"Tech support. This is Don. How may I help you?"
Even though he hated it, Donatello needed to keep his IT helpdesk job so that he had money for food, toiletries, and other essentials. He'd depleted his bank account buying used furniture for his apartment.
Since his back had completely given out, he couldn't do manual labor. He was done with the Earth Defense System for the time being, and he was trying to get in as many IT support hours as possible. So, there he sat, feeling like an idiot in a self-designed pregnancy support belt, with ice packs crammed around the edge of his shell.
"My kid spilled juice on my keyboard and now the computer won't work. Is there anything I can do?"
Don ran a hand down his face and explained that only the keyboard would need replacing and that the computer just seemed unresponsive because there was no way to enter the password. The next call was an actual software problem that Don was able to resolve.
He hit the button to pull another caller from the queue, only to be met with a high-pitched screech. The unexpected noise made him jump and a wave of agony ran down his debilitated spine.
"Ah!" he cried out in pain. He was too busy clutching his back to disconnect the call. It was a good thing because a voice came on the line.
"Oh my God, I am so sorry. My son wrestled the phone away when I was on hold, and I was just trying to get it back."
"No problem, ma'am," Don panted as he writhed around in his seat. "My name is Don. How can I help you?"
Don's sudden movement had apparently woken all three of the babies, and they were rolling around in distress, jostling his poor spine even more. Close to tears, he ran both hands along his middle, in the hopes of calming them. He couldn't take much more of this.
Don bit his lip to keep from crying out again as his customer explained her problem. It was a complex one, and he warned her that they were looking at a couple of hours if she wanted to go ahead with remote repairs. It turned out that she worked from home, so the repairs were urgent and essential. He got to work right away and found that the intricate fix provided a welcome distraction.
As the call neared the end, he found himself chatting with the woman while running his final checks. "So, how long have you been working from home?" he asked.
"Since Charlie was born about two years ago. Sorry again about how this call started. He's usually well-behaved."
"Oh, it's okay," Don replied, good-naturedly. "You'd be surprised how many calls start with yelling. At least this time it wasn't directed at me."
"Thanks for being so understanding. Given your level of patience, I'm guessing you must have kids of your own?" the woman guessed.
"Soon," Don said, with a tired glance downwards. "Very soon, hopefully."
"Expecting, or just planning to be expecting?" his client asked.
"Expecting. Triplets, in fact." Don didn't usually speak about his personal life with customers, for obvious reasons, but it felt nice to talk openly with another parent. He didn't really know any parents in real life.
"Triplets!" the woman exclaimed. "Wow, your poor wife!"
"Ha! Tell me about it!" Don laughed.
"You'd better be spoiling her, Don. I've only had the one, but let me tell you, carrying him was no picnic."
That'd sure be nice - to have a special someone to pamper him. Don never spoke of it, but he would've loved to share his life with someone. It had always been a pipe dream, but now it was just plain impossible. Single, mutated, sewer-dwelling freak seeking woman. Must love turtle tots.
Don got distracted in a cloud of self-pity, so heavily pregnant, completely miserable, and utterly alone. He forgot that it was his turn to speak. His client noticed. "You got kind of quiet. Guilty conscience?" she teased.
"No!" Don quickly covered. "I was just checking data packets. So, uh, any parenting advice to share?"
"Yeah, actually. You've probably heard this already, but the best advice I've received is to know when to walk away. Babies have this way of triggering our natural protective instincts, and when they're crying. You just want to immediately fix whatever is wrong. But, sometimes you won't be able to. It's just so frustrating, and it wears at you. Sometimes, you've just got to put them in their cribs and take a few minutes to gather yourself, before you snap. It seems selfish but it's not. You've got to help yourself before you can help anyone else. It's the classic airplane oxygen mask scenario. Make sure that you can breathe before you tend to others."
"Good advice," Don praised as his fingers flew across the keyboard. "And, good news, I think that we're all done here."
After finishing up the call, Don took off his headset and signed off for the night. He'd been in his chair for hours, and he needed to get up and attend to other things. But, he felt pinned down by his own size and weight. He knew that the caller was right about the difficulties of child-rearing, but at this point, he just wanted these kids out of him. The third trimester was doing him in. He wasn't used to being so helpless.
Don addressed his unborn children. "Okay, guys, let's do this together. On the count of three, everyone move that way." He pointed to the kitchen. "One, two, three." When nothing happened, Don looked down in mock disappointment, amused at his own antics. "Fine, then. I'll just do it myself. Again. I'm not sharing my food this time, though."
Don used a portion of his profits from the night's work to purchase a top of the line body pillow. He didn't usually splurge on himself, but he had to do something to help out his back. It felt like it was about to snap in two.
oOo
Whenever April logged into the security system to look in on Don, she found him to be rubbing his extremely pregnant belly. She couldn't remember the last time that she had seen him without one or both hands on it. He even hugged it in his sleep.
