"Whatever," I mumbled, trying to appear annoyed.
"Aideen Collins?"
Finally.
"Yes?" I replied to the voice calling my name.
The nurse from before popped her head around the corner and smiled. "I'm ready for you."
I felt hands on my hips.
"Come on, Daddy, you can come too," the nurse chirped to Kane then turned and disappeared around the corner.
I laughed at Kane's facial expression as he looked down at me. "She called me Daddy," he murmured.
I shook my head, smiling. "I'm sure she calls all the fathers-to-be, Daddy."
Kane waggled his eyebrows. "Or maybe she wants-"
"Finish that sentence and I'll hurt you," I warned, my hand raised and my index finger pointing at him dangerously. "I'm not havin' me midwife seduced by you today or any other day. She is here for me so keep it in your boxers or else."
Kane laughed at me and placed both his hands on my shoulders when I turned and began to walk in the direction the nurse went. I spotted her outside a room and she gestured us in with her hand when we neared her.
We entered the large room filled with medical equipment. I recognised two things: The bed and the monitor used to see a baby inside its mother's tummy.
"Pop up onto the bed, Aideen, and we'll get started."
I eyed the nurse, but did as she said. She seemed a lot happier than earlier and not at all wary of Kane like she was before. Maybe Kane was right and people can't help but instinctively fear him when they first lay eyes on him.
I just didn't get it-I didn't have that problem when I first met him two years ago. I thought he was gorgeous; scars included.
"How have you been feeling over the past few weeks?" the nurse asked me.
"Good," I replied and got up onto the bed with the help of Kane, who then sat next to me on a vacant chair. "I've been goin' to my medical centre every week for little check-ups. It's all there in my file, or it should be."
The nurse flipped open my pink folder. "Yep, I see all your logged visits. Everything is looking great. Has your tummy settled down? I see a note here that you are still quite ill."
I grunted, "It's calmed down, but I still throw up mostly in the mornin's."
The nurse nodded her head and wrote something down on my file.
"Are you excited for your visit today?" the nurse asked with a smile. "You're halfway there, only twenty weeks to go."
I felt a huge smile stretch across my face. "I'm so excited, I can't wait to see the baby again. They don't have a machine in the clinic that lets you see the baby, only the one to hear it."
"Well, you'll be in for a treat. Baby will be a lot bigger than when you were here last time. You get to see 4D images today also."
"I can't wait."
The nurse looked at Kane. "This is your first time seeing your baby, are you excited?"
"Very excited," Kane replied.
The nurse smiled and looked to me. "You can lift your top and lower your leggings down just like before."
I nodded my head and reached down and pulled up my t-shirt until it was tucked under my breasts. I tried to wiggle my leggings down, but it just wasn't happening so I looked at Kane. "Pull my leggin's and knickers down a little, will you?"
Kane stood up and gripped the hem of my leggings and underwear. "How far down?" he asked with a smirk on his face and a wiggle of his eyebrows.
I laughed, "Only a little bit."
He pouted and tugged them down ever so slightly before sitting back down to look like a sad puppy. Smiling, I shook my head at him.
"The gel is cold, Aideen. I'm sure you remember."
I lightly giggled then yelped a little when the nurse squirted the gel over my belly. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that sensation."
The nurse smiled and used her microphone looking probe to swirl the gel about on my stomach. She moved the probe around a couple of times and smiled. "Found baby fast this time."
I looked at the screen.
"Here is baby's torso," she moved the probe, "and here are baby's legs. They're crossed right now."
"Oh, she's gotten so much bigger!" I squealed and clapped my hands together.
"He," Kane said absentmindedly as he stared at the screen on the wall in front of us.
I wasn't getting into the same repetitive debate again so I ignored Kane and stared at my baby. At our baby.
"She has gotten so much bigger since the last time I was here."
The nurse chuckled, "Yep, it's amazing the differences you see in a foetus within such a short period of time. Even in yourself-you're very different from when you walked into the emergency room eight weeks ago."
