A/N: Thanks to Satan's Apprentice and Hawkeye's Girl for their reviews on
Chapter 4 of Regrets, up now! Also, sorry about the last chapter, it was
kinda a dud I know. I also think it's about time I stuck a disclaimer on
this, I don't own Hawkeye, BJ, Margaret, etc, they belong to whoever. Annie
and the kids however are all mine!
January - July 1958: Trying
I gathered with the kids Daniel and Mrs O at the end of the bed. Hawkeye, blissfully unaware of anything else going on around him, slept in the bed. . "Shh. Are you ready?" I asked, I received whispered replies. "Ready, steady go!"
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" We all threw ourselves onto his bed, and he woke with a start.
"What? Where am I? Oh god, is it the 28th already?" He hugged everyone as well as he could manage.
"Yep, 28th January 1958, your 36th birthday!" I laughed, leaning in for a kiss, which he was only to happy to give.
"Yuck!" A little chubby hand pushed my face away from Hawkeye. "My turn!" Jess puckered up and accepted a kiss from her laughing father.
"They don't like it very much when we kiss do they?" I observed.
"Just jealousy honey, the fact that your eyes aren't on them, now what'd I get?" He clapped his hands like a small child when he began thinking about presents.
"Hawkeye! Presents aren't everything. Besides honey, you know what you got." I whispered the last bit. As far as the kids were concerned, the watch Hawkeye had needed was a surprise. "Benny my boy, can you go and get the you-know-what for Daddy?"
"Yep!" He slid off the bed and crawled under it. I laughed as I heard him scuffling and wrestling with various items, shoes, maternity clothes, my old army things, even Hawkeye's old army things. "Here!" He emerged triumphantly with a small wrapped box.
"Thankyou Sport, girls, do you want to give Daddy his present?" Felicity and April gave him the box and Jess helped him in opening it.
"Wow! Just what I wanted!" He feigned surprise as he opened it and saw the watch. "Thankyou, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you." He kissed all of the kids, including Lydia who happily sat on Mrs O's lap. "Thanks Dad, I know you're the one who paid for it. Thankyou Mrs O, I'll bet you helped him choose it. But most of all, thankyou my beautiful sexy wife, for being you and getting the kids to surprise me." He kissed me again, only to have it interrupted by Jess.
"Well Hawkeye, it's time we went down for breakfast and then you my love, have to work." We got breakfast and saw the two men off. Mrs O and I were alone with the kids most of the day, and perfectly happy to be, we got on well as long as I never went near her cooking and she didn't interfere with my clean fetish, which we quite happily set about doing during naptime. Mrs O also worked at the clinic as a receptionist, and left me with the kids, and the arrangement suited us just fine.
The men returned that night to a birthday dinner, and after the kids were asleep, their tummies full of Daniel's truly decadent chocolate cake (it seemed he had become very self-sufficient when Katharine died) Hawkeye and I decided on a little birthday celebration of our own.
"Guess what baby, I stopped at the drugstore on the way back." Hawkeye told me, with a smile playing at his lips.
"That's nice Ben dearest, but I really think you just wasted your money." I replied, watching with a smile at Hawkeye's blatant surprise.
"What do you mean? You're not . . .?" He'd assumed I was pregnant.
"No darling!" I laughed. "What I meant to say was I'm thinking we should have another baby."
"Annie my one true love, what suddenly put that idea in your mind?"
"Well, the older the twins get the harder it's going to be for them to get along with a baby, I've decided I miss being pregnant, and I'm not getting any younger you know."
"You're just a little bitty girl, you're not even 32!" He picked me up suddenly and threw me onto the bed.
"Okay you're not getting any younger! But I'm serious; I really think we should. We have plenty of room; we can move Lydia upstairs so the nursery's free. We can afford another child, we're a three-income household, and I'm starting at the hospital in just days that makes it four. And who knows, we might even get that boy we want." I was going to work Tuesday and Wednesday at Portland General under Margaret while one of the nurses was on leave to visit her sick father.
"Well can we start trying now?" Hawkeye asked.
"Sure!" I agreed, blushing when I realised how desperate I sounded. Hawkeye either didn't notice, or didn't care as he quite happily let me take charge.
"Dad, Mrs O. . ." We'd decided to tell them about the planned baby.
"Anne it sure is sweet how you call me Mrs O, but I been doing some real hard thinking. I ain't Mrs O no more, I'm Mrs Pierce so's I was thinking. . ."
"You want us to call you Mrs P?" Hawkeye put in.
"No, though that's a real sweet name too. I was thinking I'd sure be pleased if you'd call me Edna."
"Anything for you Edna." I smiled. "Now, we've got some news for you that we want to get out of the way before we have the troupe descend on us again." Lydia and Jess were asleep, Ben was playing at the Harrison place and Charles had taken April and Felicity to the park to make the most of the brief warm spell in the January snow.
"Do tell." Daniel instructed.
"We've been thinking." I began.
"More like doing." Hawkeye added and I smacked his shoulder warningly.
