~ Miracles ~

~ By Vicky ~

~ Chapter 9 ~

The two weeks after the ultrasound had been absolute hell for Jason.  Courtney's emotions were in high gear.  She would cry at the smallest things.  She cried when Carly told her that her morning sickness only lasted two weeks, she cried when there was no coffee in the house, even though she couldn't drink it anyway!  And poor Jason he was the first one she'd snap at when things weren't going her way, hell even if they were.  Jason just nodded and yes'ed her to death, knowing upsetting her wouldn't do her or the baby any good.

One day Jason even caught Courtney crying at a MasterCard commercial, not even a Hallmark commercial, but a MasterCard one!  Apparently spending two weeks with the ones you love is not only priceless but extremely moving as well.  Of course Jason's reaction was to laugh at her, which only made her smack him and cry even harder.

"It's not funny!" she sniffled.

"You're right, I'm sorry," he said trying to stifle his laughter.

"You're not the one who's emotions are all over the place!"

"I know, it's not fair," he sympathized and rubbed her back.

"It's not!"

"Aww, don't worry honey."  He pulled her into his lap as they sat on the couch.  "The book I am reading says the sensitive emotions come around week nine but don't last very long."

"But what if it lasts forever like my morning/all the time sickness?" she pouted.

"Nah, the reason you are so emotional is because right now you have more hormones than usual, but as the placenta matures, it begins to take over some of those hormones and then your moodiness will subside," Jason explained.

Courtney burst into laughter at his explanation.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You're so cute!  I love that you are reading a book about this!"  She took his face in her hands and kissed him.  "But I am not moody!"

"Yeah ok…"

~

Luckily for everyone, Jason was right about Courtney's moodiness not lasting very long, and two weeks later another aspect of Court's pregnancy got a whole lot easier.

Courtney and Carly were in Court's kitchen with Morgan playing with his cheerios in his highchair next to his mother.  Courtney was putting dishes in the cupboards from the dishwasher. 

"You know your waist is already disappearing.  You're gonna pop soon," Carly observed.

"I know."

"Then when are you going to let me tell people?"

Courtney laughed.  "Soon!"

"That's what you always say," Carly pouted.

"Look Jason and I have our 3 month check up with Dr. Meadows next week.  Once she tells us everything is fine, we'll start telling people ok?"

"Ok…I'm hungry," she announced.

"You're always hungry."

"Hey!  Jason told me it was safe to come over here now that psycho pregnant bitch Courtney was gone!"

"Ha ha," Courtney said sarcastically.

"Mama!" Morgan held up a cheerio for his mother.  

"Awww, thank you baby."  She let him feed her the cheerio and then kissed his hand.  "See someone loves me!" she glared at Courtney before a look of disgust washed over her face.  "Ack! How do you eat these things?  I need real food.  Hey Morgan, want pizza?

Morgan's eyes lit up and he began banging on his highchair.  "Pita! Pita! Pita!"  He then grabbed a handful of cheerios and threw them across the room.

Carly tried to stop from laughing, but it wasn't working.  "Morgan throwing food is not nice!  Then again we aren't exactly nice people," she said more to Courtney than her son.  "That's Momma's boy!"

Courtney just shook her head and smiled, as Morgan's demands for pizza continued.  "You really enjoy torturing me don't you?"

"Oh come on!  I'm telling you Court, you're never going to find out if you're past your morning sickness if the only thing you put in your mouth is soup and Jason's eggs! Ick!  Did you throw up this morning?"

"No."

"Yesterday?"

"No."

"Then what are you waiting for?"  Carly reached for the cordless phone on the table.  "Pepperoni or meatball?"

Courtney bit her bottom lip and smiled.  "Veggie?"

"Uh uh!  I don't want that healthy shit on my pizza!"

The pizza arrived in less than 30 minutes and Courtney stared at the slice of meatball pizza sitting on her plate.

"God would you just eat it already!" Carly groaned as she cut up Morgan's pizza.

