Magic Beans (Part I)

Another triple-shot set starting Monday, a week following the great baby birthday reveal. In part one, Jamie and Eddie face their first round of parental angst over the appearance of the new bean(s) as an ultrasound at the doctor's office offers a glimpse at their future while setting a few events in motion that will influence the shape and makeup of the Reagan family's youngest generation.


"Jamison Reagan, please, you really need to sit down right now… you're making me and all of these other pregnant women nervous!" Eddie hissed from her chair in the far corner of the waiting room at her new OBGYN's office in suite 306 of the doctor's wing at St. Victor's Hospital as she clutched a pen and clipboard while anxiously filling out multitudes of patient intake forms. True to her word, Linda's friend Nancy had expedited their initial appointment and tests with Dr. Geisner after the surprising pregnancy revelation on Jamie's birthday... making today the approximate five-week mark past that fateful evening in the Icelandic cottage under the Northern Lights, but that's not what had Jamie up and pacing the length of the room while fully decked out in his NYPD sergeant's gear including his shoulder radio and gun as he had been unable to switch shifts at the busy precinct on short notice, and so found himself here rather than on his usual meal break. Instead, it was a call from this very office early the previous Friday morning that had him on edge… the one confirming that Eddie's initial pre-appointment blood work was positive while also revealing that the hormone marker levels were quite high, possibly pointing to the presence of multiples. While the unexpected arrival of one magic bean in their lives had put him over the moon with happiness and expectation, the thought of two or… even, gasp... more than that at one time... left him shaking in his spit-shined black leather service boots.

"Seventy-five and a half hours," he griped as he attempted to comply with her wishes and seated himself on the chair next to her while his leg continued to bounce incessantly and he rubbed the space between his eyes as his hand came over his face. "How can you drop news like that on someone and leave them hanging over the entire weekend… imagining, you know… well, what I've been imagining… Ed, our house only has four bedrooms and I refuse to drive a minivan..."

"Calm down, Jamie," Eddie advised although she too had nervous iron butterflies clanging together in her stomach. "The nurse said 'higher than expected levels,' not that there was anything wrong or we should worry. They only did the blood test anyway because I've already been having such terrible afternoon sickness this last week and the hCG level was only thirty-five percent over normal. That would likely be twins if anything, not a litter... and probably no more than one at all. Linda said this happens all the time, and it fluctuates wildly between women; it could be perfectly fine for me and they just wanted to alert us to the possibility so we could prepare ourselves and not overreact… although a fat lot of good that did," she muttered under her breath as she watched him continue to run through his series of stress tells in rapid fire succession. "I can't believe Renzulli left you out on the street like this today."

"He didn't," Jamie explained. "I kept myself in the precinct at my desk all morning doing evaluations while Annabel went out with Patterson. She picked me up at noon to come here and now she's having her meal downstairs in the cafeteria," he revealed.

"You let her take the wheel?" Eddie asked in a mocking, sniffing disdain of this new young, attractive and gung-ho rookie partner in her husband's life who seemed to garner more privileges on the job with him already in eight weeks then she had with over two years in the car next to him.

"Of course, she's a very good driver," he mumbled absentmindedly and without forethought as he switched over to nervously chewing his fingernails, an extremely telling last-ditch habit he despised in anyone else. Not even the more pronounced versions of baby bumps that littered the rest of the waiting room chairs had distracted him from their current situation. All Jamie was focused on was today's planned ultrasound which would reveal exactly how far upside down their lives would turn in the upcoming months and years.

Eddie was just about to offer a choice comeback to that nifty little tidbit about Annabel's road warrior prowess when the door to the waiting room opened. "Ed-it Reagan?" a voice called from the hallway. Jamie sucked in a nervous breath as he jumped to his feet once more while Eddie flinched at the common mispronunciation of her name. It never failed to irk her to the ninth degree, and the fact that her husband usually commented every single time it happened had her primed for retaliation.

