Stephanie DeWitt laughed as her husband Jack tried making the various crib parts magically look like something other than oversized Tinker Toys. Like all men since the advent of time, he had refused to look at the directions. Like all women before her, Stephanie was reading the directions aloud after he had thrown his hands up in frustration.
At seven months along in her pregnancy, Stephanie was not one of those women who was gracefully expecting. At 5'8" and 130 pounds before her pregnancy, her weight had ballooned to numbers that were shocking to her every time she stepped on the scale. Her ankles were swollen to three times their normal size, making it impossible to wear anything on her feet other than flip-flops. Her light brown hair remained thick and wavy, but she found herself piling it on top of her head and securing it with a chopstick, as she couldn't bear to have it hanging down her back. She was frequently overheated and miserable. "If anyone had told you what it was really like to be pregnant, no one would ever do it." It's like her sisterhood of female friends and relations had let her down.
Jack DeWitt always went out of his way to never make his wife feel less than beautiful. He knew she was distressed about the weight gain, but they were both fit, active people. He was sure things would return to normal once the baby was born. He was more concerned about his wife's health. Her blood pressure had been creeping up. He had made plans to take a few hours off when she went to her next check-up. He had questions and his wife's pregnancy was making her delightfully spacy about remembering the finer details of what was said at each Dr.'s visit.
He finally had part of the baby bed up and was frustrated at the amount of time it was taking. "I swear to God, Steph, the Space Shuttle is probably easier to build."
Chortling, Stephanie stuck her tongue out at her husband. "No, it just has better assemblers who probably read the directions." She giggled at the glare Jack gave her, loving the teasing. They had always shared the same sense of humor. Stephanie was the flightier of the two. She had earned a worthless art degree and churned it into a blogging site for teaching people how to cook healthier food. She could work completely from home, a plus given that they were about to have a baby.
She had been advised that blogging would be next to impossible to do while recovering from childbirth and with a newborn around. Jack had recommended that Stephanie hire his sister's daughter. Amanda Morgan was studying graphic design; Steph had been slowly bringing her up to speed on how to make daily blog posts while she was recovering. Jack owned his own landscaping company and couldn't really afford to take much time off work. Amanda had proved to be something of a godsend.
Jack stood up and stretched. The baby bed was finally ready. "The baby isn't coming for another couple of months. Why did I have to do this today?" Jack's hazel eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled. He had sandy blond hair and a boyish charm that still made her heart melt. At 5'10" tall and with a lean physique from running, he was her dream man. Her mother had always told her to find a man who could make her laugh, that it would make the tough times more bearable. Steph had listened to her mother and never regretted the man she had chosen.
The baby chose that moment to kick her in the ribs. She winced. "Your son is going to be a soccer player someday, I just know it." They were expecting a boy, but they had decided to wait to discuss names until he made his appearance in the world. It had the added benefit of driving their relatives crazy, which was so much the better. Older, wealthy relatives had promised huge amounts of money in the child's trust fund if their name was chosen. Sadly, the wealthiest one of the lot was named "Madge." Who names their son "Madge?" Great Aunt Madge was going to have to offer a lot of zeros before they entertained such a notion.
Going downstairs, Stephanie pulled the platter of steaks out of the fridge that she had setting in Jack's special spice rub. He grilled them outside while she made a quick salad with her own homemade dressing. She brought the salad and a pitcher of lemonade out to the backyard patio.
As Jack was in landscaping, their own yard had to be a showplace. While the front yard looked like it belonged in a magazine, the back was their own garden paradise. Jack had asked Stephanie what her dream yard would look like, and she gave him a wild suggestion of something that would resemble "The Secret Garden" in the story by Frances Hodgson Burnett. To her utter surprise, he designed and built it for her with leftover supplies from other job and bricks he salvaged wherever he could find them. The walls were rustic and mismatched looking, but it made their yard utterly private. Fruit-laden trees lined a walkway, with various benches and little nooks laid out creatively. There was a lovely corner with a hammock for relaxing and reading. In a creative bit of whimsy, Jack even fashioned a man looking over the garden wall as the gardener in the novel did when he suspected the children were playing inside.
There were more modern touches closer to the house, such a covered patio where they could eat outside. It was encased with a screen that could be opened fully or closed against insects. At the other end of the house near the wall sat a hot tub. The area was so private they often used it while nude. Now, it was Jack's domain, as her doctor had forbidden her to use it while she was expecting.
Sipping some cranberry juice, Steph put her feet up on the next chair while she speared a tomato in her salad. Jack soon joined her with the steaks. While she usually ate hers rare, she found her stomach turned over at the sight of red or even pink meat. "You really shouldn't have asked me to make yours well done, that cow already died once," her husband smirked.
Steph munched on her salad. She was addicted to vegetables, so they were eating a lot of salads. As a result, Jack was looking leaner and hotter than ever while she grew enormous. "You like to live dangerously, dude. Don't you know pregnant women are dangerous?"
Jack held his hands up in mock surrender. "Forgive me, m'lady. I am but a foolish knight come to sing sonnets to your absolutely enormous calves."
Shrieking with laughter, Stephanie stuck out her tongue again. They had both decided a long time ago that the only way to get through all the many discomforts was to laugh them away. They were constantly upping the ante to see who could come up with the more offensive jokes. "For a smartass comment like that, I'm not putting out tonight. Oh wait, I haven't put out in weeks. It wouldn't be much of a punishment, would it?"
Stephanie grinned, but the exaggeration was only a slight one. Along with everything else, sex had become increasingly uncomfortable. She knew friends who swore they continued to fuck their husbands right up until delivery, but she wasn't one of them. Ordinarily passionate, Stephanie just wasn't into it. Jack had been understanding and as a result, their guest bedroom had a lot of porn stashed in the closet.