Courtney took her first tentative bite and a half an hour and three slices later, Carly was confident her friend's morning sickness had passed.  "See I told you.  You should listen to me more often!"

"I can't believe I can eat real food again," Courtney said in shock.  "I have to tell Jason!" She reached the phone and dialed. 

"Hello?"

"Hey!" she said excitedly.

"Hey, how you feeling?" Jason asked.

"Fantastic!"

"Oh really?" he laughed, loving how happy she sounded.

"Yeah I have some good news."

"What's that?"

"I just ate pizza!" she announced.

He laughed again.  "That's great babe!  Does this mean the morning/all the time sickness is gone?"

"Yep, I think it's safe to say that."

"You know what that means right?" he teased.

"What?"  She had no idea.

"We need to celebrate!  When I get home tonight, I'm taking you out.  Anywhere you want to go."

"Really? Anywhere?"

"Yup wherever you're heart desires."

"Hmm, I'm gonna have to think about that."

"I'll be home by 7 so you better decide by then.  I love you."

"Love you too."

About five hours later, Jason returned home to find his wife lounging on the couch with her feet up.  He made his way over to her and leaned down to give her a kiss. "Hey."

"Hey, how was work?"

"Uneventful, thankfully.  So have you decided where you want to eat tonight?  She nodded and bit her bottom lip.  He saw the look on her face and groaned, "Oh no…"

"Come on Jason, you said I could have anything I wanted."

"Yeah but Chinese is something you order in and eat at home, not something you go out to a restaurant for," he argued.

"There are Chinese restaurants you can sit down and eat at you know.  Very nice ones."  He stared at her skeptically.  "Besides I haven't had an egg roll in months!" she begged.

"Ok, Ok, Chinese it is." He gave in and took her in his arms.

An hour later, the two sat at a very small but beautiful Chinese restaurant where the wait staff wore the dress of the restaurant's native country. 

"Mmm, no one does chicken like General Tso."  Courtney took a bit of the crisp chicken on her plate.  She was thoroughly enjoying tonight's meal.

"No way, Colonel Sanders kicks General whatever's butt in the chicken department!"

Courtney laughed out loud.  "What do you know anyway?  You refuse to even try General Tso's recipe."

"No need to.  Original recipe is the only recipe I need.  See unlike some people, I am loyal to my country.  Colonel Sanders is an American staple.  This General Tso guy was probably a communist or some evil dictator."

"I don't care what he was, all I know is his chicken is Mmm Mmm Good!" she said as she took another bite.

After dinner, Jason bought Courtney ice cream at Kelly's.  Seemed like Courtney was trying to make up for those 2 months where she hadn't eaten any real food.  She refused to go into the diner though, and made Jason fetch the ice cream while she waited outside.  She said going into Kelly's only reminded her of chicken soup and she didn't want to think about that right now.  Jason being the dutiful husband and father-to-be obliged.

And Courtney continued her streak of eating anything and everything for the next week straight.  Jason got a kick out of it.  His wife was never full.  He never imagined she could out eat him, but this past week he had been proven wrong. 

Today though was their 3-month doctor's appointment with Dr. Meadows, and they were now sitting in her office awaiting some test results. Jason held Courtney's hand.  He could tell she was nervous, even though Dr. Meadows hadn't given them any reason to after the ultrasound earlier. 

"So have you thought about who we're going to tell first?" Jason asked trying to get her mind off the test results.

She looked up at him and smiled.  "My Dad.  I've been dying to tell him.  And then I thought…" she looked at him a bit unsure.

"What?"

"Well I thought we could tell the Quartermaines."  Jason groaned and dropped his head.  "Maybe we could go over to the house for a visit or have dinner with them."  Jason groaned even louder.  "Don't you want to tell Lila and Emily?" she asked.

"Lila, Emily, maybe even Monica, but the rest of them absolutely not!"

"Jason…"

"No.  As soon as Edward finds out you're pregnant, he isn't going to stop hounding us about the newest Quartermaine heir," he over exaggerated the last part of his statement.

