Saturday 13th June 2015

At 28 weeks, Sam was finding it increasingly difficult to sleep for long periods of time, and she almost never slept through the night without having to get up and go to the toilet, or stretch her legs and go for a walk, or get comfortable again. And so she had been getting up early because she could never get back to sleep when she woke around 6am even though it was a Saturday. Tom had gotten out of bed to use the toilet when he reentered the bedroom in his boxers to find Sam sitting up on the edge of the bed in shorts and a vest. She stood up slightly, but she mumbled something before she fell back onto the bed and clutched her forehead.

"Hey? Sam, you okay?" Tom asked worriedly as he dived around the room and knelt down in front of her.

"Yeah... I just... I got up to fast... Gimme a minute." She panted whilst she took long slow breaths to combat the dizziness.

"Okay, take all the time you need." Tom said softly.

"Can you... Can you get me some water please?" Sam croaked.

"Yeah sure, just don't try and stand up before I get back." He said sternly as he jumped up and jogged to the kitchen. He poured her a glass of ice cold water from the fridge and carried it through where thankfully, Sam was still sitting on the edge of the bed. "There you go." He said softly as he handed it to her.

"Thanks." Sam mumbled before she took a few sips. "I'd better get up."

"Right now stand up nice and slowly. That's it. You feeling alright? Yeah? Just take it slower. There's no rush." Tom said reassuringly as he helped her to her feet.

"Big day today." Sam stated.

"What? Why have you got an appointment?" Tom asked confusedly.

"No. It's delivery day of the stuff we ordered from mothercare." Sam stated. "Don't tell me you forgot." Sam moaned. "You're supposed to help me move all of our things into boxes under the bed and then dismantle the chest of drawers and get everything read."

"I will, I will. We've got plenty of time. When are the delivery men coming?"

"How can you say we've got plenty of time when you don't even know what time they're coming?" Sam laughed. "We've got a delivery slot of between 10am and 11am. And don't forget that we said we'd speak about moving to a bigger place." She added.

"I know, stop panicking we've got all day." Tom said reassuringly. "Right, I hadn't anticipated getting up this early on a Saturday morning but seeing as we've got so much to do, I suppose the first thing on the agenda is breakfast. What would you like?" He asked.

Suddenly Sam's face lit up and she grabbed Tom's hand and placed it on the top of her bump. At 28 weeks gone, she was getting pretty big and a waddle was hard to avoid but it would all be worth it in the end. And to Tom, it was worth it when he felt his son kick against his hand through his wife's skin.

"Are you practicing your penalties with mummy'a bladder in there?" Tom smiled as he placed both hands on her bump to wait for any more kicks.

"More like keppy uppies with my intestines." Sam retorted as her internal organs had been getting more and more compacted as the weeks went by resulting in more and more problems for her.

"I've been meaning to ask actually..." Tom admitted. "Don't forget I'm a doctor so I've heard it all before. What are your bowel movements like?" He asked softly as he had wondered if she suffered from the common pregnancy problem of constipation and he knew that she probably wouldn't be embarrassed by it, but she would probably try to deal with it herself.

"Fine." Sam replied briefly as she pulled her thin grey dressing gown on and made her way into the kitchen with Tom in tow.

"'Fine'? And how often is 'fine'?" Tom asked as he put Shadow's breakfast of dry dog food down and she eagerly began munching away in her bowl on the floor whilst Sam poured herself a glass of water and got her bottle of prenatal vitamins out from the medicine cabinet.

"Twice a day." Sam stated bluntly before she swallowed a tablet, along with a sip of water.

"Twice?" Tom questioned.

"Yeah. There's stool softeners in these vitamins, plus I'm eating more, drinking more and there's less room in my bowels so I go more frequently but in smaller quantities." Sam explained clinically and Tom picked up the bottle of prenatal vitamins to check the ingredients before he put the bottle back in the cupboard.

"Alright, thanks for telling me." Tom said gratefully before he pecked her on the forehead. "So c'mon, you didn't answer my question: what do you want for breakfast?"

Despite the fact that Sam wanted to have a discussion about them moving into a bigger house, they had already agreed that they weren't going to move until a few months after the baby was born, at the earliest. And so they were in the midst of preparing their bedroom so that they would be ready for a new arrival in just a few months time. Before, they had had a double bed, two bedside cabinets, two single wardrobes and a large chest of draws that they shared however they needed to make the bedroom for three rather than two son they were making adjustments. They had ordered the majority of he hat they would need for the new baby from Mothercare and it was going to be delivered and they had placed several plastic storage boxes under the bed so that they made the most of what room that they had.

"When the delivery gets here, I don't want you carrying anything heavy okay?" Tom said sternly as he was taking apart one of the wardrobes because Tom was going to share with Sam and most of his trousers could go in the boxes under the bed.

