Enceinte

Louisa's hands flew to her mouth to cover it as she whispered, "Pregnant?"

"Seems so," Martin replied. He stared at his desk calendar for a few moments. "We'll have to confirm this with your… period records, but given the lack of palpable fundal height, I believe that you are 6 weeks pregnant, and that would be…"

The penny dropped. "Oh my God. When we first slept together," she stated. Then she sat there; her mind a whirl. Pregnant? Before our wedding? Oh, God I'm repeating my parents' mistakes! No, not a mistake, an event. She took a deep breath, reflexively dropped her hands and they fell naturally across her belly; her unpregnant-looking belly. "But…" Unpregnant-looking now. When would she start to show? In a few weeks she imagined.

Martin cleared his throat, his face still blank, but then he said, "The pregnancy test detects the presence of hCG, which is human Chorionic Gonadotropin. That is a hormone present in urine only during pregnancy and the glycoprotein is produced by trophoblast cells which surround, the… uhm, growing embryo. Those cells eventually form the placenta after implantation."

She shook her head. It figured that he'd give me a biology lecture, she sighed to herself. "Not quite what I…" She shook her head, squared her shoulders as she looked straight at Martin. "No, I suppose, Martin, that's the way you would react."

"What way?" he recoiled.

She held out her hands. "Like this."

Martin was trying to control both his expressions and his emotions. Louisa was pregnant. That was a fact. Not quite expected, for they'd been together for weeks, but damn it they had made love a lot and she got pregnant six weeks ago or so? He thought about it. Their disastrous date, breakup, and Holley nearly dying at Louisa's house had additively made a whirlwind of desperate feelings. Hence a proposal – their engagement – and then they'd slept together for the first time. So, it was then or soon after, likely that first time, he mused, for their mutual need had been urgent that night and they might have been less than cautious about things. He stopped his thoughts and looked at Louisa, his wife, more carefully. "It's a… a surprise, is all."

"Right," Louisa answered. "Surprise." She grinned at him still holding her belly. "You got me pregnant, Martin," she said as she winked at him.

"Louisa, I seem to recall that you cooperated in the undertaking."

She smiled. "Yes, but… are you sure?"

"You know very well that we have made love."

She almost laughed. "No. Your diagnosis?"

"Uhm, yes." He cleared his throat. "The examination and tests all add up. You are tired, have nausea with regard to some food or drink, your periods have seemed to stop, and you report breast tenderness. Plus, you, we… have been…"

"Intimate, yes," she added stroking her neckline with one hand the other against her tummy.

He inhaled and blew out. "Yes."

Louisa shook her head. "At least I'm not thirty-seven, single, pregnant and in London, living alone in a bedsit."

"What?"

"Nothing." Previously she had planned to leave Portwenn when she decided not to marry Martin. It would have been too hard stay here – seeing him in the village each and every day? A horror. But they did get married and now, well. Here she was. Preggers, up the duff, also enceinte as the French say.

"You are thirty-seven, Louisa."

"I know," she sighed.

"And not too old to have a child."

"Well, thank you very much," she told him, feeling just a little put out.

He held up his hands. "I was only telling you…"

She looked at him wide eyed. "Tell me what?"

"That childbearing in late thirties… is entirely… possible."

She stood. "Clearly. So… here I… uhm, well, we are."

Martin stood as well and stepped towards her, stopping less than a foot from her, face to face.

"Nervous?" she asked, "For I certainly am."

He took her elbow gently. "Louisa, you keep yourself fit, you always, uhm, generally eat healthful foods, you have a moderate wine intake – by the way no more of that for the duration."

"Thought as much; the wine I mean."

"So, given a normal gestation I see no reason why you should not develop a healthy foetus leading to a perfectly normal delivery."

She put her arms around his waist and looked at him levelly. "So, a foetus is it?"

He stared right back at her. "If you are indeed six weeks pregnant then technically it's an embryo until the end of week eight. Then it's called a f0etus."

