A/N Thank you to everyone for reading and reviewing!
After leaving you with a long wait last time, I thought I would get this update out super speedily (consistently inconsistent!). It's quite a fluffy one too - hope you like it.
"Hey Mon, I heard the most perfect name for a baby boy when I was on the subway earlier!" Phoebe exclaimed excitedly as she cascaded into the coffee house, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed from the chill of the fall air.
She discarded her coat and scarf before flopping onto the couch next to Monica, who was nestled cosily against Chandler, a frothy, decaffeinated cappuccino warming her hands.
Monica grinned back at her expectantly "Yeah?"
"Raphael!" Phoebe declared triumphantly.
Monica considered her suggestion with a slow nod, but Chandler interjected sardonically "That's great Pheebs! But I'm not sure we're having a Ninja Turtle..."
Monica stifled a snigger and shot him a wry smile as well as delivering a light jab with a reprimanding elbow.
"That would be pretty cool though ..." Joey mused, gazing wistfully upon the compact swell of Monica's belly.
"You don't need to worry about names, Chandler." Rachel teased, "Monica has had her baby names picked out since high school! Any suggestion you make will be pretty much incidental."
Monica narrowed her eyes, unsure as to whether or not Rachel was deliberately trying to cause trouble, or if her friend had forgotten what her long chosen baby names actually were.
Chandler turned to eye her with interest "Yeah? So what are they?" he asked.
Monica rolled her eyes and shook her head "Doesn't matter, we're not going to use them," she muttered dismissively.
"Oh come on!" he pressed "Why won't you tell me? They can't be worse than Raphael..."
Phoebe gave an outraged tut.
Monica regarded him carefully, "OK... Well, back then, for a girl, I liked Emma" she proposed.
Chandler perused the suggestion with an impressed nod. "That's not so bad... I quite like that. In fact, I'd say it's one to consider. I actually studied that book in High School..."
She smiled and moved her gaze to the ground as she braced herself for his inevitable follow up question.
"And what was your boy's name?" Chandler asked
Monica glanced towards Rachel with a frown "We definitely won't be using that one.." she told her boyfriend with certainty.
"Why? What was it?" he questioned insistently.
"It doesn't matter, Chandler! We're not going to use it!" she told him with an exasperated smile.
"Oh please tell me!" he begged dramatically, "I need to know now, you've made it too mysterious!"
She raised her eyebrows laconically and sighed as she turned to face him "Fine. My name for a boy was Daniel" she told him, tilting her head as she awaited his response.
"Daniel? Really? Little Baby Dan? Wow, that's just perfect! " Chandler turned towards Rachel disbelievingly "Great idea! Maybe his middle name could be Richard!"
"Hey, I didn't say I remembered the names!" Rachel objected, as she met Chandler's accusing stare.
Monica chuckled as she wrapped an arm around his neck and planted a placating kiss against his cheek.
"I always liked Janice for a girl..." Phoebe joked, provoking further sniggers.
"How about a family name?" Rachel suggested, keen to make amends for her gaffe. "You could name them after a parent? Or a grandparent?"
"Hmmm.. Helena Handbasket-Geller-Bing..." Chandler stated poetically, referring to his father's drag stage name.
Rachel shot him a sarcastic smile "Very funny! But what about Charles? Baby Charlie? That's pretty cute!"
Chandler wrinkled his nose "I dunno, I hear Charlie, I think Chaplin" he rejected.
"Really?" Monica asked him, "I think of that sweet little boy from Willy Wonka..."
"I don't think any kid of Monica's needs to have dreams of being let loose in a chocolate factory..." Ross quipped as he looked up from his newspaper with a smirk, earning him a scowl and head shake from his sister whilst Chandler spluttered his amusement into his coffee.
"I do like the name Jack, though" Chandler told Monica as he regarded her more seriously.
Monica nodded thoughtfully, "Yeah... Me too" she concurred.
"I'm less keen on Judy..." he added
Monica gave him a sideways look "The name? Or the person?" she asked with an arched eyebrow.
Chandler paused for a moment before giving a shrug. "The name...I guess".
After her mother's less than enthusiastic response to her pregnancy announcement, Monica had inwardly decided to avoid all but strictly necessary contact with her parents for a while, but despite their initial shock, Judy and Jack had surprised her by being attentive to a fault, and the volume of phone calls and visits from the pair had ramped up considerably.
