Her Billionaires(120)

“Climb on up,” the male technician directed, his voice pleasant and his demeanor kind.

“With this exploding bladder, I’ll squirt like a firehose if I lift my leg.”

Josie laughed. The tech seemed amused. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” All these baby people kept saying that to her. If it was supposed to put her at ease it did, but also left an unsettled feeling, as if her birth experience weren’t unique, as if everything she was going through and that seemed so special were just...ordinary. Being ordinary didn’t trouble her, in general, but the sensations and blossoming of this new life within her were so special, so life-altering, that she wished everyone around her would give just a little more “wow!” when they interacted with her.

Or, maybe, what she really wished was that she had a partner to go through all of this with her. Resting her hand on her belly, she wondered when she’d feel the baby move. Hopelessly eager, every pocket of gas, tweaked muscle, you name it—she braced and held her breath, hoping...

And wasn’t that something she should share with the baby’s father?

Fathers, an evil voice whispered in her mind.

Somehow she managed, with Josie’s help, to get up on that torture table. Reclining on her back pushed her womb against her bladder, making her instantly homicidal.

“Oh, man, can’t I pee? Please?”

“Just a few minutes,” the tech said, then explained the procedure. She hiked up her maternity shirt, a cute print from the Gap. Shopping for maternity clothing had turned out to be liberating, because the designers expected you to have breasts and a belly! Her shirt was covered with hippie swirls of pinks and turquoises, with lots of white thrown in. The panel on her maternity jeans was a pale blue, stretchy jersey added where the zipper and button normally would be.

She wanted to wear these clothes forever.

Maybe you will, if you can’t lose the baby fat, that same voice said. Gah.

The cold gel made her kegels clench, helping keep in her urine but adding a sensory overload to that general region. The ultrasound wand the tech used went on the gel and soon she could see her little peanut, all bones and beating heart, floating upside down in an an enormous sea of black.

“There’s the baby,” the tech said in a neutral voice, taking measurements. From the start, Laura had decided to have a low-technology birth, so this was the first ultrasound. Meeting her baby visually brought tears to her eyes, her heart swelling, and even Josie was overcome with emotion.

“Oh, Laura,” she whispered, voice choked. She squeezed her shoulder.

Her child. That womb pressing hard against all that water, making her eyes cross and her ribs ache, contained a little growing human being that was going to come out in twenty-one weeks and be her little, precious baby.

“Boy or girl?” Leave it to Josie to get to the point.

The tech laughed, obviously accustomed to the question. “First off, do you want to know?”

“Yes!” the women answered in unison.

“Then give me a few minutes to do the required measurements, and then I’ll try to see. No guarantees—it’s all about whether the fetus is in the right position, and what we can see with the machine.” Laura nodded and Josie seemed already to know that. The room was so tiny that Josie had to jockey for space with the tech. And it was getting warmer in here. Plus, she felt like an overstretched balloon that would burst if anyone breathed hard.

Loving warmth coursed through her. Baby. Her body, which she’d despised most of her life for its inadequacies, for letting her down time and again with men, was now ripe with purpose and growing a human being. How could she hate it right now? It was building, layer by layer, system by system, a whole ’nother human who would be part of the next generation.#p#分页标题#e#

She was a goddess!

Finally done with measurements, the tech stopped, frowned, and said, “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” The click of the closing door felt like a death sentence, the air sucked out of the room as Laura’s entire body switched into panic mode.

“That can’t be good? Why would he leave? Do you see anything?” Oh, God, no. Just no. Nothing could be wrong, right? She hadn’t planned for anything to be wrong.

Josie peered at the screen. She shrugged. Non-chalant and cool, she made a questioning face and replied, “I don’t see anything obvious, but I’m not an ultrasound tech.” Her hand on Laura’s felt reassuring. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe all your talk about peeing made him need to go.”

“Don’t make me laugh or I’ll give you a golden shower, Josie.”