Their other mother

It finally happened. It worked. Linda was pregnant. She peed on a stick well before she was supposed to, and we stared through bleary morning eyes at the undeniably present second pink line. And so became the routine, the next day and the next: a party trick that never got old, mornings spent in awed silence taking side-by-side photos of an ever-growing number of peed-upon sticks. The phone calls from Fertility Associates, so different to the ones before: it worked, it stuck, it's growing. The morning routine changed again: sea sickness bands, the snapping of Salada crackers, watered-down juice delivered gently to a groaning bedside. Cats hiding under couches, eyes wide, as the sound of retching fills our tiny house. The numbers are perfect, top percentile, maybe it's twins. Doubling and doubling and doubling again. The baby is due on October 18th. We'll have to host Christmas - no way we can travel with a baby that wee, and surely everyone will want to gather aro...