"But once we tell Lila and Monica, the rest will find out eventually.  It might be better if it comes from us.  Maybe Edward and the others will appreciate our openness with them and back off a bit."

Jason looked at her doubtingly.  "If you think it's for the best."

"I do," she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

A few minutes later Dr. Meadows returned.  "Welcome to the 2^nd trimester!" she announced, and then began to tell them that the tests came back normal and the pregnancy was so far progressing nicely.

Jason and Courtney were thrilled of course and their first stop on the way home was Kelly's to tell Mike the news and to get Courtney a bacon cheeseburger.  Mike was over the moon, and wanted to pamper his daughter.  He doted around Kelly's getting her anything she wanted, announcing to a few patrons that his baby girl was having a baby.  Courtney was happy to finally be able to tell him, and his reaction warmed her heart.  Once Carly found out that they told Mike without her though, she was royally pissed, but got over it when they told her she could be the one to tell Bobbie.  That is if Mike hadn't done it already. 

The next day, Jason and Courtney showed up at the Quartermaine's to announce their good news.  The whole family was there. Edward, Lila, Alan, Monica, Tracey, Ned, Dillon, AJ, Emily, Skye, even Reginald and Big Alice.  When they walked into the living room, Courtney was a bit taken back.  "Whoa, there's a lot of people here," she laughed nervously.  Jason's hand went to the small of her back.

"Well Jason said you had some exciting news.  So I wanted to make sure the whole family was present for it," Edward explained.

"I hope you're not frightened dear," Lila added.

"No, no it was just unexpected," Courtney replied.

AJ got up from his chair off to the side.  "So baby brother what's this great news you have?"

"AJ please don't start." Alan asked tiredly.

"Yes AJ, its not often we get to see the mentally challenged boy, let's be nice to him."  Tracey walked up to Jason and spoke her next words very slowly to him. "What…is…your…news…Ja-son?"

Courtney rolled her eyes, as did Monica, but Jason's eyes showed his amusement.

"So Jason, Courtney what is it?" Monica asked.

Jason held Courtney's hand and she looked at him to be the one to tell them.  "Well, we just wanted to tell you that Courtney and I are having a baby," he announced.  The room erupted into all different sorts of sounds, gasps, shouts, even some moans. 

"Oh that's wonderful!" Monica beamed.

"Just what the world needs another mini-mobster running around," Skye chimed in.

"We're so happy for you son," Alan said.

"Hmm, I didn't think the brain-damaged knew how to make babies.  You learn something new every day!" Tracey rambled on.

"Oh this is great news!  Finally a Quartermaine heir!" came Edward.

"Hey what about Michael!" AJ argued.

"Oh face it AJ.  You let that kid become a Corinthos years ago!" he snapped back.

"And have you forgotten Brook-Lynn?" Ned asked.

"Another child we never see!  Besides we need a male heir.  Tell us do you know the sex of the baby yet?"  Edward inquired.

"Ah…no not yet," Courtney answered. 

"Well, I for one am thrilled for both of you."  Emily got up and gave both her brother and Courtney a hug.  "I know what a struggle this was for you and I am so happy you're dreams are coming true."

"That goes for me as well.  You are going to have a beautiful child I just know it. Congratulations."

"Thank you grandmother."  Jason leaned down to Lila's chair and held her hand.

"Yeah congrats guys," Dillon said as he headed for the door, eager to get away from the family and to Georgie.

"So Jason is this kid really yours or are you just stealing another man's baby once again?" AJ remarked snidely.

Jason went for AJ, but Courtney was quick to stop him.  "Come on, you were right we shouldn't have come," she told him looking into his eyes.  Jason took her hand and they began to leave.

"No you guys don't have to go.  AJ was out of line.  I'm sorry." Monica pleaded.

"Don't apologize for me!"

"AJ!"  Monica snapped.

"I think it's best if we do.  We wanted to share our news with you and we have," Courtney stated.

"Ok, well…we really do appreciate you coming to tell us yourselves."  Monica looked to Jason.  "And I hope you let us be a part of this child's life."

Jason gave her a curt nod and they turned to leave.