"We've been thinking about having another baby." I finished
"You have? I was hoping you'd do that! Means you'll catch up to my Walter!" Monica was pregnant again, and had been since October with twins and we were surprised, as Monica and Marcia were only 5 months old. It wasn't so much the pregnancy, Monica was a healthy young woman, so it was little shock that she conceived, but it was the fact that Radar, who used to be too embarrassed to even think about sex had to have been pretty busy.
"I don't mind what you do as long as you produce another grandson." Daniel said. "But I'd love a granddaughter just as much. You have my blessing. Anne, you're perfectly healthy, go for it."
"Thanks Dad, I'm so glad you think that way. Edna, you realise this will equal 12! 6 on each side." Walter Eugene Jr, Edwina Kate, Monica Dorothy, Marcia Nancy and the twins would make six for the O'Reillys plus Felicity Margaret, Benjamin Jack, April Emma-Rose, Jessica Katharine, Lydia Adrienne plus the baby was six for us also.
"I don't have much choice do I? Knowing you two, you're probably expecting already!" Daniel laughed.
"Dad shut up!" I hit him with a cushion.
"Well you two treat this place like it's a brothel!" Daniel laughed. Mrs O hastily left, being not a whole lot different from her son.
"You never told me it was a brothel, cause I'm a bit short of cash tonight." Hawkeye laughed,
"Well you said those other girls were your sisters!" I replied smartly, bringing tears of laughter to Daniel's eyes.
"You are the sweetest girl Anne, I love you to bits!" Daniel grabbed me around my middle. He picked me up, squeezed me tight to his chest and shook me, like the over-zealous embrace of a child and a teddy bear.
"Unhand her you brute!" Hawkeye cried, while I demanded my freedom.
"Never! The wench is mine!" My captor declared, tossing me over his shoulder. Probably the only thing I detested about being barely 5'2" and weighing a very healthy 120lbs, was that I was small enough for anyone, BJ, Radar, Dad, Hawkeye, or even Margaret to pick me up.
"You vicious brute, unhand the damsel!" Hawkeye followed Daniel as he ran into the hall, just as Charles, April and Felicity were getting back.
"I'm not even going to ask!" Charles said as Daniel put me down and my elder daughters demanded a cuddle.
"It's probably better that you don't." I advised. "Did you have a good time at the park Angel-features?"
"Y-y-yup, daddy buyed me a balloon, s-s-see?" She displayed the yellow balloon.
"Uncle Charlie gotted me a balloon too!" Felicity showed me the pink balloon on the end of her string. The kids seemed to favour whatever colour their wardrobe predominantly was. Felicity liked pink, Ben liked blue, April liked yellow, Jess liked lilac and Lydia was well on the way to loving red. I noticed then that he had a red, a blue and a purple balloon too.
"Charlie dear, you're such a sweet person, you should let people see that more often!" I took the balloons and tied them to the hatstand.
"Well, Anne I don't want everyone seeing the weaker side of Charles Emerson Winchester the third!" He handed April to Dad who took her upstairs to have a nap.
"Charlie dear, you're a pompous old git! Sweet dreams Princess." Felicity went with Hawkeye.
"Well, you're nothing but a sweet little spitfire!" Charles retorted.
"Come on, do you want to try and finish that piece I was teaching you?" In his visits, I taught Charles the piano.
"Of course!" We went into the living room and sat down at the piano.
It was warmed up a little in February, and even more through March with the coming of Spring. I'd just come back from my shift at Portland. I let myself into the clinic and found Daniel who was running a very specific test on me that day.
"Sorry Anne, struck out again," He said softly. I glanced at Hawkeye, who was sitting on the exam table looking downcast. We'd been trying very hard to get pregnant, every night, and not always at night, but once again, there was nothing.
"Anne, I won't let you just lie there." In our efforts to create a baby, sex had become meaningless, we didn't do it because we wanted to, but because we had to.
"Hawkeye, we want this baby don't we?" I argued. "And this is a very bad time to make a decision like that."
"Right," We finished up quickly, feeling absolutely nothing for it.
"Why can't I get pregnant Hawkeye?" I asked softly.
"Darling, I don't know. I honestly don't, you're perfectly healthy in absolutely every way. Some things just aren't meant to be. I guess this is one of them."
"Yeah, I suppose so." I sighed, and rolled over, and went to sleep, feeling very downcast.
"Sorry no luck." Daniel shook his head. It was just before April's 3rd birthday, and we were testing once a week in hope that I'd conceived during March. So far things weren't looking good.
"Mummy, why are you crying?" Ben crawled up onto the porch swing beside me.
"Because Benny-boy, Mummy and Daddy want to have a baby. But we can't."
"Why?" His grey-blue eyes looked up at me soulfully with the compassion that his Daddy's eyes had.
"We don't know." I put my arm around my little boy.
"Well you want baby?" He asked.
"Yes Sport, very much." I was surprised and then touched when he clasped his hands and closed his eyes, tilting his head upward.
"Dear God, my Mummy is sad because she has no baby. Please give her a baby soon. Amen." I started to cry harder and scooped Ben onto my lap.
