New chapter yay.
"Do you want to know the gender?"
"Yep."
"Alright. It looks like you're having a baby girl. Congratulations."
A girl. The baby gave a few gentle kicks as she found it deeply offensive that her parents had discovered her gender. She wasn't due for four more months, yet it was already evident that she was an impatient little one.
Later that night Blaise found herself sitting on the couch, looking at the ultrasound image of their daughter that the doctor had given to them.
"We should probably start talking about names soon," Jeremy suggested as he sat down beside her.
"Yeah. Whatever we choose, she's stuck with it. We don't want to give her some god awful name that'll torture her."
"No pressure at all..."
"Nope!"
CoD-CoD-CoD
Blaise was practically bombarded by Amy and Natara the next morning at work.
"Is the baby a boy or girl?" Amy squealed.
"We're dying to know!" Natara exclaimed.
"Hold your horses. Can I get through the door first?" Her coworkers stepped aside to allow her to reach her desk.
Kai bounded into the room. "Finally! The anticipation is over! Spill the beans so everyone can pay me when I win the bet!"
"Kai, you're never going to win a bet here. Get over it," Mal retorted.
Suddenly all of their coworkers seemed to be gathering around Blaise's desk as if anticipating the announcement of a groundbreaking revolution.
"Sheesh... crowded, much? The baby's a girl." Blaise watched as a handful of their coworkers scowled and pulled money out of their pockets, exchanging it with other victorious coworkers who had clearly bet that the baby was a girl. Once the money had been paid, everyone but Mal, Natara, and Kai returned to their duties.
"Ha! Mal lost a bet!" Kai announced. "Pay up, Malligator! Baby Bird's a girl!"
"You didn't even bet that the baby would be a girl!" Mal scowled.
"Kai, if you didn't bet on boy or girl, what in the hell did you bet?" Blaise demanded.
Kai's eyes narrowed as he retreated backwards out of the room towards the lab. "You don't need to know," he whispered in what he must have assumed to be a threatening tone of voice.
Blaise turned to Mal. "What did he bet?"
Mal frowned. "You probably don't want to know. Screw that, you really don't want to know. Really."
CoD-CoD-CoD
A couple of days passed before the SFPD precinct resembled a baby goods store. Streamers were strung here and there, with a large shiny banner declaring, "It's a girl!" Balloons floated about the room and confetti had been sprinkled on the desks. Several gifts and a cake perched on top of Blaise's desk.
It had taken a lot of begging on Natara and Amy's part, but they had talked Anders into reluctantly allowing them to use the precinct as the location for a surprise baby shower.
"She's coming!" Amy whispered. "Places, everyone!"
When Blaise entered the precinct, the lights flipped on to reveal a room decorated in the largest variety of pastel colors possible.
"Holy..." She had expected to see a large stack of case files stacked on her desk, not gifts and a cake. The precinct looked more like a balloon factory than the SFPD bullpen.
"Surprised?" Natara asked.
"Yeah... I was told I had paper work to do. This looks way more fun." Blaise stood near her desk. "That's a lot of presents."
"Yeah... we kind of got carried away..." Amy admitted. "But we had so much fun shopping for baby clothes!"
Fortunately there weren't too many guests. Natara, Amy, Maria, Anna Willis, and a couple of other female officers.
"How did you even get Lieutenant Grouchypuss to let you do this?" Blaise dipped her finger into the icing on the cake and tasted it.
Natara shrugged. "It wasn't easy. But we managed to talk him into it."
Gifts came first. Blaise received numerous baby outfits in various sizes, including onesies and colorful dresses and pajamas printed with animals.
After all the presents had been opened, Blaise counted at least six packages of diapers, seventeen bottles, nine bibs, ten pacifiers, six rattles, and enough stuffed toys to open a Toys R Us.
"Well, I should have enough diapers for the first six months," she noted.
"Probably the first two weeks," Maria corrected. "You'll be surprised when you see how quickly you'll run out."
"Well, that's a comfort." Blaise set the last of the gifts aside. "Thanks, guys."
"Let's play a game!" Amy exclaimed.
"We aren't playing that stupid game where you steal safety pins from people if they cross their legs, are we?"
"No. We were, but Kai took the pins," Natara responded. "But we set up other stuff!" She gestured towards a brightly illustrated baby game poster tacked to one of the walls.
"I'm loving the mixed decor," Blaise commented. It was quite amusing to see a poster of a cartoon baby next to a sign listing wanted criminals.
Natara picked up a blind fold and handed Blaise a sticky paper diaper. "Okay, try to get this as close as possible."
"With a blind fold? Really? How does that even work?" Blaise questioned as Natara blindfolded her.
The diaper sticker managed to find itself on the head of one of the criminals in the wanted poster adjacent to the baby one. Blaise shrugged as she peeled off the blind fold.
None of the decorative diapers were stuck onto their target. The closest was Amy's, which she had placed above the cartoon baby's backside.
With the exception of Anders sticking his head out of his office door to yap about the laughter and noise every half hour, the baby shower passed with little commotion, which was certainly saying something, considering the fact that it took place in a police office precinct.
After the gifts had been transported back to Blaise's apartment that evening, she and Jeremy drove to a restaurant.
"So, were you surprised?"
"You knew about the baby shower?"
"I've known for two weeks."
Blaise punched his arm lightly. "And you didn't tell me? Jerk!" she joked.
Jeremy grinned in amusement and opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by the metallic sound of another vehicle colliding into their own.
Gasp. Y'all need to review now because I want you lovely readers to suggest names for the baby! Thanks!