Yikes, this chapter has been a long time coming. Sorry guys, I'm a slow poke! However, I do have two reasons: the little one being that my four classes this semester are science, math, English, and French (ouch). The second is that we had a death in my close family. I tried my best on this chapter, but it may not quite be up to par because of all the stress. Sorry guys. But here it is, the long(-ish) anticipated and awaited chapter thirteen!

If you guys are still reading this, I hope you know that I love you all for putting up with me and my very slow updating.

-- Lily Fortune (haha! don't I wish) wink

Warning: This chapter definitely contains some language that is not in any way, shape, or form suitable for young children. If you don't like swearing, I would also take this warning seriously since there is definitely some of it. Take this seriously. If there are any young enough children reading this I would stop and review asking for a summary without the swearing. Consider yourself warned.

Sooner Rather Than Later

I officially never want to be stuck in a hospital ever again.

Today was the day that I hit 27 weeks and two days pregnant. This means that I had been stuck in the hospital for a full three long weeks. I was almost approaching the all-important 28 week mark though, and about to make it into my third trimester. The doctors had been trying to keep the babies in using everything they could think of. I'm sure if they thought that if I stood on my head for the next four weeks that would keep the babies in they'd order me to do that.

The problem with this was that I was sick to death of hospital things. I had no idea what the hell I wanted anymore: keep the babies in and be bored in the hospital for the next several weeks or give birth now to sick children but be allowed to leave sooner.

Okay, I actually did know exactly what I wanted. I wanted these babies healthy. But why did it have to be so damn hard to be pregnant sometimes?

Time did pass, though very slowly and in a dragging-on kind of way. I had managed to keep up my diary of the pregnancy and a video diary to document everything that was happening as well, just since they were things to do. I knew that the kids would want to see this someday so I tried to keep it as G or PG rated as possible, but there were a few bad words that slipped out.

I had given Gordo a list of things that I wanted done in the next few weeks, mostly things that I was just glad that I was getting out of. We had agreed that we didn't want to paint the nursery until the quads were born, that way we could decide how we wanted to divide the four of them up and the like.

Gordo brought in Brigette and Haylie often, since they wanted to see Mommy a lot even though they weren't allowed. They were the beacons of hope for me, my two angels. They often came bearing gifts of cards, pictures, and various forms of artwork.

"Mommy," Brigette had asked one day. "When are you going to come home and play with me?"

"After the babies are born sweetheart," I had answered patiently, even though she had already asked me this question several times. Gordo claimed to have heard the question multiple times as well, she seemed to think that the answer would change to something sooner if she kept asking the question over and over again.

She had looked disappointed, as her plan to get a different answer hadn't been working. You could almost see one of those cartoon-y light bulbs flick on over her head. "How many more minutes until the babies are born then? Will it be tomorrow? Then you could come home and play with me in two days!" She had held up two fingers like a peace sign to represent the two days she was hoping it would be.

I had laughed. "I'm sorry honey, it's going to be more than two days. I'm not going to be able to come home for a few days after the babies are born. It will be a while before Mommy will be able to play house again with you."

She had pouted and Haylie, seeing that her idolised big sister was pouting, began to pout as well. Gordo had just laughed at them while I gave them hugs. After a few minutes they left, and I tried to fall asleep.

Kick, kick, kick. The quads were wide awake and possibly having a two-on-two sports match in my belly. It was impossible to get comfy at this point in my pregnancy, I was so sore and stiff that I could never be comfy to sleep or even sit up. I had no idea how I was supposed to hold out for another few weeks, I was in agony as it was.

I wasn't sure if this was a fair trade-off: all of my freedom for months on end plus having a really screwed up body that had been to hell and back for the chance of four healthy babies. I was praying to God every day that the babies would be born with no birth defects and be healthy, but I wasn't sure if that was going to happen or not. The odds weren't in our favour, and the fact that my body kept attempting to go into (pre-term) labour wasn't helping us much.

The doctors now had me living on a day by day basis of when I was going to have my C-section, since we weren't sure how much longer my body was going to be able to take the stress of this. I was being told that our latest goal was 32 weeks. Anytime after that if I went into labour, they weren't going to try and stop my body from doing what it wanted to.

Shifting my weight I fell into a very light sleep, waking up every couple of hours. By morning, I was still not rested and had no desire to move. In fact, I only had one thought in my head-'Why the fuck did this have to be me!?'

The day that I finally hit 28 weeks wasn't as big of a milestone as I was hoping for. Sure, they were happy that I had finally made it into the third trimester but it wasn't the gigantic celebration that I had been hoping for. It was more of an 'okay, great, now try to hit the 30 week mark since that'll be much better for the kids'. This wasn't a good combination with all of my ever-present raging pregnancy hormones.