"Thankyou honey, you're very sweet. Maybe God will give me a baby."
"Mummy, is God real?" Ben asked. I paused for a minute. We attended the local Methodist church, all of us, even Hawkeye. It was strange for me, being born into Catholicism and now being part of a branch of the Protestant church, but I'd married into a Methodist family and so I now practised Methodism.
"If you believe He is." I received a blank look. "If you think in here, and here that He is, then He will be." I touched Ben's head and chest as I spoke.
"I think He is, and He will give you a baby." Ben said seriously.
"Thankyou Ben darling, now shouldn't you be in bed?" I kissed his little face.
"Daddy said come say goodnight to you. Lyssie was too tired, to say goodnight she fell asleep brushing her teeth."
"Well, give me a kiss and a cuddle special boy." I hugged my four-year-old son tightly and he did the same, kissing me tenderly on the cheek. Hawkeye put his head out, and lifted the sleepy boy and took him to bed.
"Thanks for getting them all down tonight Hawkeye." I said when he returned.
"I am their daddy, it's my job!" He said, sitting down next to me, kissing the side of my head.
"You're a great daddy, just the best influence on the kids. Little Ben is so sweet. You know he said a prayer for me to get pregnant just before?"
"Did he? Well, I can't honestly say that that was my influence. And we'll find out tomorrow whether or not we're pregnant." He put his arm around me.
"I really hope so, we've been trying so hard. I reckon if I'm not pregnant come my birthday, we call it quits for a while." Hawkeye agreed, cuddling me close and resting his cheek on my head.
"Come on, let's go for a walk." We rugged up, called the dogs and headed out for a evening stroll.
"Well?" I looked hopefully at Daniel. "Dammit, why can't I get pregnant?" I was verging on tears as Daniel told me yet again that I was not pregnant.
"Some things just don't happen." Daniel said, giving me a comforting hug.
"Thanks, I'd better get to work, I should have gone five minutes ago." I left and drove down to the hospital. Margaret met me at the door, wanting to hear the news.
"Nothing again." I replied, going to the Nurses' change and finding my uniform.
"I'm sorry to hear that Annie, now move it, you're late and I won't accept tardiness from my nurses!"
"Yes ma'am." The direct instruction calmed me and I went to work.
"Hawkeye, let's not try tonight. I couldn't." I said as I kicked off my blankets. Hawkeye followed suit it wasn't particularly warm in the May night but I figured we'd wind up using each other as blankets.
"I couldn't either. We're just trying too hard. Have you ever noticed we had no plans to create a baby the other times? Irresponsibility, spontaneity and love are what gave us our children before, and what about April, how did she come about?"
"Completely unplanned." I replied. "We just sort of, did it, and then April came about."
"We're trying to plan our lives and so far everything else has been on impulse, so maybe we should leave it off for a while." I put my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, while gently rubbing my hand from his shoulder to his stomach.
"In other words give up." I sighed, feeling absolutely miserable about it all.
"That too." He said sadly. Feeling very sorry for ourselves, we went to sleep.
"I'll get it!" I called, picking up the phone, and jamming under my ear while picking up Jess who was crying for some reason. There was no one else in the house to answer, but I still called out from force of habit.
"Annie-ma'am, it's Radar, is Ma in?" Jess settled down as I patted her back.
"No Radar, she's out somewhere, why?"
"Tell her that Henry Edward and Shirley Jane were born today, 5lbs 3 and 5lbs 7. Shirley looks just like her!"
"Oh Radar, that's great, my love to you all, I have to go, Jess is upset about something." As well has having delicate features, she had a delicate nature and was easily upset.
"Let her know, I'll call back tomorrow."
"Sure and I'll let Margaret and the Winchesters know." I barely had time to hang up the phone and realise that nothing more had happened to Jess than having Glory knock over her building blocks before the phone rang again.
"Hello, Pierces' place." I picked up the phone again.
"Annie, it's Soon-Lee."
"How wonderful to hear from you! And how's little Max?" 'Little Max' was her son, whereas she referred to her husband as 'my Max'.
"Wonderful, my Max is so proud! I am too. But there is good news, Max will be a brother in December!"
"That's great Soon-Lee!" I said, not believing that two people would have such luck in one day when I couldn't have that kind of luck in months. We hung up and as I realised that it was nearly 4.30, I began to start in on the kids' dinner. The phone rang again as I'd finished with Lydia's meal.
"Hello? Can you wait two seconds, I just got to put Lydia in her chair?" Without waiting for an answer I left the phone and sat Lydia in her highchair, with her dinner in front of her.
"Hello? Sorry about that."
"Annie, it's Beej, did I call at a bad time?"
"No, it's just that Lydia was just starting dinner and I had to put her in her highchair. How have you been?"
"Great! Guess what?" I ran a mental check on his tone of voice, I could read the man like a book.
"Let me guess, Peggy's expecting again." I said dryly, hoping that I wasn't going to hear the wonderful news in reference to someone else, when I wanted to hear it so badly myself.
"How did you know? My voice told you didn't it?"
