They implanted the embryos using an embryo transfer catheter, and Hugues was at her side. An hour later they were on their way back to the hotel. They told her to stay in bed that day and take it easy for a few days, no exercise, heavy lifting, or hot tubs. She had to continue taking progesterone to aid with implantation. And she could take a pregnancy test in two weeks. After that they would do a sonogram to see how many embryos had stayed. It was going to seem like an endless wait, and they had already told them that it might take several attempts. Many people didn’t succeed until the third or fourth, if they could afford it, which at least wasn’t a problem for them. It was a costly procedure, but their greatest fear was that it wouldn’t work. Natalie was obsessed with having Hugues’s child.
He brought her home from the clinic and tucked her into bed, just as he had Heloise every night for all those years. And he bent down and kissed her.
“Now you and our babies stay here,” he said gently. “Don’t get out of bed.”
“I won’t,” she promised, holding his hand. He had been so sweet to her about it, which made her feel even closer to him now, and she knew he was only doing it for her. She was terrified to move and lose them, so she stayed in bed all day. She was watching old sitcom re-runs on TV and having room service when Heloise called her on her cell phone.
“Where were you and Dad rushing off to this morning?” she asked, sounding curious.
“I had a meeting with a client at dawn in a weird neighborhood, and your dad offered to take me. I didn’t want to take the car or get stuck there without a cab.” At least it was a good story, and Heloise believed it.
“Where are you now? In your office?”
“No. I came back after the meeting. I’m in bed upstairs. I think I have the flu.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Did you order stuff from room service?”
“Yeah, chicken soup. I feel a little better. It’s probably nothing. I probably got up too early.” She sounded all right, but she was determined to do what she was told and take it easy for the day. She was directing projects in her office by phone.
“Do you want me to send something else up?” Heloise offered, but Natalie said she was fine with what she had upstairs.
“What were you doing out so early, by the way?” Natalie asked her. “I hope you’re not running in the park at that hour, it’s extremely dangerous,” she warned her, and she’d noticed the running clothes. But Heloise giggled.
“No, I walked Brad to the subway.” She felt comfortable with Natalie now and liked having a woman to share her secrets. She was even more open with her than she had been with Jennifer over the years, but she was older now, and Natalie was closer to her age. “He spent the night,” Heloise confessed. She sounded almost proud as she said it and very much in love.
“Was that the first time?” Natalie was touched that she had told her, and thought it was great news. She loved the idea of the two of them together and thought it would be a nice relationship for them both.
“Yes, we held out till last night. The bomb threat did us in. We came upstairs, and that was it.” Natalie smiled as she listened. It had been quite an evening.
“Well, if it makes any difference, I approve.”
“Thank you. Just don’t tell my father. I don’t tell him stuff like that. He might be upset.” He hadn’t been thrilled with Francois, although he had accepted it. She was still his little girl.
“It’s just between us,” Natalie assured her, wishing she could tell her about the in vitro fertilization that morning, but it was too soon. “Have you seen him around today?” Natalie was missing him, alone in their apartment.
“Yes, he was in his office writing letters to the guests, apologizing for last night. And he’s been in the lobby a lot today, reassuring people and telling them how sorry he is. People have been pretty nice about it. But they still don’t like it. You don’t want them to think there will be bomb threats whenever they stay here. But I think most people were pleased that we evacuated and didn’t take the chance. Better inconvenience them than risk blowing them up,” she said bluntly, and Natalie smiled.
“Yeah, I’ll say.” She was glad it wasn’t today. She didn’t want to move.
“I’ll call you later and see how you feel,” Heloise promised, and then she went back to work.
Hugues came up later than usual that night; he’d been busy all day smoothing ruffled feathers about the bomb threat. And he was concerned about her when he came in.
“How do you feel?” He looked worried, and he knew that if she got pregnant, particularly with several babies, he’d be even more so. This was a big deal, particularly at their age.