I looked down at my rounded stomach and smiled. "Yeah, it's crazy how quickly me body has changed."
The nurse looked at Kane. "Have you noticed the changes in Aideen's body as she grows the baby?"
Kane snapped his attention from the monitor that displayed our bun to the nurse's pretty face.
"What?" he asked.
I laughed as she repeated her question.
"Oh, yeah." Kane smiled. "I've noticed all the changes in her body."
He has?
"Like what?" I asked, quizzically.
Kane smirked. "Your stomach, ass and bust has... enlarged."
I rolled my eyes while the nurse snorted. "He has good observation skills."
"He failed to mention my thighs, hips, and waist have expanded too."
Kane waved me off. "I haven't noticed."
Of course, he hadn't, he was too busy constantly looking at my ‘enlarged' arse and chest.
"He's smart," the nurse chuckled. "He knows what to notice and what to stay mute on."
Kane winked at the nurse and it made her blush.
I narrowed my eyes at Kane. "Really? First the girl in the waitin' room and now me midwife. Are you shittin' me?"
Kane held up his hands. "I didn't do anything."
"Make sure you don't. I'll cut your balls off if you do."
The nurse stared back and forth between Kane and myself with wide eyes so I smiled and used Kane's words against him. "This is our foreplay."
"Cool," she said and nervously smiled, making sure to avoid looking at Kane.
She spent a lot of time then taking new measurements of the baby, and pressing on certain areas of my stomach before measuring it with a measuring tape.
"So, let's re-cap. I've recorded ten minutes of four-dimensional movement plus the foetal heartbeat for sound. You're measured at twenty weeks and one day exactly. Your weight is pegged at a three to four-pound weight gain per week, and your bloods and blood pressure is perfect. What about your movements? Have you being getting your ten kicks a day?"
I nodded my head. "Yeah, but it's literally just a little move or kick, they don't last very long. I barely notice them if I'm being honest. I haven't experienced a real big one yet. Is that somethin' I should worry about?"
"Nope," the nurse chirped. "Give it another few weeks and you will feel stronger kicks as well as be able to see your stomach moving. Dad, that means you can get a good feel of them so you can experience your baby moving too."
"Can't wait," Kane commented lowly.
Uh huh.
"Would you like to know the gender of your baby?"
I shook my head firmly. "Nope."
"Dad, are you okay on that matter?" the nurse asked Kane.
"You can tell what the gender of the baby is from just looking at the screen right there?" Kane asked the nurse and pointed at the monitor.
She nodded her head.
"So you know right now?"
Again, she nodded her head.
"You know if it's a boy or a girl?"
She laughed and nodded her head once more.
"Are you going to put it in Aideen's file?" he asked with his eyebrow arched.
The nurse snickered, "No because you both don't want to know... right?"
"Right," I answered instantly.
Both the nurse and myself looked at Kane when he remained silent.
"It's killing me, babydoll. How can you not want to know?" he asked me with a pained groan.
I couldn't help but smile at his tortured face. "Because seein' you tormented like this brings me so much joy."
"Evil!" he snapped. "You're pure evil."
I laughed, "I want it to be a surprise. As long as the baby is healthy, it doesn't matter to me what the sex is."
Kane sighed, "I guess... but it's still going to kill me."
I snorted, "You'll get over it."
"Okay, Satan," Kane grumbled.
I smirked. "If I'm Satan, what does that make the baby?"
"The spawn of Satan," Kane grunted and shook his head. "I've fathered the spawn of Satan. No amount of private talks with the man upstairs is going to get me off the ‘doomed for an entirety in hell' list now. I'm fucked."
Tears formed in my eyes when laughter racked through my body. I placed a hand on the top of my stomach and the other on my chest. Both sections of my body were hurting so bad.
"Stop," I wheezed and flagged Kane with my hands.
He tried to glare at me, he really did. I saw him fight the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. He couldn't help but succumb to the laughter floating around the room though. He couldn't not smile when he looked at me for some weird reason.