Pregnant?
The word kept replaying in her head as Sam sat in her car in the doctors' office's parking lot.
She looked down at the small ultrasound picture in her hand. There is was…her and Freddie's new child.
She smiled and a tear fell from her eye onto the picture.
"Stupid hormones," Sam mumbled to herself, though still beaming.
She couldn't believe this; she had woken up this morning dreading coming to the doctors and she had just left with this amazing news.
I can't wait to tell Freddie, she thought, placing a hand on her stomach.
….
When Sam walked into the house a short while later, she could hear Freddie and the girls in the kitchen.
"Heather, please clean off the table!" Freddie said as he busily stirred a pot of spaghetti on the stove with one hand while scrolling along his laptop looking at a chart for work with the other. "Lauren set the table!"
"We playing, daddy!" Heather said, looking up from the dolls she was playing with her sister with.
"Well dinner's in ten minutes," Freddie said firmly. "So you'll have to take a break from playing."
"Mommy!" Heather exclaimed as Sam entered the kitchen. She ran over to her mother and Sam scooped her up.
"Hey, sweetie," Sam grinned. "Is that a new doll?"
Heather nodded. "She catches monsters."
"Sounds like a fun job," Sam chuckled. "Now listen to daddy and clean your toys up."
"Hey," Freddie said to his wife as she stepped over to kiss him. "Listen, you mind finishing up the spaghetti? I have an email I need to send into work that my boss needs to read in the next ten minutes."
"Sure," Sam nodded.
As Freddie grabbed his laptop and rushed out of the room, Sam looked over at Lauren as she took the plates from the cabinets.
"So how was school?" Sam asked.
"Good," Lauren replied. She paused for a moment. "Um, Scott asked me if I wanted to go to the movies on Friday."
"Really?" Sam grinned. "Nice. Is it just going to be the two of you this time?"
"Uh-huh," Lauren nodded, her cheeks turning slightly red. "And-And he's been texting me everyday since the mall. And today when I saw him before school he told me he thought I was-I was really pretty."
"What? Lauren, that's great!" Sam said. "It sounds like he really likes you."
"I know, I-I think he does," Lauren said excitedly. "I can't believe this…I'm finally on the brink of my first boyfriend!"
"Good stuff, kid," Sam chuckled.
"You don't think my dad will mind, do you?" Lauren asked.
"Laure, your dad's always gonna mind you going out with boys," Sam said. "In case you haven't realized yet, he's a bit overprotective of you girls. But he's working on it."
…
"What a day," Freddie sighed, collapsing into bed later that evening.
The couple had just finished putting Heather to sleep, a task that had taken much longer than usual. It seemed the two-year old was making up for all the energy she hadn't used when she had the flu.
"Aw, rough day as a house husband?" Sam smirked.
"Ha, ha," Freddie said dryly. "I took Heather to the toy store today and some genius had the idea of giving out free samples of candy there. She ate sixteen pieces; do you know the sugar rush I had to deal with? And then Lauren's cheer practice ran late today so I was sitting outside the school for half-an-hour, and then the car almost died on me as I was pulling onto the street so I'm gonna have to take it in tomorrow."
Sam laid down next to Freddie and put an arm around him. "Sorry, baby."
"Eh, it's part of the job," Freddie chuckled. "Oh, anyway, I forgot to ask, how was the doctors? I mean you did go, right?"
Sam smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I went."
"And?" Freddie said. "Did he figure out what's wrong or give you any of those antibiotics like Heather got?"
Sam grabbed her bag from the foot of the bed and pulled out a small pill bottle.
"No, he didn't give me any of those," she said. "But he gave me a prescription for these."
"What are these?" Freddie frowned, looking at the bottle. "Hey, these are those prenatal vitamins that you took when you were pregnant with Heather. But why would-"
He slowly looked up at his wife, his eyes widening. "No…you're not-Are you-"
Sam reached back into her bag and pulled out the ultrasound picture.
"He also gave me this."
Freddie took the picture and stared down at it.
"Oh my God…" he whispered. "Oh my God, are-are you serious? Are we-"
"We're going to have another baby," Sam nodded.
Freddie's face broke out into the biggest smile Sam had even seen and he wasted no time throwing his arms around her and kissing her silly.
"We're going to have a baby! We're going to have a-"
"Shh!" Sam told him, grinning. "You're gonna wake up the whole neighborhood!"
"I don't believe this," Freddie said, getting to his feet. "This is fantastic! This is incredible! This is-"
"-A huge shock," Sam added.
"Well yeah," Freddie agreed. "I mean we weren't even trying…But-But that doesn't matter! We're going to have a baby!"
"I know," Sam nodded, amused at her husband's reaction.
"I guess we should've known, actually," Freddie said. "I mean the morning sickness was a giant sign."
"Guess we just didn't connect the dots," Sam commented. "To be fair we had a lot on our minds the last few days."
"I just-Come here," Freddie said, wrapping his arms around her again. He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. "I love you," he whispered. "So much."
"I love you too," Sam replied.
…..
"A family tree is supposed to be something I can throw together in the last minute," Lauren mumbled as she sat at the kitchen table the next afternoon after school. "It's supposed to be just me connecting lines to people and gluing pictures to cardboard. But of course Ms. Pompel has to go and make this thing practically a senior thesis. I've been working on this for a whole week and I'm not even halfway done yet!"
"Well it looks great, honey," Freddie said as him and Sam looked at her work.
"That me!" Heather said happily, pointing to her picture on the project.
"That's right, that's you," Sam nodded, smiling down at her daughter in her arms.
"Actually, Laure," Freddie said, glancing at the picture of Heather, which was connected up to the pictures of Sam and Freddie. "There is something you need to fix with this layout."
"Huh?" Lauren frowned. "No there isn't. I have everybody connected exactly like they should be!"
"True," Sam nodded. "But you're still missing something."
"What?"
"You're gonna need to draw another line here," Freddie said, pointing to a blank space by Heather's picture.
"Um, how come?" Lauren asked. "That's where the children you and Sam have together go. You guys just have Heather so no one else needs to-wait…"
The teen looked from Sam to Freddie, slowly catching on. "Are you saying…no way!"
She jumped up out of her seat. "Is this for real?"
"It is," Freddie nodded, putting an arm around Sam.
"Oh my God!" Lauren squealed, hugging Sam and her father. "This is amazing! I can't believe this, you guys!"
"What?" Heather asked, confused.
"Heather," Sam said. "We have some really exciting news for you, sweetie."
"You're going to be a big sister," Freddie told her.
"How?" Heather asked.
Freddie laughed. "Your mommy and I are going to have another baby."
"Baby?" Heather gasped. "I want baby! Where baby?"
"Well you're not going to get to see the baby for awhile," Sam explained. "It's growing inside of me right now."
"In you?" Heather asked, amazed.
"Uh-huh," Sam nodded, putting a hand on her stomach. "Right here. Right were you grew."
"Baby there?"
"That's right," Freddie nodded. "That's where your baby brother or sister is."
Heather reached down and put her hand on Sam's on her stomach.
"Hi baby!" Heather said loudly. "I love you!"