"Yes, it did." I lied, "Congratulations. Lydia, no, Captain doesn't eat your peas! You do!"
"I'll let you go, thought you'd like to know though."
"I'm very glad to hear it I'll ring Margaret and Charles later, save you the bill." I hung up and once the other four were settled with their dinners, I heard the phone ringing again.
"Pierce place, and if someone's pregnant I don't want to know!"
"Annie, it's Sherman."
"Papa! I'm sorry, I'm just a little . . . worked up."
"Well, I thought you'd like to know I'm a grandfather again! Baby boy, Matthew T Potter 10pounds even!" I gave my half-hearted congratulations, hung up the phone and burst into tears.
"Annie-my-Annie, what's wrong?" Hawkeye had come home from work at the precise moment I'd begun crying.
"Monica's babies arrived, Soon-Lee and Peggy are pregnant and Papa's a grandfather again!" I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his shoulder.
"Oh darling, don't take it so hard." He rocked me soothingly, but his voice told of his pain.
"Ben, honey, will we ever get this baby?" I said, while he held me so tightly it almost hurt.
"Eventually my love." He said, but I could tell from his voice, he wasn't so sure.
Jess's second birthday, followed 2 days later by Lydia's first kept Hawkeye and myself busy and gave us no time to mope about my non-pregnant state. With five energetic and thankfully healthy children, life was a three-ring circus. Lydia was learning to walk, Jess was developing her vocabulary, April was pining for her Daddy whenever he was away and the twins were starting to get into the scraped knee stage, tripping over on the pavement.
"Ow, ow, ow, Hawkeye, easy does it." He lightened his touch to almost feather proportions as he put cold cream on my sunburnt shoulders. I'd spent the day gardening with my brother Chris and the kids.
"Sorry, is this better?" He moved his hands below the sunburn to massage the small of my back.
"Mmm, yes heaps." I sighed, arching up into his touch. As my stomach lifted off the bed again, he slid his hands under my stomach, and gently turned me over.
"We haven't been together in weeks Annie." He informed me, kissing my bare stomach, mindful of the fact that I couldn't lay back too heavily because of my shoulders.
"Oh, that's nice, what am I supposed to do about that? Oh . . . never mind." My sarcastic, teasing tone disappeared as he kissed my belly button. For the first time in a month we were intimate, and for the first time in even longer instead of just having sex, we made love.
"My god, how incredible was that?" I sighed.
"No more so than usual." Hawkeye replied, rubbing my hair, he was tired, and that was why his response was so careless and unemotional.
"Maybe not for you, but seeing as it was the first time since we started trying for a baby that it meant anything, it was incredible." I said I had considerably more adrenaline than he did.
"Whatever you say darling." He remarked flippantly. It felt so good to be able to tease him and just be like it used to be. I settled against him and fell asleep and I knew Hawkeye kept watching me and stroking my hair until he too, drifted off.
"So what does my sexy little wife want for her birthday tomorrow?" Hawkeye asked as I changed into my pyjamas after a shift at the hospital.
"Nothing big darling." I replied. "Just to be able to keep my breakfast down." The past week I had had trouble keeping anything I ate in my stomach and it wasn't only in the morning, leaving us ruling out morning sickness and pregnancy.
"Well I can't make any promises, but I think you'll like what I got you." I collapsed on the bed and fell asleep almost at once.
"Morning sleeping beauty." Daniel was sitting on the end of my bed, cup of coffee in hand, watching me sleep.
"What's the time?" I asked sleepily.
"Near 8, I told Hawkeye not to wake you up real early, you've been so tired lately."
"Thanks, much appreciated!" I got up and pulled on my robe. We went downstairs where my kids showered me with affection.
"Annie-my-Annie, I don't know if you ever played much, but I saw it in Portland a while ago, and couldn't resist." Hawkeye explained, as he gave me my present. A guitar, very much like the one Trapper had in Korea.
"I've never played before, well, except for the odd occasion that Trapper showed me something. But thankyou so much Hawkeye darling! Sport, Princess, Angel, Baby, Little One, I'm sure you all helped too." I kissed Hawkeye and the kids.
"I couldn't resist, I had to get you this." It was a present from Dad and Edna.
"Oh, thankyou! You didn't have to do that for me!" I opened the gift, a pretty silver pendant with a purple stone on a light silver chain. I hugged Dad and Edna, and hurried to the nearest toilet.
"You okay?" Hawkeye had followed me.
"Yeah, fine thanks. I just wish we knew why I'm like this." I stood up and washed my face. Hawkeye wrapped his arms around me from behind.
"I don't know myself. You're not sick, you're not pregnant, but you can't keep down the smallest meals." He said, as I leaned back into him, smiling at the entire foot of height difference between us, shown plainly in the reflection in the mirror.
"We'll work it out eventually. We manage to overcome everything else." I said.
"Except the non-conception." Hawkeye's hands travelled to my stomach.
"Hey we'll even work that out eventually." I replied. "Love's what's done it before, and love's what'll do it again." Hawkeye kissed the top of my head at my calm philosophy.
"As long as we got each other right?" Hawkeye said.
