Baumgartner generations: Janie

"Just taking a shower."

"Can I join you?" He peeked around the curtain, giving me a winning TJ grin, making the cleft in his chin even more prominent. I found it hard to resist him, even from the beginning. It was no different now.

"Where's Ronnie?" I wiped water out of my eyes.

"Shopping." He was already sliding his PJ bottoms off. "For baby clothes," he added, stepping into the shower fully nude. He was tall, tanned and gorgeous, filling up all the available space and blocking the water spray. Not that I really minded.

Sometimes I liked having him all to myself.

"Beth isn't home yet?" I'd woken up on my own-no Bethie jumping up and down on my bed-and slipped up here, feeling incredibly dirty, in so many ways, from last night's romp.

"She's going with Isabelle and her mom to the zoo." He grabbed the soap and began to wash.

I slipped past him to the front, back under the warmth of the water. "Well that's more fun than the Picasso exhibit."

He snorted laughter. "You didn't enjoy our day of art appreciation?"

"Oh, I didn't mind. But I think Beth will like sea lions and polar bears more."

"Probably true." He moved on to washing his hair and I admired him while his eyes were closed.

"Just think, next year we'll have two of them to take to the Met." I was still trying to get used to the idea. "Think a baby will appreciate Picasso?"

"The Picasso exhibit will be gone by then…" TJ rubbed water out of his eyes and looked at me. His expression had changed. I could tell he was really worried.

"I heard you talking this morning."

"What did you hear?" His frown deepened, and the look in his eyes-he wasn’t just worried, he was downright frightened-made me put my arms around him. It was a look I didn’t think I’d ever seen on his face before, unless you counted the time Beth accidentally inhaled an M amp;M and I was the one closest, the one who grabbed her and lifted and squeezed her little chest and made her spit it out. It was that same blind look of panic I saw in his eyes now.

"Why are you so scared?" I kissed his chest, beaded with water.

His arms went around me, tightening, holding me so close it was hard to breathe.

"I nearly lost them both, Janie."

"How?"

He stroked my back. "Pregnancy just doesn't agree with Ronnie."

"What do you mean?"

"She had pre-term labor with Beth," he explained. "You know, when you have contractions way before the baby's ready to live on the outside?"

I nodded. I had a few girlfriends back home who had kids already, and had heard enough on Facebook about their pregnancies-from morning sickness to hemorrhoids-to last me a lifetime.

"Everything was restricted." His arms enveloped me, his hands sliding downward. "She had to stay in bed for half the pregnancy. We couldn't even have sex."

"Is that what this is about?" I exclaimed, my eyes widening as I slapped his hands away from my behind.

"No." He smiled sadly. "If it was just that, we'd have ten kids."

"What, then?"

"She developed preeclampsia," he told me. "Do you know what that is?"

I shook my head. Maybe I knew less about pregnancy than I thought I did, I realized.

"It's when the mother's blood pressure goes way too high. If it goes on, it can cause seizures and even death. For both mother and baby," he explained.

"Can't they fix it?"

He shrugged. "The solution is to get the baby out. But they don't want to do that until the baby is old enough to survive."

I tried to imagine how scared Ronnie had been, how scared TJ must have been.

"So what happened?"

"They finally decided it was too bad and they had to induce labor," he went on.

"They tried that… but Ronnie had a seizure during labor."

"Oh no." Seizures I knew about. My uncle had been epileptic and I'd seen one once. It had scared the pants off me.

"I thought she was dying." TJ blinked fast and I thought there might be tears in his eyes, but it was hard to tell with all the water. "All these doctors and nurses were going crazy, pushing me out of the way, putting stuff in her mouth to keep her from biting down on her tongue. They wheeled her out of there and down to the operating room and I was just…left…standing there…"

"But they did the c-section," I urged, knowing the end of this story at least had a happy ending. "It turned out okay."

"Yes." He stared at the tiles as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. "That time, it did." He looked at me then and I'd never seen such a deep expression of sad and scared like that before. It made my heart clench. "But what about this time?"

"Can it happen again?"

"Yes."

"But it might not," I argued, swallowing hard.

"That's true."

"But you're still scared." My arms went around his neck.

"Yes," he whispered, his voice sounding choked and I knew there were tears in it.

"Now I'm scared." I shivered in spite of the heat of the water.

"Ah, Janie girl, I'm sorry…" He kissed the top of my head, stroking my wet skin. "I didn't mean to scare you, too."

"I don't want to lose her." Even saying the words felt like a dream. It couldn't happen. I wouldn't let it.