Thursday, March 31, 2022- 12 weeks

"Amy?" I call out, entering our bedroom. The room is empty, but the bathroom door is open and the light is on. I cross the room to the bathroom and find Amy standing in front of the mirror with her shirt raised, exposing her abdomen. "Oh, I thought you were brushing your teeth. What are you doing?"

She spins around, looking at me, then down at her stomach. "Can you tell? I think I'm starting to show."

"Maybe a little." I step toward her, placing my hands on her hips and pulling her close. "But only because I know what I'm looking for. Are you ready to go? Your appointment with Doctor Finn is in half an hour and it takes twenty minutes to get there."

"Okay." She pulls her shirt down, smoothing it over her barely noticeable bump. I lead the way to the back door, which Amy locks behind us.

Neither of us says much until we're halfway to the doctor's office. I look at Amy as she slows the car approaching a stoplight. "Do you think Doctor Finn will say everything is fine and you can start seeing your regular doctor? It's going to be weird seeing someone else after Doctor Finn saw you for so long."

"I feel like everything is fine, but who knows what the ultrasound will say today. If everything is normal, it will be weird to not see Doctor Finn anymore, but that means he can help someone else the way he's been helping us. If I am able to go back to my regular doctor, we'll have to go back to see Doctor Finn after the baby is born. You've seen the pictures in the hallway of all the families he's helped." Amy glances in my direction, giving me a smile, which I return. A family picture. That's something I hadn't considered would be something we have to do after the baby is born. Amy and I have only had professional photos taken of us three times in our relationship: the prom on the roof, our wedding, and at the Nobel ceremony. I'm not a fan of being photographed, but I guess that falls into the category of things I don't enjoy, but do for my family.

The afternoon felt like it was taking forever at work after I got a delivery notification. It was finally time to leave and I raced across campus to Amy's lab. I don't run, but I was moving briskly to get there as quickly as possible. I think Amy could tell I was anxious to get home, but didn't question why. I immediately went to the front door to collect the mail upon our arrival home. There are a few envelopes in the mailbox, but what I'm actually looking for is in the center of the front porch.

"What's that?" Amy notices the package I'm clutching.

I hold the box out to her. "I got you something." I shrug my shoulders, "I got us something. Howard and Bernadette got one when she was pregnant with Halley. I thought you would like one, too." Amy apprehensively accepts the gift. She shakes it back and forth in her hands, walking away from me. "Where are you going? Aren't you going to open it?"

I follow her into the kitchen, where she opens three drawers before pulling out a pair of scissors. She uses them to slice through the tape on the box. Extracting the contents of the package and turning them over in her hand, she questions me, "What is this?"

"It's so we can hear the baby's heartbeat anytime we want. I thought since we won't be having doctor appointments every three weeks now, we might not want to wait that long to hear it," I explain.

Amy drops the box on the table in the breakfast nook and hugs me. "It's perfect. Thank you. Let's make dinner, then we can try using it before we go to bed." This woman knows exactly what I want to hear.

We prepare a quick dinner before settling on the couch with the heart doppler. Amy and I read the instructions together and she lounges back against the pillows, lifting her shirt and unbuttoning her slacks. "Do you need help?" she asks after I'd been fiddling with the machine for several minutes.

"I think I've just about got it." I try the power switch one more time and the screen finally lights up. I pass the doppler wand to Amy while keeping the main part in my hand. She passes the wand over her lower abdomen several times until a quiet whooshing comes from the machine in my hand. "Is that it? It sounds different from when we heard it at Doctor Finn's office."

Amy reaches over to turn up the volume in my hand. "I'm sure it's because the machine at the doctor's office is better than what you can order from Amazon." She removes the wand from her stomach and takes the machine from my hands, setting the device on the coffee table in front of us. "This is a very thoughtful gift, Sheldon, but maybe we don't use it all the time."

"What?" Amy sits up, pulls her shirt down again, closes the distance between us, and puts her arm around me. I find myself sliding down the couch until I could rest my head against her shoulder.

"I don't want us to drive ourselves crazy if we use it and think it sounds different from what we've been hearing at the doctor's office."

I'm quiet for a moment, processing what my wife is saying. "Do you want me to return it? I only ordered it because Howard talked about using theirs when Bernadette was pregnant and thought you would like one."

I feel Amy nod against me. "If you don't mind."

"I thought it would help us know the baby is okay between your appointments. I'm so scared something is going to happen and there's going to be nothing we can do," I quietly admit what I've been feeling since we started trying to start a family.

"Oh, Sheldon," she sighs and puts her other arm around me, pulling me close to her. "I'm scared, too, but I think every expectant parent is. Bernadette and Penny used to talk about it all the time. It comes with being a parent."

I snake my arms around Amy, so we're holding each other. "Everything was okay this morning. Your first trimester is over next week. Can we tell our friends?"

"I have an idea for the perfect way to tell them. They'll never see it coming, but I'm going to need your help," Amy's excitement is contagious. "But we should tell our parents first. I'll never hear the end of it if my mother finds out she was the last to learn she's going to be a grandmother. I'm sure your mother will be thrilled."

"I can't wait for the world to know we're going to be parents."