However, whilst she was suddenly keen to be present for Monica, Judy seemed reluctant to talk too much about her daughter's pregnancy, and her campaign of aloof disapproval towards Chandler was still in full force, despite Monica and Ross's best efforts to convince their mother that the father of her grandchild was decent, well-intentioned, and most definitely not on drugs.
Chandler, whilst always impeccably polite and genial, refused to simper around Judy, or bend over backwards to ingratiate himself to her, and as a consequence very few words had been uttered between the two of them.
Jack, meanwhile, had proven far more amenable, and seemed to be making a real effort to welcome Chandler into the Geller fold, even inviting him along to play racquetball with him and Ross one weekend, much to Monica's delight.
"Have you decided if you're going to find out if it's a boy or a girl at the sonogram?" Phoebe asked.
"No" replied Monica quietly.
"No, we haven't decided" Chandler rectified.
He was desperate to know as much about the little human nestled in her abdomen as the doctors were able to tell him, but he was finding Monica surprisingly resistant. He had felt sure that his girlfriend's penchant for pre-planning and organization would make her keen to obtain all available information as quickly as possible, but so far, Monica had been fairly adamant that her baby's sex was of no consequence to her, and she was happy to wait until the birth to find out.
"Why don't you want to know?" Joey chided her, "And doesn't Chandler get a say?"
Joey was inexplicably impatient to learn whether the pair were expecting a son or a daughter and had been encouraging Chandler to assert his own desire to find out.
"It's not that I don't want to know." Monica told Joey a little stiffly as she threw a lofty scowl in his direction, "And of course Chandler gets a say! But finding out the sex is not the point of the scan: It's a detailed examination to check that everything is OK with the baby. And that's all I care about at this point."
Chandler could feel the tension in her muscles when she shifted uncomfortably next to him as she spoke, and he dipped his head to place a gentle kiss against her temple.
"And anyway, it'll be nice to be surprised." she insisted.
"You'll be surprised even if you find out this week.." Rachel pointed out.
"Please don't make us all wait until February!" begged Joey.
The truth was, that as excited as Monica was that she and Chandler would be seeing their baby on screen together in a few short days, memories of preparing for her first scan, alone and terrified, had stirred up feelings of tremendous anxiety.
Her guilt that she completely missed those first months of pregnancy following her baby's conception, would never fully subside, and no matter how many medical professionals tried to quell her fears with words of sense and comfort, Monica knew that until she finally held their precious child in her arms, she would not be able to completely believe that those glasses of wine she unwittingly drank and those meals she blithely skipped; when she was blighted by depression and self-loathing, and wrapped up in her chaotic post-London love life; had not inflicted lasting damage.
Her hand drifted to her abdomen to rub the taut bump that in her 21st week of pregnancy, was now large enough to be clearly visible to all, and she pressed her eyelids closed for a second, unable to comprehend how she would begin to cope if this scan detected a problem.
The bond she already shared with this baby, was like nothing she had ever imagined, and the fact that Chandler was now inextricably involved too had increased the sense of jeopardy immeasurably: The idea that something could go wrong with the family and future the two of them had been blissfully planning throughout this second trimester was just too crushing to contemplate.
Monica knew that her assertion that the health of her baby was her sole concern might sound glib or cliched to her curious and excited friends, but it was the absolute truth.
"How will you decide what clothes to buy it, or what color to paint its room if you don't know?" Joey persisted.
"Carol told us that in those first few weeks we won't have time to dress it in anything except sleep-suits, and she already gave us a bunch of white ones" Chandler told him, "So you guys will have plenty of time to buy horrific frilly pink dresses or god-awful sailor suits after the baby's born."
"Hey! I don't know why you looked at me when you said that!" Rachel scowled back at him, highly offended by the suggestion that any item selected by her would be anything less than impeccably tasteful, particularly when compared with any outfit Joey or Phoebe would be likely to choose.
"And I've already decided that I'll paint it's room sage green" declared Monica, "Gender neutral and very calming."
""We" honey. We decided..," Chandler reminded her with an eye roll, bending to kiss her once more as Monica shot him a rueful smile.
"Of course Chandler gets a say!" Joey mimicked Monica mockingly under his breath, earning him the most sarcastic of glares.