"Right!" I agreed. And it was right, we didn't mind now that I wasn't pregnant, or that I would almost certainly bring up everything I ate, all we cared about was that we were together with our five beautiful children.
January - July 1958: Trying
I gathered with the kids Daniel and Mrs O at the end of the bed. Hawkeye, blissfully unaware of anything else going on around him, slept in the bed. . "Shh. Are you ready?" I asked, I received whispered replies. "Ready, steady go!"
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" We all threw ourselves onto his bed, and he woke with a start.
"What? Where am I? Oh god, is it the 28th already?" He hugged everyone as well as he could manage.
"Yep, 28th January 1958, your 36th birthday!" I laughed, leaning in for a kiss, which he was only to happy to give.
"Yuck!" A little chubby hand pushed my face away from Hawkeye. "My turn!" Jess puckered up and accepted a kiss from her laughing father.
"They don't like it very much when we kiss do they?" I observed.
"Just jealousy honey, the fact that your eyes aren't on them, now what'd I get?" He clapped his hands like a small child when he began thinking about presents.
"Hawkeye! Presents aren't everything. Besides honey, you know what you got." I whispered the last bit. As far as the kids were concerned, the watch Hawkeye had needed was a surprise. "Benny my boy, can you go and get the you-know-what for Daddy?"
"Yep!" He slid off the bed and crawled under it. I laughed as I heard him scuffling and wrestling with various items, shoes, maternity clothes, my old army things, even Hawkeye's old army things. "Here!" He emerged triumphantly with a small wrapped box.
"Thankyou Sport, girls, do you want to give Daddy his present?" Felicity and April gave him the box and Jess helped him in opening it.
"Wow! Just what I wanted!" He feigned surprise as he opened it and saw the watch. "Thankyou, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you." He kissed all of the kids, including Lydia who happily sat on Mrs O's lap. "Thanks Dad, I know you're the one who paid for it. Thankyou Mrs O, I'll bet you helped him choose it. But most of all, thankyou my beautiful sexy wife, for being you and getting the kids to surprise me." He kissed me again, only to have it interrupted by Jess.
"Well Hawkeye, it's time we went down for breakfast and then you my love, have to work." We got breakfast and saw the two men off. Mrs O and I were alone with the kids most of the day, and perfectly happy to be, we got on well as long as I never went near her cooking and she didn't interfere with my clean fetish, which we quite happily set about doing during naptime. Mrs O also worked at the clinic as a receptionist, and left me with the kids, and the arrangement suited us just fine.
The men returned that night to a birthday dinner, and after the kids were asleep, their tummies full of Daniel's truly decadent chocolate cake (it seemed he had become very self-sufficient when Katharine died) Hawkeye and I decided on a little birthday celebration of our own.
"Guess what baby, I stopped at the drugstore on the way back." Hawkeye told me, with a smile playing at his lips.
"That's nice Ben dearest, but I really think you just wasted your money." I replied, watching with a smile at Hawkeye's blatant surprise.
"What do you mean? You're not . . .?" He'd assumed I was pregnant.
"No darling!" I laughed. "What I meant to say was I'm thinking we should have another baby."
"Annie my one true love, what suddenly put that idea in your mind?"
"Well, the older the twins get the harder it's going to be for them to get along with a baby, I've decided I miss being pregnant, and I'm not getting any younger you know."
"You're just a little bitty girl, you're not even 32!" He picked me up suddenly and threw me onto the bed.
"Okay you're not getting any younger! But I'm serious; I really think we should. We have plenty of room; we can move Lydia upstairs so the nursery's free. We can afford another child, we're a three-income household, and I'm starting at the hospital in just days that makes it four. And who knows, we might even get that boy we want." I was going to work Tuesday and Wednesday at Portland General under Margaret while one of the nurses was on leave to visit her sick father.
"Well can we start trying now?" Hawkeye asked.
"Sure!" I agreed, blushing when I realised how desperate I sounded. Hawkeye either didn't notice, or didn't care as he quite happily let me take charge.
"Dad, Mrs O. . ." We'd decided to tell them about the planned baby.
"Anne it sure is sweet how you call me Mrs O, but I been doing some real hard thinking. I ain't Mrs O no more, I'm Mrs Pierce so's I was thinking. . ."
"You want us to call you Mrs P?" Hawkeye put in.
"No, though that's a real sweet name too. I was thinking I'd sure be pleased if you'd call me Edna."
"Anything for you Edna." I smiled. "Now, we've got some news for you that we want to get out of the way before we have the troupe descend on us again." Lydia and Jess were asleep, Ben was playing at the Harrison place and Charles had taken April and Felicity to the park to make the most of the brief warm spell in the January snow.
"Do tell." Daniel instructed.
"We've been thinking." I began.
"More like doing." Hawkeye added and I smacked his shoulder warningly.
"We've been thinking about having another baby." I finished
"You have? I was hoping you'd do that! Means you'll catch up to my Walter!" Monica was pregnant again, and had been since October with twins and we were surprised, as Monica and Marcia were only 5 months old. It wasn't so much the pregnancy, Monica was a healthy young woman, so it was little shock that she conceived, but it was the fact that Radar, who used to be too embarrassed to even think about sex had to have been pretty busy.