"Ed-eet," she corrected as she stood up to follow the nurse who was also obviously pregnant and dressed in an obnoxiously loud smiley faces yellow and blue scrub top. Good lord, she thought to herself, after how many of these does something like that become acceptable to wear in public? "This kid's going to be named Bob or Sue," she muttered to Jamie. "I will not inflict that kind of torture on my child."

"As long as it's not Bob, Sue and Rita, too," he added with a hard swallow and a tight-lipped grimace as he followed her path out of the room. "Oh, God, speaking of torture… Eddie, what if… I mean so help us... you know it could be identical triplets that turn out like Danny," he pestered as his mind continued to grasp at improbable straws and he hovered behind. "We'd have to keep the bail fund in an extra large mayonnaise jar on top of the refrigerator."

"Your parents did that for him?" Eddie quizzed as she signed herself in and handed over her now-completed forms. "Seriously?"

"Just my mom," he admitted quietly as he followed her to the back, stopping along the way to have a few measurements taken. He could tell Eddie was also on edge by her reactions and the significant roll of the eyes she gave when her weight and height was recorded after she quickly kicked off her shoes, but thus far she had proved much more successful in tempering her feelings than he had been as the nurse led them to an exam room and sat down to confirm a few facts as she scanned their paperwork.

"Edit and Jamison, I am assuming?" she asked as they waited while she began to take Eddie's blood pressure reading.

"Eddie and Jamie is fine," he cut in quickly in an attempt to curtail any inevitable unnecessary small talk over the origins of their names. The suspense was eating him alive by now and if he could have pinned his wife down and figured out how to operate the damn ultrasound by himself, he would have done so by this point already.

"Looks like we have a nervous new dad; I see we're here for a first look at things and according to the results of the blood work you are definitely harboring a little fugitive or two in there," the cheerful nurse added in an attempt at humor in deference to his uniform, but it fell flat anyway. "Okay, Jamie it is," she replied. "Based on the date of your last period you would be at approximately seven weeks gestation today so we'll perform a transvaginal ultrasound to get the clearest reading. Eddie, you can go ahead and hop up there on the exam table and cover up with the sheet once you change into this," she said as she eyed his wife's favorite yoga pants and handed her a gown. "Everything off below the waist. When you're done with that Dr. Geisner will meet you in her office to review the results. Christine will be your sonographer today; she'll be here in just a few minutes. Try to relax until then," she said with a knowing wink towards Jamie as she left the room.

"Transvaginal… sounds lovely," Eddie sighed as she got up to change behind the curtain. "Guess I have to get used to stuff like that. You're not the only one that has a right to invade that territory now."

"Ed, how can you be so calm?!" he demanded in utter amazement at her serene state now that they were alone.

"Because someone has to be around to raise Kaylin and all these babies after you stroke out!" she bit back, albeit quietly and with sympathy for his condition knowing that Jamie only got like this when his OCD tendencies were triggered and he felt things were beyond his control. Once presented with the facts he would soon formulate a plan and snap back to the normal easy-going man she knew and loved… even if there was a so-called litter on the way. "Jamie, you know you're overreacting… now please try to relax and enjoy this. I can't explain why, but I feel sure we can handle whatever they tell us. It's the first time we're gonna get to see our little munchkin... or 'kins," she added with a smirk as she came back in the room and he rolled his eyes. "This is like Christmas morning a gazillion times over!"

Indeed, the pair was captivated with the amazing sight of a little Reagan bean soon after Christine, the sonographer, arrived and quickly set about prepping Eddie and getting on with the scan, having been warned there was a potentially uptight and armed papa in the room. Jamie rolled his stool over to the side and the two were enthralled at the first glimpse of their unborn child as a single black dot and alien-looking blob of a creature came into view almost immediately.

"Oh my God," Eddie breathed. "So amazing... look at that, Jamie! It's our baby!" she whispered excitedly as they could already make out the head and arms. He was speechless for several moments and could not take his eyes away from the screen.

"It's… well, it's a real… already looks like… so soon..." he stuttered before swallowing hard. "Just one?"

