My first doctor’s appointment was at ten weeks. The doctor wasn’t optimistic at first, but she was able to find the perfect little heartbeat. Colt held my hand as we listened to it for the first time. It was the most rapid, most beautiful thing to hear. While the doctor wrote me my prescription for prenatal vitamins, she kept the monitor over my belly so we could continue to listen.
We left the office hand in hand. Even though we already had known we were pregnant, hearing the heartbeat made it all real. There was a little baby growing inside of me; a little Colt perhaps.
Ty and Miranda were just as excited when we shared the news with them. Miranda had checked with her doctor and they still had a little under a year to go before they could start trying themselves. They were completely happy with Bella, but I think Ty was hoping for a little boy to complete his perfect little family. They really were perfect too. Their friendship and love for each other was amazing to experience. If I had ever doubted them before, it was proven beyond a doubt that I had been wrong.
Miranda was really happy with the salon she was working at. She had made great friends there and she and Ty had even joined a local billiards league for a night out together. Ty’s mother was madly in love with Bella, apparently spoiling her like crazy. After four months, Ty and his father managed to do a complete renovation to the Carriage house. They had taken the back storage part, which had been a barn, and converted it to more living space. They had restored the original roof and gave the living room higher ceilings with exposed beams. It was such a big change, and looked like their own little cottage.
Of course, Bella got her own bedroom and playroom, as well as her own little bathroom. In fact, the full addition added three bedrooms and a bathroom to the house. To make up for the loss of storage space, Ty got his father a pole-building and had it installed. They seemed happy living on the farm. It wasn’t like they didn’t have privacy. The houses weren’t right up against one another and Ty and Miranda’s front door faced the opposite direction.
Colt and I had gone to visit them twice and for now, they had made one room for guests. Bella made it a point to drag us down the new hallway and show us her new rooms. The best part was when she made Colt sit on the floor while she handed him each toy in her room, one at a time.
We had a really great visit and didn’t want it to end. I no longer even considered Ty an ex-lover. Instead, he was a great friend and cousin. Miranda had helped me learn to discover myself and my body resulting in a deeper connection with Colt. We’d have secret conversations labeled ‘girl talk’ and she never shared my private information with Ty. I had no idea if they ever talked about me, but Ty never mentioned it, so I assumed she hadn’t.
Ty’s mother also had changed her opinion of me. For so long I had wanted her to accept me and love me. On one of our visits, she pulled me aside and profusely apologized for being such a hardcore bitch. Ty was happier than he had ever been, which meant she was happy. Maybe she had known all along that we weren’t meant for each other. Either way, to hear her saying those words to me made me so happy. From then on, she was never bitter.
We must have gotten pregnant right after our last visit to North Carolina. Colt came back to some issues with the ventilation in two of our chicken houses, so he had spent a whole week working late getting them up to par. He was so tired when he finally came in at night that we didn’t have sex for over a week. I only remember because it was the longest we had ever gone without it. The night he finally had everything working, he came home and pretty much attacked me, pulling me in the shower with him first, then taking me back to our bed.
It had been so intense from the sexual tension building up between us, that we just had an entire night of making love to each other. We slept the whole next day, only getting up to eat, drink and use the bathroom. I never wanted to go that long without being with Colt, but I will never forget how awesome it was when we finally did it.
The first trimester of my pregnancy was perfect. I was tired at first, but it subsided and I felt fantastic and excited. I never really got morning sickness. It was cool to finally start getting a little baby bump to my belly. It was not noticeable unless I was naked, but Colt was the only one feeling around every night anyway. He would always lay next to me, kissing and rubbing my belly, sometimes even talking to it.
My mother was freaking out, knowing that she and my father were so far away, but I wasn’t really scared about being alone, besides Colt told them that he would fly them down immediately when the baby was coming.
One morning Colt went out to work somewhere on the ranch. We were running low on groceries and I refused to let Lucy do our shopping for us, so I grabbed my purse and headed out toward town. For some reason I had become obsessed with couponing, after watching the extreme couponing show on television. We didn’t need to necessarily save money, but I did it as more of something to do with my extra time. We may have been well off, but I liked to get good deals still.