"I don't mind what you do as long as you produce another grandson." Daniel said. "But I'd love a granddaughter just as much. You have my blessing. Anne, you're perfectly healthy, go for it."
"Thanks Dad, I'm so glad you think that way. Edna, you realise this will equal 12! 6 on each side." Walter Eugene Jr, Edwina Kate, Monica Dorothy, Marcia Nancy and the twins would make six for the O'Reillys plus Felicity Margaret, Benjamin Jack, April Emma-Rose, Jessica Katharine, Lydia Adrienne plus the baby was six for us also.
"I don't have much choice do I? Knowing you two, you're probably expecting already!" Daniel laughed.
"Dad shut up!" I hit him with a cushion.
"Well you two treat this place like it's a brothel!" Daniel laughed. Mrs O hastily left, being not a whole lot different from her son.
"You never told me it was a brothel, cause I'm a bit short of cash tonight." Hawkeye laughed,
"Well you said those other girls were your sisters!" I replied smartly, bringing tears of laughter to Daniel's eyes.
"You are the sweetest girl Anne, I love you to bits!" Daniel grabbed me around my middle. He picked me up, squeezed me tight to his chest and shook me, like the over-zealous embrace of a child and a teddy bear.
"Unhand her you brute!" Hawkeye cried, while I demanded my freedom.
"Never! The wench is mine!" My captor declared, tossing me over his shoulder. Probably the only thing I detested about being barely 5'2" and weighing a very healthy 120lbs, was that I was small enough for anyone, BJ, Radar, Dad, Hawkeye, or even Margaret to pick me up.
"You vicious brute, unhand the damsel!" Hawkeye followed Daniel as he ran into the hall, just as Charles, April and Felicity were getting back.
"I'm not even going to ask!" Charles said as Daniel put me down and my elder daughters demanded a cuddle.
"It's probably better that you don't." I advised. "Did you have a good time at the park Angel-features?"
"Y-y-yup, daddy buyed me a balloon, s-s-see?" She displayed the yellow balloon.
"Uncle Charlie gotted me a balloon too!" Felicity showed me the pink balloon on the end of her string. The kids seemed to favour whatever colour their wardrobe predominantly was. Felicity liked pink, Ben liked blue, April liked yellow, Jess liked lilac and Lydia was well on the way to loving red. I noticed then that he had a red, a blue and a purple balloon too.
"Charlie dear, you're such a sweet person, you should let people see that more often!" I took the balloons and tied them to the hatstand.
"Well, Anne I don't want everyone seeing the weaker side of Charles Emerson Winchester the third!" He handed April to Dad who took her upstairs to have a nap.
"Charlie dear, you're a pompous old git! Sweet dreams Princess." Felicity went with Hawkeye.
"Well, you're nothing but a sweet little spitfire!" Charles retorted.
"Come on, do you want to try and finish that piece I was teaching you?" In his visits, I taught Charles the piano.
"Of course!" We went into the living room and sat down at the piano.
It was warmed up a little in February, and even more through March with the coming of Spring. I'd just come back from my shift at Portland. I let myself into the clinic and found Daniel who was running a very specific test on me that day.
"Sorry Anne, struck out again," He said softly. I glanced at Hawkeye, who was sitting on the exam table looking downcast. We'd been trying very hard to get pregnant, every night, and not always at night, but once again, there was nothing.
"Anne, I won't let you just lie there." In our efforts to create a baby, sex had become meaningless, we didn't do it because we wanted to, but because we had to.
"Hawkeye, we want this baby don't we?" I argued. "And this is a very bad time to make a decision like that."
"Right," We finished up quickly, feeling absolutely nothing for it.
"Why can't I get pregnant Hawkeye?" I asked softly.
"Darling, I don't know. I honestly don't, you're perfectly healthy in absolutely every way. Some things just aren't meant to be. I guess this is one of them."
"Yeah, I suppose so." I sighed, and rolled over, and went to sleep, feeling very downcast.
"Sorry no luck." Daniel shook his head. It was just before April's 3rd birthday, and we were testing once a week in hope that I'd conceived during March. So far things weren't looking good.
"Mummy, why are you crying?" Ben crawled up onto the porch swing beside me.
"Because Benny-boy, Mummy and Daddy want to have a baby. But we can't."
"Why?" His grey-blue eyes looked up at me soulfully with the compassion that his Daddy's eyes had.
"We don't know." I put my arm around my little boy.
"Well you want baby?" He asked.
"Yes Sport, very much." I was surprised and then touched when he clasped his hands and closed his eyes, tilting his head upward.
"Dear God, my Mummy is sad because she has no baby. Please give her a baby soon. Amen." I started to cry harder and scooped Ben onto my lap.
"Thankyou honey, you're very sweet. Maybe God will give me a baby."
