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“I know it’s not anything to worry about, but I’ve had enough of being pregnant and I just want to meet our baby now.”
“Just be patient. The baby will come in its own time when it’s ready.” As usual, Alessio was calm and controlled and wasn’t letting anything ruffle him.
“I am being patient,” I snapped. “There’s nothing else I can be right now. I need the bathroom.” I sat up and tried to get out of bed. “No one warned me how difficult it would be to get out of bed when you are nine months and three days pregnant. The book says all you need to do is roll over onto your side and then get up from that position, but no doubt a man came up with that advice because I’m telling you it doesn’t work.”
“Hold on, I’ll help you.” Alessio came around to my side of the bed and pulled me up.
“Oh great, that makes me feel even more like the size of an elephant when I need someone to heave me to my feet,” I grumbled, too annoyed to even thank Alessio for his help. These last few days of the pregnancy were really trying me. I went into the bathroom but returned to the bedroom a few seconds later.
“Alessio?”
He sat up again. “Do you need some help?”
“I think my water just broke.”
“What?”
“The baby’s coming.”
Alessio leaped to his feet. “What the hell?” Alessio ran past me and rushed down the stairs.
I looked over the top of the banister. “Where are you going?”
“We need the car!” he shouted back over his shoulder.
“What about me?” I wailed.
But he didn’t reply as he was already on his cell phone, telling the perimeter guards that we were on our way and ordering them to open up the gates.
I looked back at the bedroom and decided to get my hospital bag myself. It had been Alessio who had insisted that I pack it when I reached the five-month point, so it had been sitting ready for the last four months.
Alessio was a bit of a control freak—he had an Excel spreadsheet set up with all the details for my scans, check-ups, and antenatal care, plus all the dates for the baby’s vaccinations until the age of five. I tried to tell him that babies weren’t analytical business deals where everything was set in stone, but this sort of over-planning was just his nature.
He’d even typed up a shortlist of names for both boys and girls, in order of preference, together with the meaning of each name and their popularity calculated as a percentage of all babies born in the US within the last twelve months. However, the most work had gone into the daily schedule he’d drawn up after reading numerous books and his timetable included feed times, nap times, and diaper change times.
I picked up my hospital bag and slowly made my way down the staircase and into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. There I found Marco and Juliana awake, together with a shrieking Maximo. “What are you guys doing up? It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“Welcome to our world,” muttered Marco darkly. “You’ll soon find out what it’s like once your little bundle of joy arrives. I’ve tried telling Alessio that the baby is not going to obey that schedule he’s set out in the spreadsheet.”
“Me too,” I sighed. “He’s going to be in for a rude awakening when the baby arrives and he realizes that the baby has a mind of its own which doesn’t correlate with his schedule. I think he just needs to feel in control somehow."
“Here, let me take that from you.” Marco reached out to take my hospital bag from my hand.
“With all these guys in the house, you’d think one of them would offer to bring your hospital bag down rather than you having to lug it down the stairs yourself,” observed Juliana, as she munched on biscotti.
I was standing by the open front door, but Alessio was nowhere to be seen and the car he normally used was gone. “Where is he?” I asked in confusion.
Marco gestured up the driveway. “He said he was driving up to the gates to make sure that the guards had opened them.”
“But I thought he already phoned them to let them know to open it, and anyway they can see any car approaching well before it reaches the gates!”
I collapsed on a chair at the kitchen counter as my back hurt too much to stay on my feet. “I may as well have a cup of tea before I go,” I sighed, helping myself to the pot of tea Juliana had made and set on the counter.
Maximo was already walking, and I watched him trying to wake up Mr. Fluffy. The dog wasn’t having it though, and he sleepily pricked his ears up and opened one eye before sinking back down into his doggy slumber.
“For God’s sake, I can’t believe that dog can sleep through all the racket that kid is making. He’d be a hopeless guard dog,” complained Marco. I could tell he was desperate for the dog to wake up and play with Maximo so that he and Juliana could have a break.
“What are you doing?” shrieked Alessio as he came into the kitchen. His hair was sticking up like he’d been running his hands through it. “We need to get to the hospital.”