When Gordo came to visit that day, he brought flowers but no children. "How are you honey?" he said giving me a hug.

"Stretched to the max, sick of being pregnant, and I want to go home," I said before bursting into tears. "This is not fair. I can't do this anymore, I just can't. Why did you have to get me pregnant you asshole!?" By the end of that, I was no longer upset but angry. "I didn't want to have six kids so why the hell did you have to get me pregnant again!?"

"Lizzie, baby," Gordo said in what he seemed to think was going to be a re-assuring voice for me. "I didn't know that we were going to have four more children. You and I both thought that we were going to just have one more that was hopefully going to be a boy."

"No!" I glared at him. "You wanted to have a boy because you're so fucking mad that you don't have anybody else in the house that's a boy. Don't you say that we wanted a boy since you know damn well that I didn't give a shit if we had a boy or a girl. It was you not me!"

Gordo sighed. "Okay Lizzie. If you want to think that we'll just say that I was the one who wanted a boy and you were diplomatic and didn't care. Okay?"
"You don't believe me!" I whispered, starting to cry again. "You don't think that I actually didn't care do you?"

"No, I do believe you," he said with a smile. When I opened my mouth to disagree with him again, he put a finger to my lips. "Don't say anything baby. We both know that the stress isn't good for you at this time, and could bring on labour."

"Fine," I said, snuggling back down under the blankets. At that point a perinatologist that I had already seen two or three times in my stay came in to examine the babies and me. Seeing the two of us standing apart from one another, not talking, she seemed to know that something unpleasant had been taking place just before she walked in.

"Hello Gordo, Lizzie," she said nodding to each of us politely. "Gordo, pull up a chair next to your wife while I see how she's doing cooking those babies."

She took a look at my blood pressure, the heart rates of both me and the quads, asked me lots and lots of questions, and finally looked at how dilated and effaced I was. She bit her lower lip slightly and seemed to look a bit concerned for a second before looking up at Gordo and me.

"Well Lizzie, it seems that these babies are starting to try and make an escape."

I raised an eyebrow and Gordo tilted his head. With a small laugh she started explaining.
"Well, you know that you need to be 10 centimetres dilated and 100 percent effaced to have a baby- at least I would hope that you would with having two daughters already," she said with a laugh. "Anyway, right now you're 2 cm and 30 effaced. We're going to see what you can do to have you make it to 32 weeks but the odds aren't really in your favour right now."

"Should we tell the girls that the babies are going to be coming soon now, or should we wait a bit longer before telling them that Mommy is going to be having the babies soon?" I asked, not sure of the answer that I wanted to hear.

The doctor bit her lip, thinking. "I don't think that it will be long before the babies are born," she said slowly. After a short pause she continued. "However it wouldn't be entirely shocking if you did end up making it to 32 weeks and you were to tell the girls now then they might keep asking you when the babies are coming. It all depends on what you've told Brigette and Haylie, right?" she asked. When we nodded she continued. "So what have you told them?"

"Well," Gordo began slowly. "We did tell them that the babies were going to be born around the time that school started; we figured that since she was going to be around 30 to 33 weeks pregnant at that point I believe that it shouldn't be that far off when they would actually be born. We also did say that Mommy was going to be coming home a few days after the babies were born though since they kept asking."

"In that case," she replied, "I wouldn't say to much just yet. If you were to say that the babies were going to be born soon and they weren't born for another few weeks you would have two very rowdy little girls on your hands. Since Lizzie typically stays home with them and you work outside of the home, I'm assuming that they're quite close to her. Once Lizzie reaches the 30 week mark I would feel free to tell the girls that she is going to be home soon. But if she gets quite dilated, effaced, or her water breaks I would recommend telling the girls as soon as possible- especially if it's her water breaking. I'll let you two talk. Lizzie, I'll be treating you for the next five days before I go on vacation. I hope to still see you here when I get back."

She got her wish, but not by much. I went into labour two days after she got back when I was 30 weeks and one day pregnant.

Aww crap. These chapters never end up as long as I want them to. I don't get how some people can have about 30-page chapters up every week or two. I think that they must not actually even be people, but robots instead. Nobody could actually do that right?

Anyway, moving on! Thanks to my BETA anyadelacour for helping me out with this one! Anyway, now that you've read you might as well review.

xoxo,
Lily

PS. Babies next chapter! Yay! We're almost done everybody, so review! I will not I repeat not update until I have at least 100 reviews. So update or no babies. (I'm evil! moo-ha-ha.)