By the fourth month she starts to develop newly acquired weird obsessions that nearly killed James.
It really began when Tom showed up one day with Ashley on a toll carrying hand-made, finely crocheted toys and pillows.
There was nothing really extraordinary about the visit, except that Tom really did smell so good, like a basket of jasmine and apples and that she could never get enough of his image on white tee and jeans.
That triggered it.
James later called it her baby fever.
"Your brother really is tall isn't he?" she asks him over ice cream and cookies. James purses his lips.
"So am I,"
"He and Lauren talk a lot, I suppose?"
She was positive James rolled his eyes.
"Probably,"
She burrows an impressive hole in her dark chocolate ice cream.
"I really like the way he does his hair. Also have you noticed the way his eyes crinkle every time he smiles?"
James heaves a sigh.
"Naddie you sound like fancy my brother,"
She shrugs.
"Maybe"
James choked on his ice cream.
That night she bugs James to call Tom.
He sets his book down, does his famous eye roll, and flares his nose.
"What for?"
"I wanna see him, that's all. Thank him and Ashley for the gifts."
James eyes her suspiciously and makes the call.
The next day Tom arrived with a basket of goodies and James finds himself prying his wife off his brother.
The baby fell in love with Tom, alright.
----
Developing new obsessions is something not exclusive to her. James had his fair share of the craze.
He always made it to a point to talk to her baby bump because he swore he read somewhere the baby could hear him and they are very receptive to auditory triggers.
He read her bump a mirage of stories that went from children's fairytales to his memories of Christmas with Dad to Jude and Bret and Zon's misadventures.
One time, with his earphones he made her bump listen to Panama.
But her favorite is when he places his head on her bump and sing Disney songs like he used to do to her.
He was humming a tune from The Little Mermaid when he stopped, peered at her from her bump, and asked her something.
"Do you think the baby hears us when we have se--"
She was forced sing Tomorrow from Annie to drown his question.
----
Bret promised to make up for the lame gifts he'd given, so one night James goes home armed with a package he claims Bret has given.
It was a set of video instructions on easy labor and delivery.
They watch it after dinner.
For someone like Bret, the video was pretty scientific, it explained the dynamics of conception and the expected pains and dangers of pregnancy.
Everything was delivered in a cool educational way, except for the part where mothers in labor were featured and the videos started to shift from Nat Geo to Saw VII.
When an expecting mother screamed at the top of her lungs and there was so much amniotic fluid and blood on the screen James took the initiative to turn it off.
Before going to sleep she swore James will never touch her again because damn how could he expect her to pop out his baby through a centimeter hole?
----
She wonders how James could put a brave face when he walks in the kitchen every morning and find her making a mayonnaise-asparagus-strawberry jam-tea smoothie.
Lately, the baby was being creative. Nadine finds her palette unsatisfied.
And the baby hates solid food. Everything she wanted to eat ends up on the food processor or blender.
Just last week she tried to do tuna flakes and guacamole smoothie and James nearly threw up and it fucking offended her because he was being such a pansy for settling his gourmet avenues to elementary flavors.
She offers her smoothie. He politely refuses and drinks his barley tea with honey.
"Love, are you sure that's edible? I'd get you milk if you want?"
She hugs her glass of home-made smoothie protectively.
"Of course it's edible."
They both look at the pulpy whitish pink with green lining mass sitting on her glass.
He sighs.
"I highly doubt it."
----
He finds her curled up in the study writing something.
"What's that?"
James flops beside her and immediately she snatches her paper out of his sight.
He raises a brow. She nudges him with a socked foot.
"James get out. I am writing a love letter."
He's doing it again, staring at her for too long she had to kick him.
"I need to concentrate."
He grins lopsidedly.
"You're never the love letter type as far as I can remember,"
"And what type am I, hmm Reid?"
He traces a finger on her knee and she squirms and damn the cheeky bastard is teasing her.
"I'd tell you if you tell me what's that love letter for?"
She sighs.
"For our child,"
It only took one beam from him and she was sitting there ready to spill all her secrets.
"I wanted to tell him a lot of things," she starts, "That I love him and I love you and I was really frightened when I learned I'd be a mom and I can't wait to meet him and he's the most precious thing I'll ever have. You and him."
She smiles, brushes his hair off his forehead.
"I'd like him to have your eyes."
He rests his chin on his hand and he looks so contented and fucking perfect she felt like crying.
And she did.
When James, suddenly alarmed asked what was the matter she could only blurt out how much he was making her sexually frustrated.
And he preens because she knows she's already four months pregnant and she's not supposed to think of having him to bed but here she is crying because she is thinking of that.
So he leans in and suddenly she finds herself kissing him and his hands are everywhere and the study was suddenly too hot and she felt getting out of her sundress and he was giving her the look.
"I'm not wearing my jumper," she whispers.
He smiles at her collarbone.
"I don't want you wearing anything in the first place."
