Chai Tea Sunday Read Online Free PDF Page A

finally, she asked if I’d like for her to get Eric from the waiting room so that we could see the baby together.
    â€œYes! Please!” I replied, grateful that we could experience seeing the baby together. Eric walked in behind the technician, and then she showed us the baby’s itty-bitty pulsing heart and let us listen to its magical beat.
    Then the technician panned the baby to reveal two arms, two legs and an adorable face with two ears, two eyes, a nose and a mouth.
    â€œIs that . . . ?” Eric’s voice trailed off and he pointed to something resembling a small tube that had floated onto the screen.
    â€œNo,” the technician laughed. “That’s the umbilical cord. But I do know if it is a boy or a girl, if you’d like to know.”
    Eric had stayed firm on our decision to not know the baby’s sex, but I could tell the pendulum was starting to sway to my side. He shifted his feet and cleared his throat, obviously a bit uncomfortable and not knowing which way we should go.
    â€œIt’s up to you, Eric. You know I’m happy to find out or wait.”
    â€œOh, okay, well, let’s just do it. Let’s find out. I thought it would be better to find out the day the baby is born. But it seems more real now that I know someone
else
knows the sex of our baby. I think I need to know too.” Eric squeezed my hand. “Let’s go for it!”
    I nodded at the ultrasound technician, signalling that I agreed with Eric.
    â€œWell, since you’ve decided to find out, why don’t I just show you?” The technician punched in a few buttons on the ultrasound machine in order to bring up a new screen. “Here are the baby’s legs, which we saw before. Here is the middle of the baby’s legs, and you can clearly see that there is nothing there hanging around. If it were a boy, you would see a swollen lump directly in between the baby’s legs. It’s a pretty clear shot, so I would say with some serious certainty that you are having a little baby . . .
girl
!”
    A girl! I knew it.
    Some might call it maternal instinct, while others would point out that I had a fifty-fifty shot at guessing the baby’s sex, but every fibre in me had screamed we were having a girl.
    Eric wiped away the tear that had started to roll down my cheek. “Congratulations, Mama. Looks like we’ll be bringing home a daughter in a few short months. We better go and buy some pink!”

    The autumn air became cooler, and a hint of winter was promised in every new morning frost. The bright red leaves on our backyard maple trees were a long-lost thought, and the chill in the air brought shivers to anyone who stepped outside.
    Except me.
    My belly had continued to explode, acting as a cozy home for our baby girl and a warming blanket for me. Despite always being cold in my pre-pregnancy days, I was constantly hot, and chose to ignore Eric’s grumbles when I insisted on sleeping with all of our windows open.
    As Christmas drew near, Eric and I went about our annual holiday duties. He put up the lights while I baked gingersnap cookies and made peanut butter balls for all of our nieces and nephews.
    Three weeks before Santa was due to arrive, while we were sitting in front of the fire munching on warm shortbread cookies straight from the oven and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows (extra for me given that I seemed to feel better after copious amounts of sugar), Eric brought up names for our baby.
    â€œI think we should really pick our name, Nic. It’s getting close,” Eric pressed, wiping crumbs from my belly, which, somewhere along the way, seemed to have become a food trap for anything that didn’t quite make it into my mouth.
    â€œUh-oh. Here we go again. We’ve been through the baby name book every day for the past three months. Nothing is jumping out!”
    â€œDoesn’t mean we don’t need to pick a name. We can’t raise a