Two months had passed since the four had been alone, and what a crazy two months it had been. Marissa was now six months pregnant and it was now visible that she was indeed pregnant, and Summer only four months was equally big. Seth and Ryan both worked at the Crab Shack for fourteen hours, five times a week as well as having another job at a local shopping store every week for one day. The money they made paid off the rent and just left enough for food, but it started getting to the girls that they never saw their guys. When they'd make their appearance it was either in the morning right before they had to go to work or when they ended their shift and were too exhausted to even talk. It was Sunday, and Seth was sleeping in due to a hard day at work the night before. Summer stood by the door to the closet looking at her refection in the full length, wall mirror. Wearing a simple long sleeved red shirt she groaned, tugging on the bottom to make it stay down over her stomach. A series of walking into the walk-in closet coming out with different shirt, a whimper, and back into the closet she went. The noise woke Seth up and his vision blurred, he rubbed his eyes getting a better picture of what was going on.
"You look beautiful," Seth said smiling childishly as he watched Summer's reflection in the mirror.
"No, I look fat. I'm huge and nothing can fit over my stomach anymore." She rested her hand on top of her stomach and turned to the side seeing her profile and then stormed back into the closet.
"You're having a baby, do you expect yourself to look skinny? And plus, I've seen women way bigger then you." His comment wasn't necessary and in fact made her angrier.
She came out agreeing finally on an outfit and Seth soon realized what she put on.
"Is that one of my work shirts?" He flipped the covers off of him and scratched the back of his head.
"Yes and if you say one word I'll –" Seth put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a kiss.
"You look beautiful no matter what you wear. And maybe you and Marissa should go maternity shopping?" He moved his way into the bathroom shutting the door behind him.
"Are you implying something Seth?" He couldn't win so he decided to keep his mouth shut and not say anything. He brushed his teeth and emerged from the bathroom to find Summer missing from the room.
He ran down the stairs and into the kitchen he went, opening a cabinet and pulling out the box of cereal. He was hungry and grabbing a cereal bowl, he tipped the box over expecting the cereal to fly out but instead there was nothing. He turned to Summer seeing her sitting at the table, reading Seth's beloved newspaper along with finishing off his favorite cereal.
"Great." He said softly.
"What? I was hungry and that's all I could find." She said scooping a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. Seth just stood there nodding his head as he bit the lower part of his lip.
Marissa waddled into the doctor's office as Ryan opened the door. Wearing a jean skirt and a long sleeved white shirt, nothing fancy, she sat in the waiting room her hand resting on her stomach.
"The baby's kicking, I think its excited about the appointment." She looked down at her now rounded stomach and slightly grazed it with the tips of her fingers. Ryan soon did the same looking up at Marissa as the two fused over the kick. The doctor came out to greet them, and the two followed behind him into the exam room, Ryan followed the waddling Marissa.
"I'll be right back, I need to go grab your chart and if you could lie down on the examination table, I'll be there in a second." The doctor left the room and Marissa struggled to get onto the table but with Ryan's help she soon was situated. Ryan took her hand and stroked the top of it with his finger and smiled happily.
"Remember, no matter what we're not going to find out what the gender of the baby is." Marissa strengthened her grip to Ryan's hand and he squirmed in pain.
"Right, I remembered."
The doctor came back in and reviewed his chart as he began the procedure. Marissa moved her shirt up, exposing her stomach. The doctor moved his hand onto her stomach feeling to see what position the baby was in, breech or head down.
"I can feel the baby's head, it's right here" his fingers pushed down on right side of her stomach he moved up along in a semi circle, able to feel the baby's body. "And right here is its butt, right below your rib cage."
"That's why I feel like I can never breath." Marissa quirked.
They both laughed as the doctor took measurements of Marissa's stomach and then wrote it down in her charts. He moved the ultrasound machine towards Marissa; he spurted gel onto her stomach and moved the probe around to see the baby. It was moving around, and as the picture was now a clear view of the baby's head they profile was now visible– absolutely beautiful. The doctor moved it around making sure it had all the parts it needed, nothing looked wrong and to get its weight and measurements. The doctor turned to Marissa as he moved the probe around a little more.
"Would you like to know the sex of the baby?" Doctor James asked curiously.
Marissa and Ryan turned to each other and shook their heads trying to fight away the temptation. "No, we don't want to find out the – yeah…. yeah we do." Ryan started, but Marissa finished.
"I'll write it down and put it in an envelope so if you want to find out the gender of the baby, you can." He grabbed a pen and a piece of paper writing down the gender of the baby, placing it in an envelope he sealed it shut and took black permanent marker drawing a line on the front, stopping both from peeking. They finished up the appointment and everything was great, the baby was right on track. Ryan put the envelope in his pocket and they both tried their hardest to forget that they even had that silly piece of paper, and the car ride home was unbearable.
Summer walked into their house, shopping bags hanging from her arms she had spent the day maternity shopping. She waddled up the stairs and into their bedroom dropping all the bags onto the ground and decided to try something on. Summer appeared downstairs in the living room leaning up against the wall. She wore a red v-neck tank top that covered her shoulders, it fit her perfectly since it wasn't too loose but not too tight. It was decorated with white flowers and it had transparent fabric over it to give it a wrinkled look. She topped it off with a khaki skirt and some new black high heels. She looked great.
"W-wow!" Seth said, his mouth hanging open, he couldn't believe how beautiful she looked. "You're one hot mama" he laughed and they both began kissing.
"Ow!" Summer shrieked, her hand upon her stomach.
"What's wrong?" Seth asked curious of why Summer was in pain.
"It's the baby…it kicked, here feel this." She grabbed his hand and placed it on her large stomach, sharing in the excitement of feeling their baby kick especially since she now was in the month of being able to feel movements and kicks.
