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Tom knew his wife, Sophie, better than anyone else. He could tell when she was thriving in her element, when she was the brilliant pediatric surgeon who commanded a room with her precision, charm and kindness. But lately, something was off, and it didn’t sit well with him.
He noticed it first in small things, like the way she’d leave her coffee mug in random places, her patient charts abandoned halfway through her notes, and in moments when he’d catch her staring into space in the middle of a conversation. It was all so unlike her, and it was beginning to worry him.
“Soph,” he broached softly, finding her in the on call room, where she was sitting on the edge of the bed, absentmindedly flipping through a medical journal without really reading it.
She looked up, startled out of her thoughts. “Tom, hey. I didn’t hear you come in.”
He sat beside her, gently taking the journal from her hands and setting it aside. “Now hear me out,” he started. “You’ve been all over the place lately, and it’s not like you. Not going to lie, it’s kind of scaring me a little,” he added with a nervous chuckle, always trying to keep things light.
Sophie sighed, leaning into his side. “I know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just can’t seem to focus. It’s like my brain is working on a different frequency.”
Tom gently rubbed her back, his brow furrowed with concern for her. “When’s the last time you took a break? I mean a real break, not just five minutes between surgeries.”
“I don’t even remember,” she admitted with a small, tired laugh. “But this feels different, Tom. I’m leaving things halfway done, zoning out. That’s not me.”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed, thinking on it a moment. Then, something occurred to him —a thought that gave him pause. “Sophie…when’s the last time you, uh, had your period?”
She blinked at him, the question catching her off guard. “What? I—” She frowned, mentally counting the days, and then her eyes widened. “Oh my God, Tom, I… I’m late.”
He grinned, the worry in his eyes shifting to something warmer, more hopeful. “You might be pregnant.”
Sophie’s hand flew to her mouth as she stared at him, her heart racing. “Pregnant? But… we weren’t even trying.”
“I know,” he said, taking her hands in his, his voice losing its usual snarky tone in favor of gentle reassurance. “But we weren’t exactly not trying, either,” he quipped, with a playful wink.
Her mind raced as she processed the possibility. They had talked about starting a family, but it had always been more of a “someday” conversation. And yet, now that the possibility was real, she realized how much she wanted it, how much she wanted this next step with him.
“What if I am,” she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. It was part nerves, part excitement, though at the moment neither one was quite winning out over the other.
“Then I have to get to baby proofing the house," Tom joked.
“They’re not going to come out crawling,” she ribbed back at him. “I hardly think that’s our highest priority.”
“With my brains and your determination, they just might.”
At that, the two of them shared a laugh, finally able to feel like themselves again for a moment, and not just scared prospective parents.
"I love you, Tom," Sophie said with such tenderness that it felt like the first time she’d said it to him all over again.
“I love you too,” he whispered into her hair, kissing the side of her head. “Tonight, let’s go home, take a test, and find out for sure. Whatever the result, we’ve got this.”
Sophie nodded, a smile finally breaking through as the joy settled in. As they left the hospital hand in hand that night, Sophie felt the weight of the past few weeks lift off her shoulders. They were stepping into this new chapter of their lives together. And she couldn’t wait to see what the future held.