"Well, it appears that way at first glance, but let's have a good look around in there just to make sure," Christine advised as she moved the probe and performed a thorough search while Eddie grimaced as she bore some cramp-like pain and cursed at him under her breath for his continued insistence that every small dot which appeared had to be investigated thoroughly.

"Um, what's that?" Jamie gulped as he spotted another similar structure flash by.

"Left ovary," the tech replied with a small smirk and shake of the head. "That one won't need a college fund or keep you up at night waiting for them to come home. Let me just do another sweep of the right side to see if anyone is hiding out over there," she advised as she remained completely focused on the screen. "Nope, no one else is home. Looks like a singleton here. I understand you were concerned about multiples. Do twins run in the family?"

"No, I guess not," Jamie replied with more than a little disappointment evident in his voice. Suddenly the thought of only one baby felt like a bit of a letdown as the sight of that little blob had forced a fierce feeling of paternal love and pride to wash over him, just as it did whenever he saw Kaylin. They were a family of four now and he would have welcomed any others in the same fashion, just as Eddie knew he would.

"Well, let's get back to numero uno and take some measurements," Christine advised as she skillfully brought the little alien back into view and began clicking. "We're measuring seven weeks, one day which is exactly right based on your calculations," she added. "Is this your first pregnancy?" she asked. "I apologize but I didn't get a chance to review your chart fully."

"Yes, but we have an adopted three-year-old daughter at home," Eddie explained.

"Oh how nice," Christine said as she continued her work. "I'm sure she'll love being a big sister. And here is the heartbeat… see that that little flashing blip right there... a solid 120 beats per minute is perfect at this stage." Eddie was beaming from ear to ear as she squeezed Jamie's hand, her own discomfort forgotten as the tech switched over to Doppler and the beautiful sound filled the room.

"Well, let's see if we can get some nice pictures for your baby album since we have a cooperative one here. At seven weeks a fetus's genitalia will also begin to develop but we won't be able reliably to determine sex until about the eighteenth to twentieth week so you'll have time to decide if you want to be surprised or not," she explained. "If you have a good imagination, you can see that the hands, feet, fingers and toes as well as nostrils have already begun to form, and there!" she clicked. "We have the eyes and mouth as well as the aforementioned cute little button nose. Internally some of the structures have also developed and are beginning to play important roles in the growth of the baby… the appendix, liver and pancreas are such organs, and the... kidneys..." she paused with just a hint of a very experienced and well-concealed frown as she made some notes that went unnoticed by the happy couple in the room with her. "Everything appears to be falling close to or within the normal range," she phrased carefully as she withdrew the wand and the screen went disappointingly blank once more. "We'll be able to do a much more detailed exam at approximately twelve weeks which will check important markers for developmental problems such as Down syndrome, for example. We'll also be measuring levels of amniotic fluid, as well as looking for any signs of gross anomalies, of course, but for now we are within the acceptable parameters."

"Ugh, will that one be internal too?" Eddie asked as she took her heels out of the metal stirrups and scooted herself back up on the bed.

"No," Christine answered. "From this point out unless there is a specific reason, all of your scans will be abdominal, but you do have to come loaded with a full bladder for that," she smiled as she turned to the desk and pulled a green bracelet with the practice's logo from the machine with a USB drive attached and handed it to Eddie. "Here are some photos for you to share with your family. Just bring this back to all of your appointments and we'll load shots and videos from each session on there for you. This is your paperwork. You can get changed and the nurse will be back in a few minutes to show you where to go to meet with the doctor in her office." She smiled and added before she left, "Your due date in case you were wondering is June 13th. Congratulations."

"See, Reagan," Eddie called out as she quickly went to slip her pants and shoes back on. "You had yourself worked into a frenzy all weekend for nothing. It's just one good old-fashioned plain healthy sort of human-looking baby like you wished for."

Jamie couldn't help but feel a little regret at his earlier angst now that there would only be one little Reagan addition coming in the spring, but he was still elated to hear everything else looked healthy. That definitely eased his mind, and he reached over and gave Eddie a quick kiss when she returned. "That was amazing," he smiled. "You know I love you… just sometimes I worry..."

