American Woman: Book 3

Chapter 44

As we were washing in the shower, I felt a little pain in my stomach. "Oh gosh I think the Braxton-Hicks contractions are starting up."
I said, annoyingly.
"Oh no momma. I'm sorry. Maybe we should have laid off the sex...especially the intense sex."
"No. It's ok. I don't regret it, and we don't know that's what caused it anyway. I'm not going to stop being intimate with you, to any degree that we want, unless the doctor tells us to stop."
"I love you momma." He says, stepping out of the shower and drying off. "I'm going to go check on mom. Stay in longer and see if the warm water helps your contractions."
He leaves the bathroom and I close my eyes and let the warm water wash over my body. Thankfully the contractions stopped and after a few minutes I got out and got dressed. I went into the kitchen to get some more water and when Maria turned and bolted to avoid me, I knew she had heard Prince and me earlier. Funny how I so didn't care in the moment, but now that I was had to actually face everyone, I was feeling embarrassed. It was after 12:00 by this point and I knew the ultrasound people would be here soon. I grabbed my cup of water and headed towards Mattie's room to make sure everything was ok. I crept the door open slowly and peeked in to see Prince sitting on the bed talking to Mattie who thankfully was awake and seemed alert. I quietly walked in trying not to interrupt their conversation, but Mattie spots me immediately "oh Jensen. Are you ready?" She asks excitedly.
"Yes. Are you?" I smile.
"Absolutely! Are you feeling ok? Prince says you were having some early contractions last  night and today."
"Yeah I was, but I'm fine. They've stopped. It's no big deal. She's not ready to come out yet or anything." I chuckle.
"Selfishly I wish she was." Mattie sighed. "Not that I want your baby to be premature." She quickly defended herself. "I just would love to be able to hold her. There is nothing better than rocking a baby. Oh and the newborn baby smell...it's just the best!" She says, closing her eyes and seemingly reminiscing about her own children and/or other grandchildren. "But getting to see her today really makes me happy. I can't thank y'all enough."
"You're welcome, mom." Prince says, squeezing her hand. "Who do you think she is going to look like? Jensen or me?" He teases.
"A think a perfect blend of both of you, which is going to make the prettiest little girl ever. Oh I just can't wait to see! Is it almost 1:00?" She asks, impatiently.
"Yeah." I respond. "Actually Prince why don't you stay in here and I'll go out and wait for them and bring them up when they arrive."
"Ok baby." He smiles. I exit the room and head down the elevator to the entrance of Paisley. When I get down to the lobby area, I see Diana and Amy. "Hey. The ultrasound people haven't shown up yet, have they?" I ask them.
"No." They both respond and then giggle.
"What's so funny?" I say, cracking a smile.
"Nothing." They quickly answer in unison but then snort trying to hold in their laughter.
"Ok! What is it? I want to know! What happened?" I demand in a pouty voice. Then it hit me! "Oh my god! Could y'all hear us down here?!" I shriek.
"Hear you what?" Amy smirked.
"Come on!" I say, rolling my eyes. "I don't think you could have heard us all the way down here on this level."
"We hear all sorts of stuff down here. You will need to be more specific." Diana chuckles.
"Oh shut up!" I laugh. "Y'all know exactly what I'm talking about!"
"Ok! Ok!" Amy exclaims. "We actually could hear some faint banging and other noises, but Maria came rushing down here in a twit saying y'all were going nuts up there and she felt weird staying up there and continuing to listen. So she stayed down here and I went up..."
"Amy!!!" I yell. "Did she really?!" I address Diana, who nodded yes. "Amy! Why?! You are a sicko!"
"I just wanted to see if Maria was overreacting. But she wasn't! Damn! What exactly was he doing to you in there?!!" She asked curiously.
"None of your business!" I exclaim.
"Well actually with all the noise you kinda made it our business. Was it the vibrator?!" She asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
"Nope. That thing can't get me off near as good as my man." I brag with a smirk.
"Bull shit! You probably haven't even used it yet, so you don't even know...."
"I have actually, and it was good...but I prefer my husband."
"Well I think I might prefer him too if he could make me cum that hard. Please tell me what he was doing?!!!" She tried again.
"Wouldn't you like to know..."
"Yes! Spill it! That little guy must have special powers or something."
"Oh look. Here's the technicians." I say, ending the conversation and heading to the door to let them inside.
"Bitch!" Amy yells as I walk off, causing me to giggle. I open up the door quickly, allowing them to come inside to the warmth and out of the bitter cold. "Hi. I'm Jensen Nelson. Thank you so much for coming." I say, sticking out my hand.
"Hi, I'm Beverly and this is my assistant Mary."
She says, shaking my hand and then Mary shaking my hand too. "Mary has no idea where we are, but I sure do! I don't want to come off as a fanatic but I'm going to be honest, I'm having to keep myself from freaking out a little bit. I can't believe I'm standing inside Paisley Park."
"So I take it you're a fan?" I smile and laugh.
"Huge fan. I own every album. I've been to countless concerts. I assume he will be in the room during the ultrasound?"
"Yes..."
"Oh my god! Ok I've got to be professional."
She says, almost to herself.
"You'll be fine." I reassure her. "Let me get somebody to help with your stuff. I need to warn you of a couple things before we go up." I say, asking Diana to get Mark to carry their stuff upstairs. He quickly comes in and takes all their equipment. "Ok well first thing is we need to have both of yours word that this appointment stays confidential. No telling media or anyone really bc that person tells someone who tells someone and so on."
"Oh I guarantee you we have ethics that bound us to patient privacy just like other medical professionals."
"Ok great. Thank you. The other thing is Prince's mom will be in the room. She is on her deathbed, and really she is the main reason we are doing this. We know she probably won't make it to the due date. So are you comfortable with that?"
"We are actually both nurses so we aren't skittish. That is such a wonderful thing to do for her. I think you will be pleased. How far along are you?"
"34 weeks and a couple of days."
"Oh that's perfect. We should be able to see him? Her?"
"Her." I smile.
"We should be able to see her features really well. Is there anything else or would you like to get started?" She asked kindly.
"Let's go." I say, leading them to the elevator.
I show them to the room where Mark has already delivered the equipment. "Prince, Mattie, this is Beverly and Mary, the ultrasound technicians." Prince stands up to greet both of them and then Mary started setting things up, but Beverly stood in a daze, holding onto Prince's hand. "Beverly is a huge fan, baby." I whisper as I walk passed him to ask Mary if I needed to do anything to get ready.
"Beverly!" Mary says, snapping her out of the trance she was in.
"Huh?! What?!" She stutters, finally releasing Prince's hand and walking over to help Mary set up a table for me to lay on. I try to contain my laughter as I look over to Prince, who raises his eyebrows as if to say "oh boy this should be fun."
After a few minutes they are set up and ask me to lay on the table. They lift up my shirt and lower my pants slightly and put a generous amount of gel on my stomach. They made sure to position the monitor where all three of us could see it perfectly. Beverly starts moving the probe around my belly and at first I just see a whole lot of nothing. Then she says "ok there's her feet."
"Awe!" Mattie exclaims. "Does she gave all 10 toes?!"
"Yes." Beverly chuckles.
"Ok good bc we have been really worried about that." Prince says sarcastically, shaking his head.
"Oh really?!" Beverly exclaims. "Well let me recheck...."
"Nah I was teasing." Prince chuckles.
"Oh!" Beverly says, letting out a huge laugh. I roll my eyes and lay my head back, knowing how the rest of this appointment was going to go.
"It's definitely a girl." Mary adds, causing me to raise up to look back at the screen. "What's her name going to be?"
"Devon." I answer.
"Devon Shaw." Mattie adds. I look at her to see her beaming, which made me happy.
"That's an awesome name." Beverly adds, staring up at Prince. He is oblivious as he is staring at the screen which is still stuck on her private area. The whole situation was awkward so I abruptly say "ok can we get it off her vagina please?"
"Oh sorry!" Beverly exclaims and moves it up and shows us her tummy and the umbilical cord. Then she focuses on her arms and hands, which she was moving around rapidly. "You better go ahead and check 10 fingers for mom." Prince says, causing Beverly to bust out into a fit of giggles. Prince looks over and me and I roll my eyes at him. "Yep. She has all her fingers too." Beverly says, to which Prince leans down closer to her and whispers deeply "that's great." I thought Beverly was going to fall out of her chair as I watched her face turn bright red. "Now do you mind showing us my beautiful daughter's face?" He adds, dropping his register down ever further.
"Y-Ye-Yes." Beverly stammers and almost drops the probe to the ground but recovers quickly. "Crap! Sorry!"
I slap Prince's arm slightly and mouth "stop!" He smirks and gets a cocky look on his face, knowing full well what he was doing to the poor woman. It took several seconds but she finally got it back in position and Devon's face popped up on the screen, causing a collective "awe!" from all five of us.