Their enjoyment was soon ended as the phone rang; it was Seth's mother.
"Hello?" Seth said, watching Summer tease him from the living room.
"Seth, its mom – how are you? How's Summer?" She sat down on the couch talking with the son she hasn't heard from for a while.
"I'm fine, Summer's great we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow."
"Really? Are you and Summer going to find out what the baby is?" Seth rolled his eyes, everyone was asking if they were going to find out or not and when Seth would tell them they weren't they'd immediately tell them they're crazy.
"No, just like Ryan and Marissa – we're not going to find out what the gender is. We want to be surprised." He held the phone away from his ear hearing his mother's nagging from the other end. Summer laughed as she started to munch on some doritos in the bag Seth left behind on the couch.
"Seth sweetie, remember that you and Summer are coming over to our house for dinner, two weeks from Saturday. Love you" Kirsten said.
"Right, two weeks from Saturday. I'm sure Summer will call and tell you about the appointment. Talk to you soon, love you too. Bye." Seth hung up the phone and prowled towards Summer jumping on the couch next to her.
"What'd your mom call about?" Summer said munching on a dorito chip.
"To see how we were, but really nag us about not finding out what we're having." He laid his head on her shoulder as he played with her hand.
"I don't know why people care so much it's not their decision, it's ours. And speaking of the baby you said you were going to help with the baby book." Summer scooted to the end of the couch and with three tries she finally came to and waddled over to the closet grabbing the baby book from a shelf.
"Do we have to now?" Seth groaned, falling onto the part where Summer was sitting.
"Seth, I want our son or daughter to be able to read this when they get older and there's only five months left in this pregnancy…." She started to cry, the hormones kicking in "I thought that'd it be a nice thing we could do together and I-I…."
"Shh, I'm sorry. You're right, I'll help." They both sat down at the kitchen table, Seth staring at the white piece of paper where writing would be filled in after the baby's born and the rainbow striped background.
She opened the baby book and wrote a little message, since they weren't sure of what the baby was Summer just simply called it 'baby'. She wrote a message telling this child of how much her and Seth loved it and couldn't wait until it arrived. On the first page was a picture of Summer and Seth, one taken before she got pregnant with writing at the bottom describing how old they were, what was going on and just a little background information. The second page was more pictures taken of the two of them along with some pictures of their family members such as Marissa and Ryan, their grandparents and everyone who'd be apart of this little baby's life. There was a page of writing, mostly Summer's telling the baby how she felt when she found out she was pregnant, who she'd tell and how Seth and everyone reacted. She had Seth write also about how he felt. She wanted this baby book to be perfect, where the baby could look at it when it was older and know exactly what was going on, how she was feeling and what she looked like. The second page was filled with pictures that were taken of Summer now that she had been pregnant, with how far along she was underneath. Doctor appointments, cravings, how she felt was written by Summer. She often would write two or three times a day updating her progress and would occasionally get Seth to write too.
"You did all this? This is wonderful, I know our baby will love it." He looked in wonder of how awesome this baby book was and couldn't believe she had done all this.
"Let's add the sonogram pictures from the doctor's appointment…and the pictures that we had Marissa take of the two of us." She pulled out the picture envelope and flipping through photos she set some down on the table, the ones she wanted to use.
"You got these developed quickly, these were taken only last week." Seth picked up the pictures she set on the table and flipped through them as well.
She got out some double-sided tape and added them to each corner setting the pictures on the next page in the baby book. She finished after writing a few things underneath the pictures and closed the book until it was time for another update.
"Do you remember my mom saying something about a dinner two weeks from this Saturday?" They shifted up and Seth stared at Summer as she put away the baby book.
"No, probably just some dinner where they'll tell us all about stories of when your mom was pregnant with you, and horror stories about delivery. I can only imagine what it's going to be like." She shook her head in thought, she didn't like being fussed over and this dinner was going to be about her and the baby.
"Well don't worry because I'll be there and if it's going to be miserable, we'll be miserable together." They cuddled closer to each other as Seth glanced at the time. "Oh, the games on." He quickly released and scampered into the other room where he turned on the football game.
Ryan and Marissa took the long way home and when they finally parked their car in their parking spot Ryan swung over to her side opening the door for her.
"Thank you very much." It was now difficult to get out of the car, it seemed like everything was difficult now and it just made her more depressed.
They walked into their house and Ryan put his jacket on the back of a chair and quickly brought into view the envelope.
"Should we?" Marissa bit her lip, they both agreed earlier on in the pregnancy not to find out but with the temptation of the baby's gender in Ryan's hand the plan was in the trash.
"It's up to you, I'm fine with now knowing." He opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water taking a sip.
"Fine, fine, fine. Open it. Let's just – let's just find out, in the long run it'll be the best for everyone." Ryan sat down, his stomach in knots as this was the moment of truth for both of them.
He handed her the envelope, and nervously she unsealed it grasping the folded paper in her hands. "This is it, we're now going to know if it's a boy or a girl."
Marissa unfolded it cautiously as she read the doctor's handwriting and tears immediately feel from her face. She turned the paper around so Ryan could read it and as he did, he was blown away – this was truly a gift and he was deep down inside praying that, the baby's gender would be this.
"A girl…." Marissa said behind tears. Her mascara running she wiped the underneath of her eye with a tissue. "I can't believe we're having a precious little girl"
Ryan hugged her tightly as they could stop calling Marissa's stomach an 'it' and now could call her a she until they agreed on a name. They stayed in an embrace for over a minute, tears streaming down their faces, as both were extremely happy hearing the news of a baby girl. Especially Ryan since he'd now be able to have his 'daddy's little girl', it was just so overwhelming.