"Too much," she finished for him in their normal bantering way.

They were still chatting happily about the ultrasound after their meeting in Dr. Geisner's office where she had greeted them with a warm smile and answered multitudes of new parent questions, leaving Eddie feeling comfortable with the fact that although it was unwelcome, the intense nausea she had been experiencing every afternoon was also likely normal for her own body and would hopefully pass with the advent of the second trimester. Jamie was flipping through the photos again on his phone while they made their way down to the cafeteria to retrieve his rookie Annabel, having sweet-talked the amused receptionist into downloading a few from the USB and emailing them to him so he could show them around the precinct and add one to his hat collection along with Joe's and a favorite shot of Eddie and Kaylin together.

Jamie grabbed Eddie's left hand as they were walking down the hall and brought it up so he could kiss her wedding ring. "You ready for this?" he nodded at the window of the waiting room as they passed. Four more anxious moms-to-be were in the seats.

"I think it's a little too late to ask that question," Eddie grinned. "I mean we haven't even had our two-month anniversary yet, Reagan, and we've already moved into a new house, adopted a toddler and are working on another."

"I guess I was always an overachiever," Jamie laughed. "Never a dull moment, right?... but I wouldn't have it any other way, Edit Katalin," he added quickly, and then paused to smile and share another kiss as they walked into the elevator alone. The doors closed, and they bided their time in blissful contemplation before arriving on the lower floor and exiting on the ding after it opened. The couple had just turned the corner before the cafeteria still holding hands when they ran directly into another Reagan as Linda was on shift in the ER and had just finished her own lunch break.

"Oh, I was hoping to see you two today!" she returned breathlessly at their happy faces. "I bumped into Annabel and she was thinking your appointment would be finished soon. So? How did it go? Are there…"

"Just one like you said," Eddie smiled as she held Jamie's arm while he pulled up his favorite shot of the baby's face and that aforementioned button nose and gave the device to his sister-in-law. "He swears it looks just like him, but I think we're a lot closer to ET at this point," she laughed.

"Wow, that's just amazing…" Linda trailed off as she dutifully admired the already much-loved little blob and those pangs of remorse were driven home hard once more. Ever since the wedding when Erin had planted that little seed about her and Danny making their own little girl she had desperately been trying to push those long-suppressed feelings away without success. It was a ridiculous notion though, they were done and past that point in their lives with two nearly grown boys and the debt from private school to show for it, still...

"It's our very first picture for the baby album," Eddie gushed with wonder evident in her voice without noticing the older woman's touch of melancholy. "I can't wait to go home and start that book! Just wait until the Grandpas see!" she enthused, eager to share the news with the rest of the family.

"I'm sure Frank and Henry will be strutting around like another proud papa is," Linda smiled as she gave Jamie a hug. "Congratulations you two; I'm so happy for you both! Now you better get in there and let Annabel know everything is good… she was worried her partner was wound a little too tight when you left her. I've gotta run and get back upstairs. Expect your brother to be convinced it's gonna look like him!" she forced a laugh and called out as she left before quickly rushing away and running to catch the empty elevator as the doors closed and a single tear rolled down her cheek when she turned around.


Aw, so poor Linda is feeling the pangs of her soon-to-be emptying nest while Eddie and Jamie are over the moon with the sight of their little single upcoming addition. Next in part two, Danny will arrive home, nearly prepared to reveal a surprise of his own, but he'll find out that something he thought was finally finished might just need a little more work after he and Linda have a serious heart-to-heart.

For Jamko lovers, have no fear, my heart and the majority of my writing is still with them, but this storyline between Danny and Linda will be touched on and actually set up an interesting conflict for the brothers and their wives in the next installment as they try to create a balance between their work, personal families and each other while Mason Malevsky turns his sights on them once more, so please bear with it either way. I do love to bring in the whole Reagan clan and their issues while still centering for the most part on Jamie and Eddie!