Getting pregnant was not planned and Buffy was in denial for a long time about it. Seeley actually had figured it out on his own, as she hunched over the toilet bowl and swore up and down that the flu was kicking her ass.
He would just sigh and hold her hair back for her.
It took him awhile to figure out why exactly she was shying away from even the mention of it, and he could admit to himself that his pride was a little wounded by it. He immediately felt guilty for it, because Buffy shouldn't have to be pregnant if she didn't want to be, and maybe she just wasn't ready, twenty nine was still pretty young, right? Only Xander and Anya out of all their friends had started on kids. Maybe she didn't want to have kids with him. He couldn't blame her, he knew he had a load of psychological issues that he didn't necessarily have when they were teenagers (granted, even then he had a lot of issues for someone their age), and his job wasn't necessarily the safest and maybe she was worried about finances or (and he felt deeply shamed by this last one) his ability to parent. He was good with Matt, but being an uncle and being a father are two different things.
It never even occurred to him that she might be questioning her own skills as a parent until one day he found her crying in the middle of the kitchen floor and saying she "couldn't do it," after attempting to make dinner.
His wife wasn't the best cook when her hormones weren't screwed up by pregnancy.
However, the failure to do some stereotypical housewife duty (something that had never bothered Buffy before) is what finally made it click.
Buffy was usually so comfortable in her own skin he sometimes forgot that she could be unsure of herself. In this instance, it wasn't that Buffy didn't want to be a mother, it was that she didn't believe she'd be a good one. But it was understandable- Anya was the only mother she really knew, and while they were friends Buffy wouldn't be entire comfortable taking advice from the blunt oddball woman; Willow, her best friend, would be just as clueless as Buffy herself was, and Buffy's own parents…
Well, Joyce had died while Buffy was still in college and Rupert lived all the way over in England now with his girlfriend Jenny. Seeley had no doubt the man would drop everything for his daughter, but Buffy would refuse to pull him away from his life and force him to uproot everything because she was "struggling with hormones," (as she would no doubt play it off).
Admittedly relieved by this revelation (this was something he could fix, unlike the other possibilities that had been giving him anxiety for the past few weeks), he scooped his wife off the kitchen floor and brought her into their bedroom where he held her as she cried herself out. Hopefully the release would even out her hormones a little and they'd be better able to have a rational discussion.
When Buffy was down to the occasional hiccup, Seeley decided to breach the topic that had been in the do-not-acknowledge zone for the past month, or as soon as Buffy realized he knew.
"So, you ready to admit this might not be the flu?"
"Sometimes the flu can take a while to get out of your system."
"I guess this is the nine-month flu bug, then," he pressed.
She sighed, "Seeley, I- I'm sorry."
"Hey," he pulled her tighter against his chest, and she pressed her cheek against his heart, letting its rhythm help soothe her. "You don't have to apologize. But we should talk about this because I can't help unless you talk."
"I can't believe you're advocating talking about issues."
"We've temporarily switched places," he agreed, "We must be in some alternate universe where I talk, you avoid, and the flu lasts nine months."
This succeeded in making his wife laugh- his whole goal- and she gave a sniffle before confessing on a whisper, "I just wish my mom was here."
He dropped a kiss on her head, because, really, there was nothing he could say.
"Or that Willow had gotten pregnant first," she joked and they both chuckled again. "I just- I don't know how to be a mom, Seeley."
"I don't know how to be a dad."
"But I'm-" she still struggled with the word.
"Yup. But when I married you I didn't know how to be a husband. And I like to think I'm a pretty good one now."
"The best," she assured him as she curled up closer to him, like the cat he often compared her to (mentally, because the one time he dared make the comparison out loud he got a tongue lashing).
"So we'll figure out the parenthood thing too. And we'll figure it out together. There isn't a thing in this world or any other we can't figure out together."
After a quiet moment of both of them just holding each other and breathing, she softly asked "Seeley?"
"Yeah?" he whispered into her blonde hair, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.
"I think I'm pregnant."
He smiled.
"I love you."
And that's Parker- causing his parent's stress from the very beginning. :D
I hope you guys liked the blast from the past, please leave behind anachronistic reviews while on your way back to the present.