The rhythm of Chandler's foot tapping restlessly against the linoleum floor echoed around the bland, synthetically pine-scented hospital corridor.
Monica saw a woman sitting a few seats away glance across at his agitated leg with mild annoyance, so she placed a stilling hand on his thigh to halt his fidgeting.
Upon feeling her touch, he shot her an eager smile which she returned tenderly, enjoying his appreciable excitement. She laced her fingers through his and rested her head against his shoulder exhaling shakily as she pondered that the way she was feeling right now, might just be the strangest cocktail of emotions she had ever experienced.
Obviously she too was incredibly excited to see her baby again after 7 long weeks, and the fact that she would be able to witness Chandler's first visual encounter with their child made her feel positively giddy; a literal shiver reverberating down her spine when she imagined the look of inevitable wonder on his face.
She had been unable to find sufficient words to describe to Chandler the life-changing intensity of the searing torrent of love that had engulfed her when she had first laid eyes on their baby at her first scan, and simply could not wait to share with him the profound joy of being allowed a magical peek inside her body to view the treasured new life growing rapidly within.
She glanced around at the other couples, at various stages of pregnancy, waiting alongside them for their own appointments; just as she remembered doing on her last visit to this corridor; feeling an intense wave of gratitude that things had changed so drastically for her since then.
She recalled how desperately she had yearned for Chandler to be there with her last time around, as she had sat there; a conspicuously solitary figure; unsure of her baby's paternity and never having felt more desperately alone in her whole life; and she was flooded with a delirious sense of relief at being able to feel him here at her side right now, even with his irritatingly fidgety leg.
She could not keep herself from bringing her fingertips to stroke his hair, or shifting her body so that her thigh was pressed close to his, or caressing his palm with her thumb: Anything to re-affirm the comfort she derived from the physical presence she was so very thankful for.
But alongside the exuberance, the anticipation, and the relief, Monica's anxiety continued to run wild.
The perfection of their little unit of three was something she had come to cherish above anything else in her life, and she simply could not bear to contemplate the idea that this scan might detect a fault that could shatter the sublime new world she and Chandler were beginning to cultivate together.
Nurturing their son or daughter was a responsibility that had immediately become her greatest joy and her number one priority; and the gravity of this thorough and exploratory sonogram suddenly made her entire world feel disconcertingly fragile in a way that it never had before.
It was even more daunting to acknowledge that this maternal anxiety was most likely just a fundamental part of her now, and something she must learn to accept: She imagined that she would worry herself sick about the safety and well being of this brand new human they had created for as long as they were both on this Earth; and she supposed that was simply the price every mother paid for a love so pure and extraordinary. And she knew already that it was completely worth it.
She felt Chandler's fingers squeeze her own when her name was called from down the corridor, and her heart skipped a beat as she observed the excitement in his cerulean eyes when he grinned down at her encouragingly before they got to their feet.
It was a different sonographer than last time; a young man, bespectacled and rather owlish; who took his time to explain the procedure in detail, making sure that both parents knew that the sheer quantity of fetal measurements he would need to take during this scan meant that it could prove lengthy, depending on the baby's position.
Monica nodded along, as she gazed wide-eyed into the man's face, carefully absorbing every word that emerged from his lips, but Chandler's attention was already drawn impatiently to the as yet blank screen, where he knew he would shortly be able to see his son or daughter for the very first time.
Monica could hardly breathe as the sonographer plastered her stomach with ice cold gel and began to navigate her bump with the ultrasound probe.
She heard Chandler take a sharp inhalation as the profile of their baby came into focus on the screen.
Her own heart melted; all anxieties and negative thought temporarily evaporating as she gazed upon the sweet little form. The changes she could observe since her previous scan were stark: The baby's spine seemed to have straightened somewhat, and its limbs had lengthened so that proportionally their child appeared exactly like a full-term infant, albeit a version in miniature.
It was lying so still, that at first Monica felt a wave of alarm, but then a tiny arm flailed, presumably disturbed by the firm prodding of the probe.
"Oh my God.." she heard Chandler breathe tremulously and she tore her gaze from the screen to observe him, her eyes watering and her chin beginning to wobble as she took in his obvious enchantment and the emotional sheen of awe-stricken tears.
