Hi lovely readers!
Thank you all so much for the reviews on the last chapter! It means so much! Since I posted the last chapter I have now reached over 300 reviews. I actually can't believe how lovely you all are and that you are still reviewing my writing. I love all the prompts that you send my way and it means a lot that you trust me with your ideas. There's no way I would have been able to come up with all of these prompts by myself so thank you so so much!
This prompt was requested by ThatAwkwardPotato, thank you so much for requesting, I loved writing this one for you. I hope it's okay.
Enjoy reading!
"I'm so sorry I'm late" Penny apologised, as she rushed into the restaurant, approaching the table where Amy and Bernadette were sitting. At almost twenty minutes late, she was feeling a little flustered and guilty for delaying their dinner and drinks. Ever since children had come into their lives, their traditional girls nights were now held in restaurants and bars where they could escape the manic of their family life and just relax and take a breath.
Currently, as the only child less member of the group, when Amy agreed to host, they would head over to the apartment that she shared with Sheldon and order take out and drink wine. However, a quiet apartment wouldn't be for very long as Amy was currently five months pregnant with her first child.
"It took a village to prize Lucas off of me, he's going through such a clingy stage at the moment" Penny explained as she lifted her bag over her head, messing up her hair in the process. Amy couldn't understand how her best friend still looked good, after running around all evening and dealing with a clingy ten month old she would have been excused for looking a little rough round the edges but no, here she was putting them all to shame. "He's been like it all day" Penny explained.
Truth be told Amy couldn't wait. Throughout the years she had heard the stories told by Bernadette and now more recently Penny about how hard parenting is. How you never sleep, how you never have time for yourself, how you can never shower or pee on your own. It may sound ridiculous and in time maybe she would moan about those things too but she really couldn't wait to be a parent, she wanted to experience all of those things and treasure every second.
Tentatively, Amy placed a hand upon her stomach, she loved feeling their daughter move underneath her palm, it really was one of the best feelings in the world. They had found out just a few weeks ago that they were expecting a little girl, she wanted to wait until the birth but Sheldon was desperate to know and now Amy wouldn't have it any other way.
"Oh I remember Halley being like that at that age. Michael just didn't care but I remember not being able to move from one room to the other without Halley screaming" Bernadette reminisced, it was hard to believe her daughter was now four years old.
"Anyway, let's not talk about kids tonight" Penny announced as she shrugged off her jacket and reached for her glass of wine. Amy was never a big drinker but right now she longed for a glass of wine. Conversation soon turned from children to their husbands and work. Before they knew it, hours had past, food had been eaten, plenty of wine had been drunk and the three of them had laughed more in the last few hours than they had in months.
"We were thinking of maybe going to Disney. I think Haley's at that age now where she would totally love it" Bernadette spoke as the conversation turned to vacations. Penny and her little family were heading away at the end of the week for a long weekend in San Francisco.
"Sheldon and I were talking about going away somewhere, you know before the baby becomes along" Amy explained.
"Like a baby moon?" Penny asked with a smile, Sheldon and Amy would never be the couple to coin such a thing as a baby moon but that's exactly what it was.
"Yeah, I guess so" Amy shrugged as she took a mouthful of cheesecake. She had recently been craving sweet things. Pregnancy did crazy things to you, she had realised that rather quickly. Prior to being pregnant she had craved foods but it was more of a want than a need. In the early stages of her pregnancy she had gone through a phase of dipping fries into milkshake and the need for them had been so strong it felt like it was a case of life or death.
"Where abouts?" Penny asked.
"I really like Italy" Amy smiled. "Although, I think Sheldon wants to stay in the country. He actually mentioned going to Texas. I told him spending a week with his mother wasn't a vacation," they had disagreed on so many potential destinations that Amy wondered whether they would eventually actually decide on somewhere and take a vacation.
"Well make the most of it before all the money you have goes into a college fund" Bernadette exclaimed.
"College fund? You're doing that already" Amy almost choked on her drink, the Wolowitz children were only four and three years old. She glanced at Penny for some reassurance but she didn't look phased at all. Did she already have a fund in place for Lucas?