“Fine. Nothing weird. Just a little cramping.” But they had warned her that might happen, so she wasn’t worried. She smiled at him, and he bent down to kiss her. In his spare moments he had thought about it all day, imagining what it would be like to have a baby with her, and a little one running around, or more than one. He was beginning to like the idea, and it made him feel young.
Two days later Natalie went back to work, and life went back to normal. The hotel settled down. She went to her office every day. It seemed like an endless two weeks waiting to take the test. They told her she could do it at home, and then she’d have to come in for a blood test and a sonogram. And once a pregnancy was confirmed, she would have to switch to an obstetrician. Their job was to get her pregnant, not to follow her once she was.
She had bought a pregnancy test and had it in a drawer in her bathroom, waiting for the big day. She was so nervous about it that after she peed on the test stick, she just sat in her bathroom and cried in anticipation of the news. She was going to be so disappointed if it hadn’t worked, and so stunned if it had. She had hardly dared to hope for the past two weeks, but it was all that she could think of. And she tried not to talk about it too much with Hugues, but it was on his mind too. After she did a pregnancy test at home, she was going to have a blood test to confirm her HCG levels.
She was holding the stick in her trembling hand and looking at her watch. It was time. In fact, it was a minute longer, and she hadn’t looked yet. And then finally, holding her breath, she did. She stared at it in utter amazement and burst into sobs. There were two pink lines just where they were supposed to be. Two strong bright pink lines, just the way the instructions said. She was pregnant!
Chapter 21
WHEN HUGUES CAME up from work the evening Natalie took the test, he saw that she’d been crying. She’d been crying on and off all afternoon, totally overwhelmed by what had happened and thrilled beyond belief. The moment he walked in, she burst into tears again, feeling stupid, and he rushed toward her. He knew immediately what the result was or thought he did. He assumed she had taken the test, since he knew this was the day, it had been negative, and she was bitterly disappointed. He rushed to the couch where she was lying and took her in his arms immediately and held her as he consoled her.
“Darling, we’ll do it again. I promise. Remember what they told us. Some people have to try three or four times. The next one will be the right one,” he said, saying anything he could think of to comfort her, and she kept shaking her head, which he thought meant she didn’t believe him. And then suddenly she was laughing through her tears. She looked hysterical to him, and he was getting worried. “Natalie? Are you all right?” And then she nodded.
“Yes, I am. I’m
pregnant
!” She squealed with delight and hugged him, as he looked stunned.
“You are. I thought …”
“I don’t know why. I’ve been crying all afternoon. I’m so happy, I think I’m crazy.” She had never been so emotional in her life, and he was shaking when he held her and kissed her. He hadn’t thought it would mean that much to him, but suddenly it did.
“My God, it worked the first time. When do we go for the sonogram?” He wanted to know how many babies there were and how careful she had to be. He was going to guard her and their babies with his life.
“Next week. We won’t see much. Just the number of embryos and sacs.” It would show them how many babies had held.
He held her in his arms like blown glass, and they dreamed and talked late into the night, as he ran a gentle hand across her still-flat belly. All they could talk about were the babies they were going to have. And they had never loved each other more.
The blood test she had confirmed that she was pregnant. And the sonogram showed them what they wanted to know: three embryos in three sacs. She was pregnant with triplets. Hugues looked shell-shocked when they left the clinic. Three babies. He was going to be the father of four children. And Natalie looked equally stunned. They still couldn’t believe it had worked so easily and so quickly, but they’d been working on it for months. She had started taking the hormones in June. And their babies were due on the first of June, if they held that long. With triplets, it was almost a given that they would come early, or she could lose them long before that. The doctor had warned her that if she remained pregnant, she would probably be on bedrest. The next three months would be telling. And they had offered to reduce the number to twins or a single child, and she and Hugues had refused. It was all or nothing.
They both looked thunderstruck on the way home in the cab, and they had already agreed that they weren’t going to tell anyone until they knew the pregnancy was solid at the end of the first trimester. So they weren’t going to tell Heloise about it until December. Hugues hoped that she would be happy for them, now that she had accepted Natalie, but she would undoubtedly be stunned too, just as they were.