"Mummy, is God real?" Ben asked. I paused for a minute. We attended the local Methodist church, all of us, even Hawkeye. It was strange for me, being born into Catholicism and now being part of a branch of the Protestant church, but I'd married into a Methodist family and so I now practised Methodism.
"If you believe He is." I received a blank look. "If you think in here, and here that He is, then He will be." I touched Ben's head and chest as I spoke.
"I think He is, and He will give you a baby." Ben said seriously.
"Thankyou Ben darling, now shouldn't you be in bed?" I kissed his little face.
"Daddy said come say goodnight to you. Lyssie was too tired, to say goodnight she fell asleep brushing her teeth."
"Well, give me a kiss and a cuddle special boy." I hugged my four-year-old son tightly and he did the same, kissing me tenderly on the cheek. Hawkeye put his head out, and lifted the sleepy boy and took him to bed.
"Thanks for getting them all down tonight Hawkeye." I said when he returned.
"I am their daddy, it's my job!" He said, sitting down next to me, kissing the side of my head.
"You're a great daddy, just the best influence on the kids. Little Ben is so sweet. You know he said a prayer for me to get pregnant just before?"
"Did he? Well, I can't honestly say that that was my influence. And we'll find out tomorrow whether or not we're pregnant." He put his arm around me.
"I really hope so, we've been trying so hard. I reckon if I'm not pregnant come my birthday, we call it quits for a while." Hawkeye agreed, cuddling me close and resting his cheek on my head.
"Come on, let's go for a walk." We rugged up, called the dogs and headed out for a evening stroll.
"Well?" I looked hopefully at Daniel. "Dammit, why can't I get pregnant?" I was verging on tears as Daniel told me yet again that I was not pregnant.
"Some things just don't happen." Daniel said, giving me a comforting hug.
"Thanks, I'd better get to work, I should have gone five minutes ago." I left and drove down to the hospital. Margaret met me at the door, wanting to hear the news.
"Nothing again." I replied, going to the Nurses' change and finding my uniform.
"I'm sorry to hear that Annie, now move it, you're late and I won't accept tardiness from my nurses!"
"Yes ma'am." The direct instruction calmed me and I went to work.
"Hawkeye, let's not try tonight. I couldn't." I said as I kicked off my blankets. Hawkeye followed suit it wasn't particularly warm in the May night but I figured we'd wind up using each other as blankets.
"I couldn't either. We're just trying too hard. Have you ever noticed we had no plans to create a baby the other times? Irresponsibility, spontaneity and love are what gave us our children before, and what about April, how did she come about?"
"Completely unplanned." I replied. "We just sort of, did it, and then April came about."
"We're trying to plan our lives and so far everything else has been on impulse, so maybe we should leave it off for a while." I put my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, while gently rubbing my hand from his shoulder to his stomach.
"In other words give up." I sighed, feeling absolutely miserable about it all.
"That too." He said sadly. Feeling very sorry for ourselves, we went to sleep.
"I'll get it!" I called, picking up the phone, and jamming under my ear while picking up Jess who was crying for some reason. There was no one else in the house to answer, but I still called out from force of habit.
"Annie-ma'am, it's Radar, is Ma in?" Jess settled down as I patted her back.
"No Radar, she's out somewhere, why?"
"Tell her that Henry Edward and Shirley Jane were born today, 5lbs 3 and 5lbs 7. Shirley looks just like her!"
"Oh Radar, that's great, my love to you all, I have to go, Jess is upset about something." As well has having delicate features, she had a delicate nature and was easily upset.
"Let her know, I'll call back tomorrow."
"Sure and I'll let Margaret and the Winchesters know." I barely had time to hang up the phone and realise that nothing more had happened to Jess than having Glory knock over her building blocks before the phone rang again.
"Hello, Pierces' place." I picked up the phone again.
"Annie, it's Soon-Lee."
"How wonderful to hear from you! And how's little Max?" 'Little Max' was her son, whereas she referred to her husband as 'my Max'.
"Wonderful, my Max is so proud! I am too. But there is good news, Max will be a brother in December!"
"That's great Soon-Lee!" I said, not believing that two people would have such luck in one day when I couldn't have that kind of luck in months. We hung up and as I realised that it was nearly 4.30, I began to start in on the kids' dinner. The phone rang again as I'd finished with Lydia's meal.
"Hello? Can you wait two seconds, I just got to put Lydia in her chair?" Without waiting for an answer I left the phone and sat Lydia in her highchair, with her dinner in front of her.
"Hello? Sorry about that."
"Annie, it's Beej, did I call at a bad time?"
"No, it's just that Lydia was just starting dinner and I had to put her in her highchair. How have you been?"
"Great! Guess what?" I ran a mental check on his tone of voice, I could read the man like a book.
"Let me guess, Peggy's expecting again." I said dryly, hoping that I wasn't going to hear the wonderful news in reference to someone else, when I wanted to hear it so badly myself.
"How did you know? My voice told you didn't it?"
"Yes, it did." I lied, "Congratulations. Lydia, no, Captain doesn't eat your peas! You do!"
"I'll let you go, thought you'd like to know though."