"And at birth then it magically becomes a baby?"

Martin shook his head. "Yes… by definition. No magic involved, Louisa."

She pulled him close and nestled her head against chest. "Wow," she said then she pulled her head away to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."

"For?"

"Giving me a baby, or foetus, embryo, whatever you want to call it." She did want children, and as the time went on, she knew her biological clock was ticking down. So, with this, then that concern was laid to rest. So, she was fertile, another of those things women might worry about, and the deed was done. She could feel the wedding ring about her finger as she pressed her hand against his broad back. Married and pregnant, not in that order, as long as she didn't end up colloquially barefoot and in the kitchen.

"Ah," Martin answered. "You're welcome," he said, but this wasn't like buying a birthday card and delivering it, was it? But fatherhood? His dad being mean to him, and his mother popped into his head. The punishments he'd experienced at his father's hands and his mother's. He sighed. Would Martin Christopher Ellingham end up a good father? That was a worry.

Then Louisa hugged him tightly (sore baps ignored) to kiss him deeply on the mouth.

Martin closed his eyes and just tried to enjoy it.

"So," she said, when she broke the lip lock, "when will this little Ellingham be born?"

Martin returned to his desk, opened a drawer and took out the gestational calculator, a circular date rule, and spun the top disk, setting the black line to early October; he picked the 6th for reference. The red line, some 40 weeks later, lay square 14th July. He held it out for her to examine it. "Fourteen of July, assuming you carry to the end of the normal gestation."

"Bastille Day," she chuckled. Then she looked down at herself towards her abdomen. "We'll let you out then, okay? Not before."

Martin seemed puzzled.

Louisa shook her head. "Bastille Day, Martin. French Revolution, Martin. When the people stormed the Paris prison to release prisoners."

"Right."

"You seem shocked."

"Louisa, linking the date of delivery of our… our child… to a political event seems…"

Laughing, Louisa took Martin in her arms again and held him tight. His arms circled her in reflex. "You know we really need to work on your sense of humor," she told him. She shook her head. "Free the prisoner – the baby? Giving birth? Get it?"

"Ah, yes," he nodded. Such flights of word connections often escaped him, and this was just one more. There was one more thing. "I'll want to weigh you and then tomorrow you ought to make an appointment with your GYB-OB group in Truro. Best I not… be involved… I mean I want to be involved… that is… just not medically… and…"

Louisa's head spun for a moment for the way in which Martin strung ideas together, was quite unlike other people. But he was her husband and the father of her baby-to-be, but for two more weeks it was just an embryo. Still Martin was… Martin… steady, truthful, not easy to get along with at times… but he was Martin. Quite unlike anyone else around and he was her husband. "This weight thing?" she asked.

"For your records." He released her and guided her to the floor scale.

Louisa slipped off her shoes then stepped on the scale.

"Hm," Martin said.

"Hm, what?"

"One twenty-five," he said. "Almost nine stone."

"Can't be!" she protested. "I've never weighed more than one twenty-three!"

Martin tipped his head. "It's only two pounds but pregnancy weight gain starts slowly. Typical full term weight gain is between 25 and 35 pounds and… " Suddenly Martin found he was addressing an empty room because Louisa had turned around and fled the room. He heard her stocking clad feet stomp upstairs and a door slam. "Right," he said aloud, "most women are sensitive about weight."

Louisa sat down on their bed and blew her nose. "Weight gain, already?" she muttered. "Damn it." She binned the tissue then heard Martin slowly come up to face her.

Martin looked inside their bedroom and he saw Louisa's back and neck bent down, as she sat on the edge of the bed. "Louisa?" He heard a sniffle. "Louisa?"

She waved a hand, beckoning him to her.

He slowly approached, then she turned her head and patted the bed.

"Sit here," she told him.

Silently he did her bidding.

"Hold me?" she asked.

So, he did.