"Yeah we've been doing it since they were babies. It really was my dad that made me do it. You know what he's like with finances, if it was down to Howie and I it would probably never get done" she explained with a smile.
Amy couldn't believe that something like that was already in place for someone so young but what she couldn't believe the most was that she and Sheldon hadn't even considered such a thing. Having watched both of her closest friends go through this she knew how organised you had to be. Bernadette had mentioned having to apply for day care whilst still pregnant.
She and Sheldon were the most organised people she knew, how could they have let something so important like their child's future slip them by. Sure, like any expectant parent they had been swept up in the excitement of it all but this was something that now needed to be discussed. Education to both of them was something of very high importance and it was almost inevitable that any child of theirs would go to college.
—
Amy had been pretty quiet since she returned from girls night. She hadn't been home for more than five minutes before she decided to take a bath. Baths had become her new favourite thing, with all the aches and pains that pregnancy brought she found the water incredibly soothing. As her bump bobbed just above the water, she also saw this as a little quiet time for just her and the baby, she would often talk to her daughter during these times but tonight something else was playing on her mind.
"How was girls night?" Sheldon asked, as Amy pulled back the duvet and climbed into bed beside him. If he was being honest, Sheldon didn't really care but he knew it was important to Amy that he asked about these kind of things.
"It was good" came her simple reply. Normally, she would divulge much more detail, filling Sheldon in on any marital problems, child problems or workplace gossip. He would never admit it but Sheldon quite enjoyed getting all the details from his wife.
"Is that it?" he asked, all Amy did was nod. Something was off. He couldn't quite place his finger on what it was but he now knew his wife well enough to know that something wasn't quite right. "They haven't been scaring you again with their childbirth stories?" he asked. That event occurred a few weeks ago when Amy returned home fairly traumatised from the stories that had been relayed to her.
"No, I'm just tired" she placed her hand on his shoulder and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. She didn't want to tell him that she had actually been in the bath Googling how much it costs to raise a child in California, how much it costs to send one to college. The amount was staggering, they were usually so logical, why hadn't they given this any thought before conceiving.
"I know something is wrong with you Amy" he had learnt her ways, could read her body language and facial expressions better than anyone. It had taken him several years but now he was quite the expert however, he knew better than to press the situation.
She sighed deeply, like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She felt like she did. Instead of turning to go to sleep, she stopped herself and instead turned to face her husband. His eyes were on her, trying to dissect what was wrong with her.
"Have you ever thought about how much this all actually costs?" she asked, "you know raising a child, Penny and Bernadette were talking about it over dinner and it just got me thinking and…" she spoke as she propped herself up on to her elbows, resting her head in her hands.
"And now you're worried?" he asked, wanting clarification that his thoughts were correct.
"A little. It's really expensive" she didn't want to let on yet how worried she was about all of this, how much she was internally freaking out. "They've already started college funds, I think even Penny has" she explained.
"We don't need to be doing that yet" Sheldon tried to reassure her but he could see the frantic look in her eyes and wasn't entirely sure whether it was actually working.
"I thought you'd jump at the chance to start a college fund" his reaction hadn't quite been what Amy expected.
The truth was Sheldon lived in constant fear of something going wrong, he often did but Amy's pregnancy had brought this to the forefront of his mind even more. Since Amy had been pregnant his love for her had reached new heights, he didn't know it was possible, it wasn't like he didn't love her before but watching her everyday caring for and growing their child really was an incredible thing to witness. Then there was their baby, his daughter, a baby girl that had his heart already, he never knew it was possible to love someone so much when you hadn't even met.
When he decided to secretly read up on pregnancy, birth and babies he thought he was trying to be helpful but he quickly found himself being drawn to all the things that could go wrong. All of the problems that pregnancy could bring, all of the complications that could arise during the labour and birth, he learnt quite quickly that every second counts.
What started as a little bit of light reading to educate himself, suddenly consumed all of his thoughts and now all he was concerned about was making sure that Amy had a healthy pregnancy and both she and their daughter made it through everything safely. College funds really could wait, until she was finally here at least. Of course he hadn't revealed any of this to his wife, he didn't need her to worry any more than she probably was and she could certainly do without any added stress piled on by him.
