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“Done!” Trace called from the nursery.
I waddled inside, my hand on my rounded stomach.
I closed my eyes, stifling a laugh. “Really, Trace? This is what you’ve been doing in here all afternoon? Now I know why you told me to stay out,” I shook my head, fighting a smile.
“What?” He frowned. “You don’t like it.”
“’I am a Jedi like my father before me,’” I read the decal he’d affixed to the wall. Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Starting him young, aren’t you?”
“You’re never to young to have a love of Star Wars,” he defended.
I wrapped my hands around the bar of the crib, smiling at the mobile my grandma had made the baby. It was made of pale blue and white origami stars. I was happy the baby would have something made by family to look at and not something from a store.
Trace lowered to his knees in front of me and I gazed at him quizzically, wondering what he was up to.
He lifted my shirt up and placed his hands on my stomach.
“Buddy, it’s daddy,” his breath tickled my bare skin, “I really want to meet you, so I wish you’d come out already. Plus, mommy’s getting really tired and cranky,” he grinned up at me.
“Hey,” I laughed. “You’d be tired and cranky too if you had to carry this around all day,” I pointed at my large stomach.
“Come on, buddy, it’s time for you to come out,” he coaxed and the baby kicked against Trace’s hand.
“Nice try,” I sighed. “But I gave this kid an eviction notice a week ago and he has yet to vacate the premises. He’s stubborn, like his daddy,” I smiled down at Trace, running my fingers through his hair.
“I’m ready to meet him. I want to know if he looks like you or me. I bet he looks like you,” he smiled wistfully, rubbing my stomach.
I laughed, placing my hand against his to still his movements. “Trace, he’s not a genie in a bottle. You can’t rub him out.”
“I can try,” he grinned boyishly.
About that time, I felt a gush and my eyes widened.
Trace looked up at me and his eyes were full of panic. “Is that what I think it is?”
I nodded.
He rushed out of the room, grabbing the bag with baby clothes and ran down the hall to our bedroom. He came back with the baby bag slung over one shoulder and my overnight bag on the other.
“Baby time,” he smiled, but there was fear in his eyes too. I’d have been lying if I said I wasn’t scared. “Do I need to carry you?” He looked at me skeptically.
I rolled my eyes. “I can walk.”
“I can carry you if—”
“Just get me to the hospital,” I said calmly, because I knew one of us had to stay calm in this situation and it definitely wouldn’t be Trace.
He helped me to the garage and into the large SUV he’d insisted on buying the day after I told him we were going to have a baby.
“Did you have to get a SUV that was so high,” I grumbled, as I tried to scramble my way into the car. I was having trouble between my short legs and the boulder that was currently my stomach.
“This was the safest car for the baby,” he defended.
After some help from Trace, I managed to get seated and stretched the seatbelt across my stomach.
I think he broke at least ten traffic laws in his haste to make it to the hospital.
By the time I was admitted into a room and my doctor came to check on me, I had dilated six centimeters. “More than halfway there. Things are moving really fast. You’ll have a baby to hold soon,” the doctor smiled as she left the room.
