you decided on a colour scheme yet?"
"Light Grey, white, baby pink and gold." Hanna informed. They had spent weeks going back and forth on which colour they should paint the walls, what colour crib they should buy and the overall theme of the nursery.
Aria skimmed her hand along a rather luxurious glider, which she noticed had a matching footstall, "I think this one would be perfect."
Hanna took a step closer to examine the object herself, giving it her seal of approval after skimming her eyes over the price tag, she snapped a quick picture before moving on to look at crib sets.
"There you are." Caleb beamed, holding a small box in his hand.
"What's that babe?" Hanna inquired.
"A baby monitor, Ezra helped me to pick one out." Caleb replied.
"Well I think that I've finally picked out a glider." Hanna informed, showing her husband a picture that she taken on her phone.
After getting Caleb's approval Hanna decided to order the glider and with the help of Aria and Ezra, herself and Caleb picked out a white crib set and a few other bits, they made their way to the checkouts. They had decided that since they had the moses basket and the essentials that they needed for Lexie during the first couple of months, then they would head home and relax for the rest of the afternoon.
"God with the amount of stuff we've just bought you'd think that we're having like five kids." Caleb laughed as he finished carrying the rest of the stuff up from the car, placing it in the living room.
"You're not the one who has to give birth to it." Hanna remarked.
As her due date was approaching she was becoming increasingly nervous about giving birth. She could wait to meet her daughter as frankly she was over being pregnant but some of the stories that she had heard terrified her.
"Either I've just peed myself or my water's just broke." Hanna exclaimed, immediately jumping up from her position on the sofa.
"Shit." Caleb panicked.
He knew that the baby could come any day but he didn't expect it to be so soon.
Hanna knew that she was nearing the end of her pregnancy but she imagined that she had a least a week or so before the birth, so it all came as a bit of a surprise.
"Okay … well at least I'm at home, imagine if this had happened while we were shopping." Hanna replied, thinking about the positives of the current situation.
"I'll grab your hospital bag." Caleb announced, disappearing into their bedroom. That was one thing that Hanna had ready a number of weeks ago: Hanna had begun to pack it as soon as her doctor informed them that her pregnancy would be viable, meaning that if the baby was born then she would most likely survive.
"I'm just going to call my mom." Hanna announced, pacing around the bedroom.
"Hey sweetie, what's up?" Ashley greeted.
Hanna cleared her throat, "Hey mom, I thought I'd ring you to let you know that my waters just broke."
"What!" Ashley exclaimed excitedly.
"What do I do?" Hanna began to panic. However, she knew that Ashley was the right person to ask, having gone through the experience and also the fact that she was her mother and knew her inside out helped to ease her nerves.
Thankfully Ashley knew exactly what to say, "Don't panic, just take some deep breaths. Have you had any contractions yet?"
Hanna inhaled deeply, "I've been having small ones from about eight this morning but thought nothing of it."
"Listen sweetie, there is no need to go to the hospital just yet, but there are a few things you can do at home to ease the pain." Ashley soothed.
"Okay, the contractions are becoming more intense but still not very regular." Hanna breathed.
Ashley had read a number of pregnancy and both books before having Hanna, so it was safe to say that she was pretty much an expert. "You could ask Caleb to give you a nice back massage honey, it helps to stimulate your body to release its own natural painkillers."
"That sounds like a good idea." Hanna agreed, she was partial to a nice back massage once in a while.
"Also Han, have a hot sweet drink and relax. Put the television on or play some of your favorite music, something relaxing through, not what you dance around the kitchen to" Ashley suggested.
"Something like my quiet playlist maybe? that's pretty relaxing." Hanna replied, opting to take a seat on the couch.
A few weeks ago Hanna had decided to make a playlist for pretty much every occasion she could think of, it kept her occupied for an hour or so until Caleb came home from work that evening.
"Han, as you okay?" Caleb called out as he finished grabbing anything he thought that they might need.
Hanna took her phone away from her ear, "I'm fine babe."
"Someone sounds like they're panicking." Ashley laughed, she knew how stressful the labour process could be for both the mother and father.
"I should be the one who's panicking, I'm about to push a baby out of my vagina." Hanna squirmed.
Ashley requested for Hanna to put Caleb on the phone. She knew that he was probably in a bit of a state, after all it was his first child and she knew that he would want everything to go smoothly.
"Hi." Caleb greeted as Hanna handed over her phone.
"I want you to listen to me, there is no need for you to panic. When Hanna feels like her contractions are becoming stronger I want you to help her to stay calm, you know what she's like." Ashley stated.
It was true. Caleb knew that Hanna wasn't the best when it came to her pain threshold but he knew that she would pretend that she was okay when she's clearly in pain.
"Oh, I know." Caleb chuckled.
"Have you got everything ready to take to the hospital? I can pick up anything for you if you need it."
"I've doubled checked the list that Hanna made a while ago and I'm pretty certain that I have everything. I have the hospital bag for Hanna and the baby, the car seat and the pillow that Hanna will need when she's breastfeeding the baby." He confirmed.
"Well then, it looks like you are all set." Ashley replied.
"I'll call you when we are on are way to the hospital, we both want you there for the birth." Caleb assured.
Ashley was quick to jump in, "I thought Hanna said-"
Caleb cut her off, "I know what Hanna said, but do you really think that she wants you to miss the birth of your first grandchild? the only reason that she didn't want to involve is that she felt bad that my parents can't be there to witness the special moment. Believe me Ashley, there's no one else that I'd rather have in the room with me when my first child is born than the most inspirational, caring and loving women I've ever had the pleasure of having in my life."
Caleb's speech had moved Ashley to tears, "You're a special one, and you know how grateful I am for how much you've helped Hanna through the years, you mean so much to me, never forget that."
"Marrying Hanna was the best thing I've ever done in my life and we're about to have the experience of a lifetime and I'm so glad that you get to be a part of it." Caleb sniffled.
The journey that they were about to embark on would change their lives forever, he couldn't wait to meet his daughter and be the father figure to her that he never had.
"Caleb, I think it's time." Hanna managed to mumble in the middle of a painful contraction.
Caleb remembered what Ashley had told him, "Okay, let me go and put the stuff in the car and then I'll come and help you okay?"
He pressed a kiss to his wife's lips before gathering everything up and heading for the lift.
Not even two minutes later and Caleb was back at his wife's side, "You ready?"
"Ready." Hanna smiled, squeezing Caleb's hand.
The couple headed out of their apartment for the last time as a couple. The next time they would be back they would be a family.
"Let's go and have a baby…"
So, that's the last chapter where Hanna is pregnant. It does make me a little sad but I can't wait to write the next chapter and introduce baby Lexie and start writing fluffy chapters about Haleb as a family.
I tried to include a little insight into Caleb's relationship with Ashley as I just love the love and support that they have for each other and that Ashley is like the mother Caleb never had growing up.
I'd love it if you could leave a review and if you haven't already then check out my new Haleb one shot that I posted
xoxo