"It's amazing" he whispered gruffly as he turned to look at her, grasping her hand tight and leaning to grace her forehead with a loving kiss before turning his attention back to the tiny monochrome form on the screen.
"I'm sorry if the probe feels uncomfortable, Monica" the sonographer apologized with a rueful smile "I'm being firm as the baby is in a bit of an awkward position and seems a little sleepy and reluctant to move."
"Sorry, it probably gets that from me." Chandler joked.
"Can I ask you to wiggle your hips a little please Monica? That sometimes encourages them to change position" the man suggested.
Monica obliged and sure enough the baby responded immediately by shifting and unfurling a tiny leg, causing both parents to chuckle fondly.
The sonographer set about zooming in on various parts of the baby's anatomy, recording measurements and offering occasional explanations of what they could see on the screen whilst the parents-to-be sat in wonder-struck silence.
Spellbound as he was, Chandler had not noticed the extended period of quiet in the room, until he suddenly became aware that Monica was no longer gazing at the screen, and instead her sapphire eyes were trained fearfully on the face of the sonographer.
The man's brow was slightly furrowed and he squinted in concentration, chewing thoughtfully at his cheek as he glanced intermittently between his notes and the screen.
Something about his demeanor and his prolonged period of silence had convinced Monica that he had observed something that was troubling him, and it was enough to cause a dizzying sense of nausea.
"Could you just move your hips again for me Monica?" he eventually requested gravely "He or she has decided to curl up tight again."
Chandler gulped hard and struggled to calm his own breath, determined not to exacerbate Monica's very obvious anxiety. He offered a small encouraging smile and gently stroked her hair as he saw her blanching before his eyes.
The sonographer remained staunchly neutral as he continued to concentrate hard on his examination, but eventually addressed them calmly "I'm pretty sure it's just that the baby is lying awkwardly, but if it's OK with you I'd like to ask one of my colleagues to come in and go over one of these measurements with me, to provide a second opinion?"
Chandler felt his shoulders seize and his stomach lurch as he observed the sheer terror in Monica's eyes.
"Uh, yeah of course" he mumbled an answer on her behalf, when it became apparent that Monica had been rendered entirely incapable of speech.
"As I said, it's probably just that the baby is lying awkwardly," the man reassured softly, sensing her palpable fear "Monica, while I fetch my colleague, if you could get up from the bed, have a walk around, maybe even do a few jumping jacks to get your heart rate up, we might be able to wake the baby up a bit and get them into a better position. I know it sounds a bit silly, but it tends to do the trick."
He passed her some tissue to wipe the gel from her belly as he left the room.
"Chandler!" Monica whispered, her breath rapid and panicked, her eyes searching his desperately for answers she knew he did not have, and reassurance he could not provide.
"It's OK!" he cupped her face tenderly in his hands "Of course the baby's lazy and awkward! It's mine!" he told her with a gentle smile that completely belied the knot of dread in his own stomach.
"Come on. Let's wake it up. It'll be fine" he promised, grabbing her hands and kissing her knuckles before encouraging her to her feet.
"I'll even jump about with you!" he told her, maintaining eye contact "And you know I won't do jumping jacks for just anybody".
She whimpered a small laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the two of them jumping around that hospital room, but then she stopped and squeezed her eyes tight shut as a terrified sob escaped her throat and a fat tear that she had been desperately trying to suppress rolled down her cheek, her body ready to crumple to the ground as fear threatened to completely overwhelm her.
But Chandler was relentless, "No, no, no! Come on Mon, we have to keep doing it! The baby's fine, honey, we just need to wake it up!"
They were both a little out of breath when the sonographer returned with his colleague, who happened to be the woman Monica had seen earlier in her pregnancy.
She greeted them both warmly and gestured for Monica to resume her position on the bed.
"I hear he or she is being a bit stubborn and sleepy? Hopefully, the jumping around will have got Baby moving, and you guys have had some great exercise too!" she smiled sympathetically as she observed Monica's tear-streaked face.
As a fresh smear of gel was applied to the neat curve of Monica's bump, the probe soon revealed a far more active baby than had previously graced the screen.
Chandler felt his eyes well up with tears once again as he watched his son or daughter wriggling around and kicking their legs, presumably in protest at having been shaken about by the jumping.