For the next three months, Hugues was busy averting a threatened strike of his kitchen staff, which took most of his attention and energy and some serious diplomacy to handle it, with advice from his lawyers. He dealt with other more ordinary employee problems too, and the occasional guest crisis. Heloise was busy at the front desk and wherever she was needed, and her romance with Brad was thriving. The hotel was extremely busy between September and Christmas, and they were fully sold out for Thanksgiving. And in their quiet moments, Hugues and Natalie talked about their triplets. So far, the pregnancy was holding. They had gone to the sonograms together, and seen all three babies and three heartbeats. She had the photographs they’d given her in a little folder on her desk, and she looked at them often, telling them to stay in there. And two weeks before Christmas, she had reached the magical three-month mark. Officially the babies were safe, but because there were three of them it was delicate, and whether or not she had them prematurely, and how much so, would be key. She was trying to work less and less at her office and relying more on her assistants, and she had wound up as many projects as she could and refused to take on new ones. All she cared about now were their babies.
Natalie didn’t want to wait another minute to tell Heloise and wanted to share the news with her. She’d been wearing loose shirts and tunics for the past month, but with triplets she was already starting to show.
They invited Heloise upstairs to dinner Saturday night, but she was seeing Brad that night, so she came up for lunch instead. He was studying for finals that day. And after talking to Hugues, he was getting interested in labor law.
Heloise looked great in tight black pants, tall black riding boots, and a soft white cashmere turtleneck sweater. She hugged her father and Natalie when she got there. She had noticed recently that Natalie was putting on weight, but she looked pretty anyway. She assumed it was due to the great hotel food and too much room service at night.
They talked about hotel business for a minute, and then Natalie couldn’t stand it any longer and broke into the conversation. Hugues was smiling proudly as Natalie told her.
“Hang on to your hat,” she said to Heloise with a big smile. “I’m pregnant. It’s triplets.” She got it all out in few words as Heloise stared at them in disbelief. She stood up as though she wanted to get away from them, and she looked horrified by the news.
“Are you kidding?
Triplets?
How did that happen? What were you thinking? Don’t you know enough to use birth control at your age?” She looked stunned. They had had three months to get used to it. She had had three minutes and felt like she’d been hit on the head with a hammer.
“We want them,” Natalie said, looking disappointed. “This wasn’t a mistake.”
“Why?” Heloise asked, as she paced nervously around the room.
“Why would you want to have babies at your age?” She looked from Natalie to her father and included them both in the question.
“Because I’ve never had them. And I wanted at least one before I was too old,” Natalie said honestly.
“You
are
too old,” Heloise said harshly. They had just turned her life upside down again with their shocking news. “You’ll be sixty years old when your kids go to college, and you’ll be seventy,” she said, looking at her father. Natalie answered her gently but firmly.
“A lot of parents are these days. Women older than I am are having babies.”
Heloise collapsed on the couch and stared at them miserably. She made no comment. She had just gotten used to their being married, and now they were hitting her with three babies. “I don’t know what to say.”
“How about ‘Congratulations’?” her father said quietly. “This is going to be hard enough, particularly on Natalie, without having you beating us up too. Could you be happy for us? They’re going to be part of your life too.” He spoke to her very gently. He wanted her as an ally this time, not an enemy again.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said honestly. She didn’t know if she was jealous, angry, hurt, or just shocked. It seemed like a crazy idea to her.
“Neither did we at first. Three babies is a lot to wrap your mind around,” Natalie said, looking at her, “and I have to have them. If anyone should be freaked out, it’s me.”
“Are you?” Heloise looked at her curiously, as though she had suddenly grown two heads.
“Sometimes. I’m happy, sad, scared, thrilled, terrified, the happiest woman in the world, and all of the above. But bottom line I’m really excited, and I want this more than anything in life.” She reached out and touched Hugues’s hand as she said it, and Heloise felt shoved aside again. First by his wife, and now by their three babies. It was a lot to take in.