so here it is, chapter 9! i'm going to try and type up chapter 10, but i'm leaving for texas tomorrow so if it's too long then i won't type it all cuz i need to pack.
so obviously maureen and joanne aren't mine, but alexa is.
don't forget to review!
I couldn't believe I was late. I was never late. Maureen was going to kill me. It was Friday, and I had been listening to Maureen talk about this appointment all week. I have never seen her so excited before, and I've had plenty of opportunities to see her excited. Then again, I couldn't really blame her. This was the first time I was going with her to one of her sonogram appointments. I had gone with her to most of her appointments, but she had never let me look at the sonograms before. I had so many things running through my mind that I didn't even realize I had gotten onto the elevator. I was so excited; 3 more floors and I'd get to see her baby. My baby. Our baby.
The second I walked into the office I could hear Maureen arguing with her doctor. From what I could hear, the doctor wanted to start the sonogram but Maureen wanted to wait for me to get there. I walked through the waiting room and let myself in the back.
"Pookie, you're late!" Maureen said, sounding pissed. "This asshole here wanted to start without you." she said as she gave the doctor a death glare.
"It's ok, Honeybear. I'm here now." I stood next to her and helped her lie back on the table. The doctor cautiously sat down in the chair next to Maureen, still looking a little afraid of her. He rolled her shirt up over her stomach and started applying the sonogram gel until Maureen insisted that I do it. He handed me the bottle of gel and I began covering Maureen's belly with it as he set up the ultrasound machine. I prayed that he would get started soon because there was something about rubbing this gel on Maureen's stomach that turned me on. He must have know what I was thinking because he told me that I had done enough and that he was ready to begin. I closed the bottle and handed it to him as he placed the transducer on the side of her stomach. I held her hand in between mine as he spent a few minutes watching the screen. Finally, he turned the monitor around so that we could see it and smiled at me.
"You guys probably already knew this, but you're having a girl." Maureen and I looked at each other and she squealed like this was a total surprise, but I didn't care because she looked so cute, and I was trying to contain myself from jumping up and down because at least one of us needed to be professional. Sure, we had knows from the start that it was going to be a girl, but seeing the image up on the monitor was too amazing to put into words. We stayed there for about 20 more minutes as he showed us different things on the screen. I got to listen to her heartbeat for the first time and watch on the screen as she kicked. I held Maureen's hand as the doctor cleaned her off and helped her sit back up as we discussed different birthing options with the doctor. We got the sonogram video from the doctor and then headed out of the office back to our apartment.
I didn't say very much on the cab ride home and I could tell that it was bothering Maureen, that she could tell something was up. I knew just from the way she looked at me that she was concerned about why I had been late today, but wasn't sure if she should ask about it or not. I figured that she would find out eventually and it would be best for her to hear it from me.
"Baby, I'm sorry I was late today." I held her hand and looked her in the eye. "I got tied up in the office. I had a meeting. With Alexa. And her parents." I paused for a minute to look at Maureen. She looked confused, but then again, I couldn't blame her. I'd be confused too if she got really serious and emotional over something like this, something that shouldn't concern me outside of the office. Needing to get to my point, I continued. "We went over everything that we needed to finish up before we start looking for a family to take her, and," I paused and took a breath. I continued on, "out of nowhere she said that she only wants to be adopted by one family. Us."
I squeezed her hand as I watched her take this in. "I told her that I would have to talk it over with you first, but that she shouldn't get her hopes up because this may not be the greatest thing right now, considering that the baby's going to be here in 2 months."
As I sat there waiting for her to respond I noticed that we were already in front of our building. "We can finish talking when we get inside," I said as I opened my wallet to pay the driver.
"No," she said. "I mean yes. We should adopt her. Is that ok with you, Pookie? I mean, she's been staying with us for so long that it feels like she's already a part of our family. She'll be leaving soon anyways, plus it might be nice to have someone else around when the baby comes. It wouldn't feel right to not have her around when the baby comes because she's been through most of the pregnancy with us and even helped when we decorated the nursery. I didn't want to say anything before just in case you didn't think it was a good idea." By now we had made it to our floor and were standing in front of our door. I took her hands in mine and looked her in the eye.
"Maureen Johnson, have I ever told you how much I love you?"
"Yes, Pookie, and I can't wait for this baby to get here so you can tell me again." She giggled and smiled devilishly before I pulled her in for a kiss. I broker apart from her when I heard a door close somewhere down the hall.
"We should probably go inside. We don't need a repeat of the day you moved in."
"But Pookie, that was fun!"
"Maybe for us, but I don't think it was very fun for the Jansens," I told her, referring to one of the families on our floor.
I unlocked the door and led Maureen inside. I put my bag on the floor and took out the tape that the doctor had given us. I put it in the VCR and pulled Maureen over to the couch and into my lap as I sat down. As she situated herself in between my legs I picked up the remote and pressed play. I slid my arms up under her shirt and rested them on her swollen belly and kissed her curls as the video of the sonogram began to play. She took my hands and moved them up to the top of her belly.
"Pookie, she's kicking," Maureen said as she tucked her head in between my chest and chin and turned back to the video. "She's going to be beautiful, Joey. Just like you."
I took one of my hands off of her stomach and used it to bring her face up to mine. I gave her a short but passionate kiss on the lips and as I pulled away I said, "No, Honeybear. She's going to be beautiful, just like you." She pulled me in for another kiss and I ran the hand not on her belly through her curls. We broke apart and sat in silence watching the rest of the video as we stole glances at each other when we thought other wasn't looking. When the video finished Maureen pulled herself up into a sitting position and turned to face me as I pulled my legs up underneath me. We sat there and just talked for almost two hours before we decided to go back to our room and go to sleep.
The next few days went by smoothly without anything too exciting happening. Cynthia's daughter was in town and Alexa had decided to stay with them for a few days to visit and catch up which left Maureen and I with the weekend to ourselves. After spending Saturday morning filling out the last of Alexa's adoption papers I helped Maureen finish baby-proofing the apartment and then helped her finish up the nursery/Alexa's room. Alexa didn't mind having her room in the nursery, but once we moved the baby from the bassinet in our room into the crib in the nursery we were pretty sure that she was going to changer her mind, so Maureen and I had already started brainstorming on what we could do about that. So far we had nothing. Sunday night we spent an hour picking out a name. We had somehow managed to agree on one name out of our list of thirty: Grace Michaela Johnson-Jefferson. Grace had been on of the names we had like from the beginning, and it seemed like the obvious choice after Maureen's graceful, complication-free pregnancy. It took us the most time to come up with a middle name, but we finally settled on Michaela. When Maureen was four her twin sister, Michaela, died and it just felt right that we should name our first daughter after her. Maureen had never told me what had happened with Michaela and I didn't feel like I should ask her. I knew that talking about Michaela was very draining for Maureen, so I wasn't surprised when she said that she wanted to go to bed when we finished. Realizing that I needed to be at the office pretty early the next morning, I decided to join her.
hopefully i'll have chapter 10 up soon, but please please please review!