As he drank in the absolute perfection of their baby's adorable profile, he simply could not fathom that this examination might have found an anomaly that could change everything; that the universe could possibly be so cruel as to allow him this mind-blowing glimpse of his first child, only to immediately throw a life-altering, or worse, life-limiting problem their way.
The original sonographer smiled as he observed the visibly wakeful baby and praised kindly, "That's more like it. Good work Monica."
He and his colleague took a series of screenshots together, muttering quietly between themselves as they pored over the new measurements. Chandler gripped Monica's fingers tight as her tear-filled eyes locked desperately on the image of her child as it rolled and kicked in her belly.
It felt like an intolerable length of time before Chandler eventually heard one of the medics murmur "Yeah, I'm happy with that," and he felt able to breathe a blissful sigh of relief.
"The way the baby was positioned before I was struggling to get a clear shot of its left femur and the measurement I was getting appeared to be outside of the normal range" the male sonographer informed the nervously wide-eyed couple. "An atypical femur length can be an indicator for various skeletal abnormalities or chromosomal issues, so we might have needed to consider further investigation. But now the baby has moved, we've been able to take the measurement again from three different angles and all of those readings were consistent and completely normal, so we're both satisfied that there is no issue. And all of your other measurements are perfect too."
Monica coughed back a sob "Are you sure?"
The female sonographer regarded her humanely as she explained with sensible optimism "Obviously sonograms can only detect so much, and we're only checking for a limited number of conditions and structural issues, but from what we can both see, everything looks normal and healthy, and your pregnancy seems to be progressing beautifully."
Chandler wrapped a relieved arm around Monica's neck as they gazed a little numbly back at the screen, where they could see their baby shifting comfortably, completely oblivious to the panic it had just induced in both of its parents.
"Are you hoping to find out the sex of your baby today?" the sonographer offered "I already have a pretty good idea, but I would need to take another look to confirm. I can see that the baby has just tucked their legs up again, so I might need you to give another wriggle Monica, if you'd like to know..."
Monica turned towards Chandler, her expression dazed, and she could tell from the look on his face that he too had completely forgotten all about the possibility of finding out whether they were expecting a son or a daughter.
"If you want to find out, I don't mind" she told him quietly.
"Nah.. You were right before. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl." Chandler smiled back lovingly at her exhausted face before returning his dreamy gaze to the outline of their settled infant "Let 'em rest."
"Are you sure? I don't mind wiggling my hips for you.. " a wry smile tugged at her lips as he arched a slightly lascivious eyebrow, "I've probably even got another jumping jack in me..."
"You know what? Not knowing, kind of feels "on brand" for this baby." Chandler mused, "Everything about this pregnancy has been a surprise so far... right from the moment you showed up in my hotel room in London..."
"Chandler!" she scolded lightly, feeling her cheeks flush as she shot an embarrassed glance towards the two smirking sonographers.
"I'm just so relieved everything is OK, I'm honestly happy either way" she assured him "It's your call.."
She smirked as she added sarcastically "Just make sure you let Tribbiani know that you had your say".
"Oh! Oh! The Geller-Bings are here!" Phoebe cried shrilly, causing all eyes to swivel eagerly towards Monica and Chandler as they entered the warm glow of Central Perk from the cool, bluish light of the dusky street.
"How did it go?" asked Ross, regarding his sister excitedly.
"What are we having?" Joey demanded his eyes bright with excitement, as Rachel shuffled closer to him on the couch and gestured for Monica to take a seat next to her.
"Well, there were some tense moments, but it went really well, everything was normal and the baby is healthy..." Monica confirmed, exchanging a contented beam with Chandler, as Rachel grasped her hand avidly.
"And... we're having the cutest baby in the entire world." Chandler added with a proud grin, perching on the arm of the couch next to Monica and holding out a new sonogram picture that was swiftly snatched from his fingers to be inspected by a zealous Phoebe.
"And we also found out..." he continued slowly, glancing towards Monica in knowing amusement as they enjoyed the enraptured anticipation on the gaping-mouthed faces of their friends, "...that it's definitely not a Ninja Turtle" .
A/N: Just to add - I'm with Phoebe, I absolutely LOVE the name Raphael. In fact, I had it on my list when I was pregnant, but it got vetoed by my partner (because of a footballer I think, not because of the Turtles! ;) )