"I won't." Sam huffed.

"Right." Tom heaved the last of the three draws that were in the bottom of his wardrobe and he placed it onto the bed. It was full of his socks and pants. "Did you say you've cleared out a draw for me?" Tom asked as he went to open Sam's wardrobe but she jumped up and put her hand on his to stop him from opening the top draw.

"Wait, that's my draw." Sam said sternly as he eyes shifted left to right between his eyes.

"Why, what have you got to hide?" Tom chuckled but he stopped once he'd realised that she genuinely didn't want him looking in there.

"Your draw is the bottom draw." Sam said to change the subject.

"Okay." Tom nodded as he opened the draw closest to the ground and he began moving his socks and underwear into the spare draw.

"Promise me you won't go in my draw." Sam ordered.

"I promise." Tom smiled, though it had only made him want to see what was in there more. Maybe she had a secret stash of something that she was craving in there, or maybe she had a birthday present for him in there, after all he was going to be 31 next month.

Sam had gotten a little out of breath so once they had put the beautiful wooden cot together and positioned it by the wall on Sam's side of the bed, Tom tucked Sam up in bed and encouraged her to take a nap because she had been working hard with constructing the damn piece of furniture and she had also spent time filling up the chest of drawers with baby clothes, nappies and other things that they had bought, leaving Tom to finish off. It had taken over an hour without Sam's help, but he had finally finished the bedroom. With the double bed where it always was, and cot and changing table against the wall, the wardrobe in the corner and the chest of draws next to it and Sam's birth bag by the door, they were ready for the new arrival.

Tom glanced behind him in the silent room and saw Sam lying in bed and she appeared to have fallen in a deep sleep as the duvet slowly rose and fell with every breath. It was then that Tom remembered about the unknown draw and he thought for a few moments, before he decided that if he opened it whilst Sam was asleep, she'd never know and there'd be no harm done. So he silently opened the wardrobe door, and then slowly pulled the top draw out that was underneath the hanging clothes. It's contents included Sam's bras and underwear as expected, but there was also some paracetamol, Gaviscon, panty liners, breast pads, bio oil (for stretch marks) and gel packs (used for burns or fevers). He was shocked because as far as he knew, she had been having a fairly easy pregnancy. But it turned out she hadn't been being truthful with him about everything. Assuming that she used what she had in that draw, she had probably experienced heart burn, headaches, leaking breasts and hot flushes and she had never said one word about those to him.

"Get out." He heard and he jumped out of his skin as he turned around to see Sam standing up next to the bed - she must've gotten up silently.

"Sam I-"

"Get out of here right now. I told you that's my draw and you promised me that you wouldn't go in there so you just have to open it don't you? I trusted you and then you go and do this. How am I supposed to trust you that you haven't been sleeping with someone else?"

"What? Sam I'd never-"

"Well I can't understand how you've been fine with having sex like once a month, if that." Sam retorted.

'I'm fine with it because my love for you isn't based on us having sex, I love you for who you are not what we do in bed." Tom stated.

"Did you not hear me? I said get out!" Sam shouted as she left the bedroom and Tom followed cautiously behind her, only his heart dropped when he realised that she opened the front door and looked back at him - she didn't just want him to leave the room, she wanted him out of the apartment. "Out." She said firmly.

"I'm sorry." He apologised before he grabbed his keys from the side and he left as Sam slammed the door behind him.

What had she done? She was being so moody and all he had done was open a draw - heck of it was the other way around, Sam probably would've let curiosity get the better of her too. But she had chucked her own husband out of his own home. What kind of a wife did that? Apparently a horrible, grouchy, stupid woman Sam thought as she slid down the wall and sat on the floor in the hallway, just waiting for Tom to return.

Quickly, Sam decided that she could fix it if she tried, so she heaved herself onto her feet and opened the front door, only to see that Tom's car had just pulled out of their quiet road, onto the main road and out of sight; he had really gone. She grabbed her phone out of her pocket and dialled his mobile, but after hearing the smallest snippets of a dialling tone, it went to voicemail - she assumed that he had hung up on her so she went and opened a new message to send to him. 'Tom I'm sorry, please can we just talk?' She then sat back down in the hallway and she waited for hours into the late night hoping that Tom would come back.

Sunday 14th June 2015, 9am

Tom was sat on a park bench in the local park where Sam usually walked Shadow and he had been waiting for almost an hour, just hoping that Sam would show up and he could speak to her, because his phone had ran out of charge and he hadn't heard from her since she'd chucked him out. He was just worried that if he went back to their home, she might not have calmed down yet so he really needed to call her. But how could he without his phone to use?