"I'm very glad to hear it I'll ring Margaret and Charles later, save you the bill." I hung up and once the other four were settled with their dinners, I heard the phone ringing again.
"Pierce place, and if someone's pregnant I don't want to know!"
"Annie, it's Sherman."
"Papa! I'm sorry, I'm just a little . . . worked up."
"Well, I thought you'd like to know I'm a grandfather again! Baby boy, Matthew T Potter 10pounds even!" I gave my half-hearted congratulations, hung up the phone and burst into tears.
"Annie-my-Annie, what's wrong?" Hawkeye had come home from work at the precise moment I'd begun crying.
"Monica's babies arrived, Soon-Lee and Peggy are pregnant and Papa's a grandfather again!" I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his shoulder.
"Oh darling, don't take it so hard." He rocked me soothingly, but his voice told of his pain.
"Ben, honey, will we ever get this baby?" I said, while he held me so tightly it almost hurt.
"Eventually my love." He said, but I could tell from his voice, he wasn't so sure.
Jess's second birthday, followed 2 days later by Lydia's first kept Hawkeye and myself busy and gave us no time to mope about my non-pregnant state. With five energetic and thankfully healthy children, life was a three-ring circus. Lydia was learning to walk, Jess was developing her vocabulary, April was pining for her Daddy whenever he was away and the twins were starting to get into the scraped knee stage, tripping over on the pavement.
"Ow, ow, ow, Hawkeye, easy does it." He lightened his touch to almost feather proportions as he put cold cream on my sunburnt shoulders. I'd spent the day gardening with my brother Chris and the kids.
"Sorry, is this better?" He moved his hands below the sunburn to massage the small of my back.
"Mmm, yes heaps." I sighed, arching up into his touch. As my stomach lifted off the bed again, he slid his hands under my stomach, and gently turned me over.
"We haven't been together in weeks Annie." He informed me, kissing my bare stomach, mindful of the fact that I couldn't lay back too heavily because of my shoulders.
"Oh, that's nice, what am I supposed to do about that? Oh . . . never mind." My sarcastic, teasing tone disappeared as he kissed my belly button. For the first time in a month we were intimate, and for the first time in even longer instead of just having sex, we made love.
"My god, how incredible was that?" I sighed.
"No more so than usual." Hawkeye replied, rubbing my hair, he was tired, and that was why his response was so careless and unemotional.
"Maybe not for you, but seeing as it was the first time since we started trying for a baby that it meant anything, it was incredible." I said I had considerably more adrenaline than he did.
"Whatever you say darling." He remarked flippantly. It felt so good to be able to tease him and just be like it used to be. I settled against him and fell asleep and I knew Hawkeye kept watching me and stroking my hair until he too, drifted off.
"So what does my sexy little wife want for her birthday tomorrow?" Hawkeye asked as I changed into my pyjamas after a shift at the hospital.
"Nothing big darling." I replied. "Just to be able to keep my breakfast down." The past week I had had trouble keeping anything I ate in my stomach and it wasn't only in the morning, leaving us ruling out morning sickness and pregnancy.
"Well I can't make any promises, but I think you'll like what I got you." I collapsed on the bed and fell asleep almost at once.
"Morning sleeping beauty." Daniel was sitting on the end of my bed, cup of coffee in hand, watching me sleep.
"What's the time?" I asked sleepily.
"Near 8, I told Hawkeye not to wake you up real early, you've been so tired lately."
"Thanks, much appreciated!" I got up and pulled on my robe. We went downstairs where my kids showered me with affection.
"Annie-my-Annie, I don't know if you ever played much, but I saw it in Portland a while ago, and couldn't resist." Hawkeye explained, as he gave me my present. A guitar, very much like the one Trapper had in Korea.
"I've never played before, well, except for the odd occasion that Trapper showed me something. But thankyou so much Hawkeye darling! Sport, Princess, Angel, Baby, Little One, I'm sure you all helped too." I kissed Hawkeye and the kids.
"I couldn't resist, I had to get you this." It was a present from Dad and Edna.
"Oh, thankyou! You didn't have to do that for me!" I opened the gift, a pretty silver pendant with a purple stone on a light silver chain. I hugged Dad and Edna, and hurried to the nearest toilet.
"You okay?" Hawkeye had followed me.
"Yeah, fine thanks. I just wish we knew why I'm like this." I stood up and washed my face. Hawkeye wrapped his arms around me from behind.
"I don't know myself. You're not sick, you're not pregnant, but you can't keep down the smallest meals." He said, as I leaned back into him, smiling at the entire foot of height difference between us, shown plainly in the reflection in the mirror.
"We'll work it out eventually. We manage to overcome everything else." I said.
"Except the non-conception." Hawkeye's hands travelled to my stomach.
"Hey we'll even work that out eventually." I replied. "Love's what's done it before, and love's what'll do it again." Hawkeye kissed the top of my head at my calm philosophy.
"As long as we got each other right?" Hawkeye said.
"Right!" I agreed. And it was right, we didn't mind now that I wasn't pregnant, or that I would almost certainly bring up everything I ate, all we cared about was that we were together with our five beautiful children.