Foreign Affair ›› n.h. mature

Ninety-Six

"Are you joking? Good excited! Hell, I'm great excited! Let's do it! What are we waiting on?" He pinned my shoulders to the mattress, laid on top of me, and started kissing me.

"I didn't mean right this second," I said, laughing at my husband's eagerness.

"I don't see a problem with it." He kissed me again.

We truly didn't waste much time before starting to try. I called my doctor the next morning to make an appointment. She put me on all sorts of prenatal vitamins as well as folic acid.

Niall was working and couldn't join me at the appointment, but he was excited to see me when he got home that evening.

"Well, how did it go? Are we pulling the goalie?" He had an excited grin on his face.

"Niall, are you sure about this? I think I'm ready if you are. But is anyone ever really ready?"

Instead of answering me, he threw his jacket over a chair and headed for our bedroom. I watched him for a second, a bit confused, then went after him.

He opened the drawer of my nightstand and dug around for a minute before coming up with my birth control pills. Then he chucked them in the nearby trash can and they landed with a definitive thud. "Babe, we're ready."

His hands were on me in no time, pulling me to the bed.

The months that followed were some of our best yet. We had never had so much sex. It was like the newlywed months and then some.

I loved everything about it. I loved the way one of us was always trying to start something no matter the time of day. We were giddy with excitement for weeks on end.

"Do you think I'll know once it's happened?" I asked Niall one night. We were under the covers and still coming down from our last go.

"Yeah, when your period doesn't come, right?"

"Well yeah that will tell me. But do you think I'll know before then? Like I'll just have a sense or a gut feeling?"

"Maybe. That would literally be a gut feeling," he said with a laugh.

"It seems like if we've conceived a baby I should just feel it in my heart. I don't know, I guess that's not logical. But women always act like it's the most magical thing."

"Yeah, I don't know. What's your gut telling you now? Think we need to give it one more go tonight?" Niall spoke suggestively against my skin then his lips connected with my neck. His fingers were already teasing me again.

One evening Niall came home with a grocery sack full of pregnancy tests.

"I think you should take one," he told me, handing me a pink and white box.

"Really? My period isn't due for another week so it'll be over a week before I even know if I'm late."

"Liv, I've been giving you my absolute best these last few weeks." He couldn't help but join me in laughing once I started. "I have a good feeling."

"Okay! Yeah let's do it."

We rushed through the instructions, barely glancing, all too excited to get to it. But really, it's idiot-proof. You pee on a stick. What more could the instructions say?