They shared a laugh as Victoria made some notes in her laptop. “Let’s do a urine test and a quick exam and see what’s what. Good?”

“Yes, sounds good.” Well, except for the part about the exam, but after two pregnancies, she’d gotten used to the indignities associated with childbearing. Victoria took her to the lab for the blood test and then left her in the exam room to undress. Riddled with nerves, Maddie donned the gown that barely covered her copious breasts and sat on the edge of the exam table.

While she desperately wanted the baby she might not be carrying, the thought of three children under the age of five was daunting, to say the least. Thomas and Hailey were well-behaved, good sleepers and relatively easy kids, but parenthood was a lot of work. It was an all-consuming proposition.

Mac had said if they were going to have three kids, they may as well have them close in age so they could all grow up together the way he had with his siblings and she had with her sister. While she bought into that rationale, she hoped she could handle two babies in diapers at the same time.

“You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself,” she whispered. She didn’t even know for sure that she was pregnant, and she was already making plans. By the time Victoria knocked on the door, Maddie was practically trembling from the bout of nerves.

“All righty,” Victoria said with her usual peppy enthusiasm for all things reproductive, “let’s see what we’ve got. You know the drill.” She pulled on gloves and settled Maddie’s feet into the stirrups that magically appeared at the end of the table.

While Victoria poked and prodded from the inside and outside, Maddie stared up at the ceiling, trying to prepare herself for the possibility of a false alarm.

“Your uterus is slightly enlarged, but that could be left over from Hailey, so I don’t want to say anything for certain until we get the test results back. You can go ahead and sit up. If you want to get dressed and meet me in my office, I’ll go move the lab along.”

“Thanks, Vic.” Disappointed to not yet have a definitive verdict, Maddie got dressed and went to Victoria’s office at the end of the hall.

“They need a few more minutes, so have a seat. Can I get you some coffee or anything?”

“No, thank you.”

Victoria’s cell phone rang, and she glanced at it longingly.

“Go ahead,” Maddie said with a laugh. “It’s just me.”