Suddenly, it clicked; he had a charger in his car that connected to the cigarette lighter so Tom jumped up and strolled over to his car before he plugged his iPhone into the charger and waited. He switched his phone on, and once his phone had finished loading, he realised that he had 11 missed calls, and 8 new text messages; Sam had been trying to contact him so maybe she had calmed down after all.

'Tom I'm sorry, please can we just talk?' - 5:23pm

'Please don't ignore me, I love you and I'm really sorry.' - 5:23pm

'Tom I miss you, please come home.' - 7:44pm

'I shouldn't have accused you of cheating on me, I was being a stupid cow. Please just text back so I know that you're safe.' - 11:20pm

'Tom I feel awful about what I did and I know I'm a horrible wife but I love you. Doesn't that account for anything?' - 3:01am

'Im gonna be an awful Mum Tom, I need you to give your son the childhood that neither of us had.' - 4:35am

'I'm in hospital so if you're really gonna leave me, now's your chance to get your stuff from my apartment.' - 8:07am

'And if you're divorcing me, please don't take Shadow away from me and just get the whole thing over and done with; I don't want to be fighting for months it won't be good for my son.' - 8:08am

Tom's heart broke as he began to read the messages, and clearly, her hormones had gone haywire of the several hours that he had been gone for, only when he got to the second to last text that had been sent just over hour ago, he froze. Sam was in hospital. Why was she in hospital? She didn't have a shift because it was a Sunday morning so that could only mean that something had gone wrong with the baby. Maybe it had been the stress that he had caused. No, she couldn't have gone into early labour could she? She was only 28 weeks, their baby wasn't ready to come in to the world so he quickly dialled her number only it went straight to voicemail. He quickly started the engine, shoved the gearstick into reverse and pulled out to go straight to the hospital.

Tom burst out of the stairwell and sprinted to the maternity desk where thankfully there wasn't a queue.

"Is Sam Kent here?" Tom demanded.

"Sorry sir, I can't give out information about our patients." The receptionist said politely.

"It's Tom isn't it?" A female behind the receptionist queried and Tom looked up to see a familiar woman.

"Yeah um... Oh you're Sandra aren't you? You did our 12 week scan." Tom thankfully remembered her name.

"Yes and it's good to see you again, but Emily is right, we can't tell you the dates of Sam's appointments because it's protocol and patient confidentiality I'm afraid." She apologised.

"Wait. Appointments." Tom muttered to himself. "Is there a 28 week appointment? Do women normally have an appointment at 28 weeks?" Tom demanded. He was forever forgetting Sam's appointments and he always ended up remembering when Sam was literally about to walk out of the door and Tom would have to rush to join her.

"I can tell you that they do, yes." Sandra nodded as she picked up a patients file. "Sorry but I've got to get on.

Tom stood there and as he caught his breath back from running up the stairs, his heart began to stop pounding too as he began to remember Sam saying something about an appointment a couple of days ago - his wife wasn't in labour. Then he thought he was imagining things when he saw Sam come out of a consult room and she took her phone out of her bag, presumably to turn it on. Just as she looked up, she let out a sigh of relief because she had been worried about him all night.

"Tom?" Sam said innocently.

"Hey." Was all Tom could think to reply as he was too busy noticing the tired appearance of his wife. She had dark bags under her eyes, her hair was tied back in a messy bun and she looked like she hadn't even bothered to have a shower as he hair looked a little greasy.

"Why didn't you reply to any of my texts or answer my calls? I've been worried sick." Sam grumbled.

"Because my phone ran out of charge and I only realised about ten minutes ago that I could charge it with the cigarette lighter in the car which is why I raced here." He explained. "Look I'm sorry for going in that draw, and don't you dare call yourself a 'terrible wife' or a 'bad mum' because you're neither. And of course I don't want a divorce, why on earth would anyone want to divorce you? Unless their name is Dylan and they prefer the company of animals to humans." Tom retorted. "So am I forgiven?" He asked as he took her hand in his.

"I should be the one asking for forgiveness, I chucked you out and I had no right to do that." Sam stated.

"Well then let's both move on from this, go home and relax. And I think you could do with a little nap." He added.

"Oh so you're saying I look tired now are you?" Sam raised an eyebrow.

"No, I'm saying that seeing as some of your texts were sent at three or four o'clock in the morning, I'm assuming that you didn't get a very good sleep." Tom said cleverly as they continued to hold hands whilst they made their way to the lift. "That reminds me, how did your appointment go?" Tom asked curiously.

"The usual pee in a pot, blood pressure and talk about a lot of rubbish that I already know." Sam stated as the lift doors closed and they headed home.

Coming up: Sam and Tom discuss baby names but one of them is certainly more enthusiastic than the other.

Thanks for reading, please review :)