Page 66 of Wicked Queen

“We’ll try to keep that a surprise,” he promised me, “but we’ll stick with he for now. I’m going to take a few measurements and then we’ll discuss what I find. I want you to relax and think about how soon you’re going to meet him.”

I stared at the screen, love flooding through me. He was getting so big, and it wouldn’t be long until I held him. Maybe I would have been able to let my mind wander, imaging that moment, if worst case scenarios didn’t immediately follow. It was difficult to relax when the purpose of the visit was to determine what was wrong with the baby. “Is he okay?”

“He looks very happy, if a bit cramped,” Rolland said gently.

“Have you two picked out names?” Belle was always good at drawing my thoughts away from the worst.

“Only about ten, so we need about twenty more,” I said dryly. Royal naming conventions made it both easier and harder to choose.

“Tell me and I’ll give you suggestions. Smith and I are fighting constantly. He likes the name Charles—can you imagine? Charles,” she repeated, screwing her face up like it tasted sour on her tongue.

“That one is not on our list.” She’d managed to get me laughing and the baby seemed to respond, stretching like he could hear me. “William for a boy and Alice for a girl, I think. Alexander likes Alice more than I do.”

“Alice and Alexander is darling,” Belle noted.

“It is,” I said softly, trying it out myself. “Alice and Alexander. He wants another little girl.”

“And you?”

This was where I gave the standard mother-to-be response, but it held so much more meaning. The words clumped in my throat. “Healthy. I want a healthy baby.”

So much for distraction.

“William is adorable,” Belle said. “We can call him Wills.”

“Wills,” I echoed her. I imagined meeting Wills. How Elizabeth would fawn over the baby—she’d taken a more active interest in her dollies over the last few weeks. As time passed, he’d toddle after, trying to mimic everything she did. I saw a whole, joyful life stretching ahead of me and suddenly, I wasn’t afraid.

I was determined.

Nothing would take it from me. I had access to amazing medical care. I had resources.

Belle and I continued to discuss the numerous other names the baby would have. She rather liked adding Edward in as a middle. “Annabelle would make a lovely middle name.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

When the doctor finished the scan it was time for the more uncomfortable bit. As he’d expected, there was no progress, which was a relief.

“I don’t even have the nursery ready,” I admitted.

“Ohhh, that’s the fun part,” Belle said. “I’ll help.”

“Alexander wanted to do it, but…” I hadn’t brought it up to my husband in ages. He’d put together Elizabeth’s room with the help of his brother as a surprise. At the time, when he was still leery of becoming a father, I’d seen it as a sign. I didn’t want to read into the lack of room prep now. He had been busy, but the dread inside me questioned if he knew something was wrong with the baby. If we’d been resisting planning for his arrival because deep down, we knew.

“I will remind him,” Belle said as if to put an end to that line of worry.

After I was dressed, both doctors returned, wearing borrowed smiles, to discuss the scan with me. As soon as Rolland spoke, I understood his mood.

“Doctor Ball informed that he already went over our initial concerns, and the good news is that I’ve discovered no further issues.”

‘No further issues’ meant we still had the one. “But the baby’s heart will need surgery?”

I spoke because I needed to face it. Until now, I’d terrified myself with what could go wrong and then calmed myself by saying it was too early to be certain. It was no longer too early.

“Yes.” Rolland’s voice was soft and kind but there was a heaviness that didn’t match dragging at his eyes. “We’ll need to administer some medicine at his birth that will help keep his ductus arteriosus open to help him breathe. After that, we’ll need to keep him under observation until we determine how soon we can perform the operation.”

I’d read about the condition and I knew that the operation was usually done within days to weeks. “How soon?”

“Ideally, as soon as I can perform it is best. We want the baby to have time to bond with his parents, but then it should be done right away,” Rolland said.