“Looks like you’re about sixteen weeks and two days, give or take a few. Dating by ultrasound isn’t an exact science.”

“Sixteen weeks!” Sammi’s head bolts up, as she braces herself on her elbows. “How did I not know?”

“With your irregular cycles, it’s very easy to miss. Especially if you weren’t having extreme morning sickness to alert you that something was amiss.”

“Shouldn’t I be feeling her moving around in there?” my wife asks, still stunned by this news.

“You probably have and just didn’t realize it,” Dr. Ruby offers. “Movement this early feels like little more than gas or flutters in your tummy. Now that you know, I bet if you lay still, you’ll be able to feel it.”

“When am I due?”

“We’re going to go with March nineteenth.”

Sammi nods then frowns. “And can you tell around when I conceived?”

Fuck if my stomach doesn’t drop at the reminder that I’m not the one responsible for knocking my wife up.

“Likely the week of June 26th. But again, it could be a week earlier or later since we can’t go by your cycle. It’s all an educated guess.”

I stare at my Li’l Bit, waiting for her to share with me the significance of that date, because judging by the expression on her face, it means something to her.

“Could be either of them,” she says, shaking her head as if she’s disgusted with herself.

“Stop it.” I clutch her chin and turn her face to mine so she’s looking me in the eye. “None of that matters anymore. This is our child. Yours and mine…”

“You’re right,” Sammi says, accepting my kiss before relaxing back onto the pillow. “The past can stay in the past.”

“That’s exactly where it belongs,” I agree.

The doctor spends the next thirty minutes trying unsuccessfully to determine the gender of our baby before we finally throw in the towel and agree to give it another go at her anatomy scan in a few weeks.

We’re already running late for Rhett and Korie’s little girl’s first birthday party and need to get moving.

“He kinda looks like an alien,” I say, holding the photo of the baby’s face out so we can examine it together as we depart through the back door and make our way toward the dumpster to our waiting car.

“She’s the prettiest little Martian I ever did see.” Li’l Bit rams an elbow into my ribs. “Seriously, though, I can’t believe we have to wait another month to find out which one of us is right.”

Sammi is a planner, and a bit of a control freak, and I can just imagine what not knowing is doing to her.

“You’ll still have twenty weeks to shop and plan.”