"She's beautiful! Oh my god! So precious!" Mattie exclaims, and then I hear soft sobs coming from her.
"She looks like you momma." Prince grins at me. "Pure perfection."
I begin to feel the tears forming in my eyes but I manage to choke out, "wow! I can see my dad! That's his lips..." I lay my head back and close my eyes, the tears falling down to my ears. I feel Prince's hands caressing my arm. Suddenly Mattie yells "she's sucking her thumb! Oh how cute! Skipper look!"
I jolt up and the screen looks blurry from the tears blocking my vision. I start quickly wiping them away. Finally it's clear enough that I can see that she really was!

"That is so adorable!" I stammer out.
"You know Skipper sucked his thumb until he was almost 5 years old. We tried everything we could think of to break him of it. We finally just made him wear mittens all the time and he eventually stopped."
"Ok mom. Thanks for that little anecdote." Prince sighs.
"That's why his teeth are a little bucked..."
"I don't have bucked teeth!" Prince exclaims.
"I think he has a perfect smile." Beverly adds. "I'm assuming you're Skipper?" She asks Prince.
"Yes."Prince rolls his eyes. "And thank you. Anyway, back to the baby..."
We all just sat there in silence for a couple of minutes and watched her every movement. I could watch her all day doing any little mundane thing. I was mesmerized by her and I could tell Prince was too. We were in complete awe of what our love had created. After a few more minutes of watching her and the three of us talking about every little move she made, I could tell Mattie was starting to drift off to sleep. "Prince, I think we need to let your mom rest." I whisper to him.
"Hey mom, is there anything else you want to see? It's about time for them to leave." Prince asks her.
"Could you print out a picture?" She asked Beverly.
"Sure!" She responded and quickly printed one and handed it to her. Mattie cradled it in her hands and laid down. Beverly printed another one and handed it to Prince. "I figured you would want one too."
"Absolutely! Thank you." He smiled at Beverly, who looked like she was in heaven. "I hate to rush you away, but we really need to let my mom rest and the nurse take back over. We really appreciate you coming here. The next time I have at concert at Paisley or a show in town, y'all are my special guests.
"Cool." Mary, replies and leans towards a stunned Beverly and says "you'll have to let me borrow some of your albums. I mean I know "Thriller"....
"Mary! That's Michael Jackson!" Beverly shrieks and promptly turns towards Prince and exclaims "please don't take back your offer based on her!!!"
"Well ladies you are lucky I'm in such a good mood. But please get her properly trained before she comes to see me." Prince smirks as we all head out of the bedroom.