"Well it is definitely something we need to think about but I would rather just wait until she's here" he saw the look on Amy's face, she was still worrying about all of this. "Let that just be our focus for now okay, getting her here safely, then you can start all the college funds you wish" he smiled before pecking her lips.
—
When Sheldon returned home from work the next day, the sight that greeted him was one that he did not expect to see. Sitting it at the kitchen table with her laptop open, a notepad with fade blue scribbles on it to the left and a calculator to the right was Amy deep in thought. She was so deep in thought, she hadn't even noticed her husband enter their apartment. He watched her for a while, it was one of his favourite things to do, her eyebrows were knitted together as she focused, her glasses were a little further down her nose and every so often she would sigh and nibble on the end of the pen. Sheldon had to stop himself from pointing out that if she continued to chew the pen like that eventually her mouth would be filled with ink.
"Hello" he spoke after a while, he had been holding out waiting for her to notice him. He watched her visibly jump, her whole body jolting in the wooden chair.
"Oh my god" she placed her hand to her heart. "You made me jump, how long have you been stood there?" she asked.
"Not too long" Sheldon shrugged. As he began to make his way over to her, he saw that scribbles on her notebook were actually numbers. Figures that had been haphazardly jotted down. He didn't need to ask, he knew instantly what she was doing. "Amy" he sighed, "I thought we talked about this last night," he had already chastised Leonard and Howard at work and told them to tell their wives to be careful what they discussed in front of Amy.
"I know, I know" she waved her pen around. "But I had some time and just got thinking. I'm not saying we need to save right now but when we do something has to give," she explained. She had spent her afternoon going through their finances, looking at how much they spent a month and seeing if anything that wasn't essential could be moved around.
Sheldon pulled out a chair and sat down beside her, he picked up the notepad, his eyes scanning over the amounts. She really had thought of everything however, his eye were drawn to one thing and one thing in particular. Amongst the list of their monthly spendings was a big red circle, a big red circle that within it contained his monthly comic book allowance.
"Why is this circled?" he asked. Looking up at his wife, he saw her eyes shift, she could no longer look at him and he saw her visibly gulp.
"Well because that…that is the only thing we can give up" she hesitated, until now comic books were Sheldon's baby, they were his pride and joy. She did feel guilty for even suggesting that he stop buying them but this was for their child. It seemed to be the only way.
"But that's my comic book allowance" he argued, his lips pouting. He couldn't believe she would even think about taking that away from him.
"That's the only thing we can shift on" Amy pointed out, her finger tapping against the list. "You would rather go without food and a water" she looked at him, her head titled to the side. Even though, he knew that maybe she was right, he was still going to put up a fight for his comic books.
"No, but they're my comic books" it was all he could say, she knew how much this meant to him.
"And this is your child we're talking about. I think we both know which one is more important" she was impossible to argue with, she was always right and maybe, even though he hated to admit it, she had a point.
"But I told you that I wanted to wait until she was here before we started anything" that worry of something going wrong was still running around his mind.
"And we will" she reassured him, taking the notebook from him before he made any changes that she didn't authorise. "But as soon as she's here, the comic books are the first to go" she continued to scribble some notes down.
"I can't believe your doing this" he sighed and huffed like a toddler and slouched in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.
"It's for our children" Amy told him as she closed the lid of her laptop and rose to her feet, heading towards the kitchen for coffee.
"Child, Amy. We're only having one" even in an argument, he still had to correct her.
"Not necessarily. What if we go on to have more children? That would equal more college funds" she explained. She wasn't sure how many children they would have but every little detail needed to be thought about.
"I still don't think this is fair" he sighed loudly again and folded his arms again for dramatic effect. Amy looked over at him from where she stood in the kitchen and smiled to herself. Surely, raising a child couldn't be harder than dealing with a sulky Sheldon, in a funny way it just made her love him more.
"Hey" she suddenly appeared behind me, placing her hands upon his shoulders. "She'll be worth it."
Thank you all so much for reading. As always your reviews are always welcome and so appreciative. I love hearing your thoughts.
Stay safe
Lots of love