At first, she had thought that he was doing it to alleviate pain. She knew that he lived with a tremendous amount of it every day. His plastron was part of a natural exoskeleton and was never meant to bend and stretch in such an extreme manner. As much as Don complained about his back, she knew that his abdomen hurt almost as much, particularly now that the babies were kicking hard, like the three tiny ninjas in training and bioengineered soldiers that they were.
In fact, April was more than aware that Donatello was hurting from head to toe. As a ninja and a teenage male, he was used to hiding his pain and discomfort, but he was more transparent than he realized. She knew he still got headaches, because she would catch him sitting in the dark, with his head tossed back, rubbing his temples. She knew that his shoulders hurt from attempting to reach past his protruding stomach to type or to do chores around his home. It was clear from how often he rolled them or massaged them when he thought no one was looking. His fingers were swollen well past their normal size; that couldn't feel good. His back problems and abdominal muscle spasms were well documented by now, as were his acid reflux, heartburn, and nausea. He often woke up howling from leg cramps; she had seen it on the security feed. His hips, knees, ankles, and feet were struggling under all his newfound weight. His feet and lower legs were incredibly swollen, and he was obviously having a difficult time bending them.
April knew all this, even though Donatello tried to hide most of it. She was his best friend and his doctor, no one could see through him better than she could. But, even with the long list of physical ailments, what she worried most about was his loneliness. Donatello had never minded working alone in his lab or the garage, but those solitary stretches were bracketed by time spent with his family. He had never truly been alone until now, and she knew that he wasn't doing well with it. He wasn't rubbing his belly all the time simply because it hurt, he was doing it because he needed to feel his kids in there. He needed to remind himself that he wasn't as alone as he seemed and that he wouldn't be alone forever.
April tried to do her part to help him feel better. When Casey was too busy to come over, she made it a point to snuggle up with Don on the couch. It spoke volumes that he let her do that. Don had never allowed himself to display that type of open vulnerability before. On his worst days, he would even quietly ask her to rub his head, his shell, his midsection; whatever was hurting him the most at the time.
His brothers hadn't visited once, and April was having a hard time stopping herself from really tearing into them. They ought to be rallying around Donatello. The kindhearted genius had always worked tirelessly for his family, had always been there to support them when they needed it. He ought to be reaping the returns on all of that hard work now. Leo, Raph, and Mikey ought to be making sure that he was as comfortable as possible, and staying off of his poor feet. They ought to be cooking him healthy meals and keeping him entertained. They should be the ones keeping him going. Instead, they had abandoned him.
She and Casey stopped by every night, but they both had lives in the real world to attend to. They planned to temporarily move in once Don was closer to his due date, but they weren't able to do it quite yet. In the meantime, she was worried about the damage that was being done to her friend's sweet heart.
oOo
Don laid in bed riding out a series of unproductive, albeit painful contractions. He'd already determined that they were going nowhere, just another false labor triggered by overdoing it around his home. It seemed to be on the verge of wrapping up, each spasm growing less painful and further apart than the last.
"How are you guys doing in there?" Don asked, just wanting to hear the sound of someone's voice, even if it was simply his own. He was rewarded with a kick to the hand, as if in response. "Oh, so are you the group spokesperson, now? Is this a one kick for yes, two kicks for no type thing?"
He knew it was just a coincidence, but he received another kick to the same spot. "Well, I hope that you're doing better than me. Maybe to you little ones this just feels like a hug or something. Although take it from me, real hugs are better. I promise I'll give you lots of those when you come out, whenever that may be."
The foot that had been kicking him withdrew. "Oh, so it's gonna be like that, huh?" Don joked. He chuckled and then moaned in pain as another contraction hit. He focused on his breathing and rubbed circles with both hands along the sides of his distended plastron.
"Oh, I could really use a hug myself right now," he whimpered when it was over. He checked the time on his phone. The two most recent contractions had been ten minutes apart, which was good since the two before that were seven minutes apart. Don puffed out a breath and stared at the ceiling, longing for some company.
More and more lately, he found himself wishing that he had a mother. There was some stuff that he couldn't talk about, even with April. He would've liked some advice on getting through this from someone who had endured it herself and survived, someone who would love him unconditionally, and didn't see him as some freak, someone that would've been happy to be getting grandbabies out of this whole god-awful ordeal. Don bit his lip.
He'd tried websites for moms-to-be, but it was different for him. Not many expectant mothers were anticipating triplets. None had an exoskeleton that was painfully coming apart at the seams. They were all biological females, used to dealing with hormonal fluctuations. They all had medical care lined up. Most of them had loving families and support systems. None of them were dealing with half the problems that he was, or so it seemed. Those websites only depressed him more, so he'd stopped visiting them.
Don adjusted his hold on his midsection and rolled onto his side, allowing himself the luxury of whimpering, since he knew that no one could hear it.
He hoped to maybe get some rest before April and Casey came over. He planned to cook them dinner, and then play a game of scrabble or something. He needed to take his mind off of his own misery for a while.
Sort of a mellow chapter, but I wanted to capture a day in the life before all of the action in the next update. Thanks for reading!