Summary: Birthing classes
A/N: Ugh, one of these days I'll stop apologizing for these spotty updates. Life hasn't been as chill as it was a few weeks ago. But anyway — this chapter is inspired by a collection of real events, and a funny Scary Mommy story I read once. Also, it's super long. Hope that doesn't compromise your readability.
CHAPTER DISCLAIMER:
Discussions of different approaches to birthing ahead (holistic/natural versus medical.) Even if the characters behave a certain why towards a specific approach, it's important to know that I, as the author, am not making any judgements towards either option. However you feel about birth is fine and good. There is beauty and value in all the different ways women bring babies into this world. Doulas are wonderful, their work is beautiful. Midwives are brilliant, and I love them. Unmedicated, epidurals, c-sections, they're all good! All birth is real.
Just because our girl Rey would rather not even in be in the room if she can avoid it, and might make fun of some approaches, doesn't mean I have any negative feelings towards "natural" childbirth myself. Please don't rage at me if you feel differently. I'm committed to keeping this story true to character, and this is the way she wanted to go.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
What would I do without you
TWENTY NINE WEEKS — CAULIFLOWER
Doctor Holdo helped Rey sit up again, after measuring her bump, palpating the top of her uterus, and finding that wonderfully steady heartbeat on the Doppler. She wore a satisfied smile.
"Well, looks like everything is still great," she said lightly, inputting a quick note on the computer before sitting at her stool again, "You're both doing wonderful. Do you have any questions for me today, Rey?"
"I don't think so," she said. "Ten weeks to go now, right?"
"Give or take," said Holdo with a small smile. "But I caution you against counting down days. It's not uncommon for first time babies to go past their due date."
"Oh no," Rey hurried to reassure her. "I'm not in a rush to get to the other side of this. I feel okay right now. It's what comes at the end that has me really freaked out."
She didn't love the little nuisances that came with being pregnant, but Ben's help made it bearable, and his adoration of her physical form made it almost sexy, sometimes. Anyway, all of it was infinitely better than maybe being ripped in half to get this trapped, growing thing out.
Holdo assessed her with some interest before saying gently, "Have you thought about attending a birthing class?"
Rey grimaced. "No..."
Ben huffed a soft laugh from his seat, but otherwise didn't say anything. He'd always known his role in these appointments — to let Rey and her doctor do their thing without interruption. Holdo always gave him space to ask questions if he had them, but he stayed carefully out of the way.
Holdo's head tilted in curiosity. "Tell me what you're feeling. You made a face. You definitely have some feelings."
Rey exhaled. "I guess I'm a little freaked out by the idea of someone coaching me on how to…do that."
"You do understand that you'll be going through it regardless," Holdo said in a voice that was simultaneously gentle and amused.
"I do…" Rey frowned. She didn't like to think about the birth part of things. It was scary. The scariest part of all of this, now that she felt certain Ben wasn't about to flee and leave her saddled with this by herself. So on some level, yes, she understood that she was on a collision course for a world of hurt coming down the pipe, but she'd rather bask in the joy of this moment with Ben than have anyone talk to her about her fate.
Holdo nodded. "Okay, that's alright. You don't need to do anything you're not comfortable with, and certainly you don't have to take a class to have a successful birth. Women have been doing this since of the dawn of time, sweetie. You'll be fine. But if you're open to the idea, it can be helpful. It can make the process seem less daunting, less unknown. A good class can help both you and Ben feel more confident and prepared."
Prepared.
Rey's Achilles' Heel.
She couldn't very well shore herself up against worst case scenarios if she wasn't willing to even look at what was coming down the road towards her. Cowardice in the face of impending disaster wasn't her way. She needed to get a hold of herself.
Rey dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, gnawing over Holdo's advice even as they finished up the appointment with the reminder that she should come back in two weeks. Ben asked a question about Zika virus and mosquito bites, since Rey had gotten a few that summer, and Hold reassured him. After that, they left.
"How do you feel?" Ben asked her as they drove to the cafe where she was going to meet up with Rose, Jess, and Tallie for brunch. He would head back to work after dropping her off.
He often asked her this after these appointments. Her answer was usually the same, some variation of Good. Relieved everything is on track. Because even though this wasn't something she'd asked for, and wouldn't have wanted if someone suggested it, now that it had happened, Rey couldn't think of anything worse than everything falling apart. Of losing it all. So every time Holdo smiled and gave them good news, she breathed a little sigh of relief.
She suspected Ben felt the same way, because every time they heard that determined heartbeat, he wore this look of painfully profound relief.
But she didn't answer with that today. Instead, she admitted. "Nervous, I guess."
"Nervous." He tasted the word curiously. "What do you mean?"
"Do you think we should take a class?" Rey glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
Ben didn't answer right away. His gaze remained on the road, his grip shifting a little on the steering wheel. After a minute he said, "Could be helpful, maybe. We keep having these episodes of panic. Admittedly they're more about what comes after, but perhaps the class covers some of that too. Knowing better what's ahead might help us."
"Yeah…" Still, the idea of it made her squirm uncomfortably.
Ben glanced at her then. "We don't have to, if you hate the idea. Like she said, it's not some kind of test you have to pass before they'll let you have a baby."
She exhaled. "Yeah. Okay."
A few quiet minutes later, Ben dropped her off at the cafe. The others were already there, and greeted her enthusiastically.
"How'd it go?" Rose asked after they'd all placed their orders at the counter and chosen a table. "Tell me everything!"
"There isn't much to tell," Rey said, shrugging. "Pretty routine. Everything's good."
Jess leaned back in her chair, idly dipping her tea bag in the steaming mug in front of her. "It's really crazy that you're the first one of us to get pregnant, Rey. You've never really struck me as the type. I'd have guessed it would be Rosie for sure."
Rose choked on her water, sputtering. "Me? Why on earth would it be me?"
Tallie handed her a napkin. "Come on, Rose, you kind of have a mom vibe sometimes, and you and Armie are all over each other, all the time. Way more than anyone else."
"We," Rose said emphatically, "are careful. Double, maybe triple covered. We don't mess around with that kind of thing."
"They were careful," Jess said, motioning at Rey.
Rose glanced at her, and Rey lifted a brow expectantly. She knew Rose's retort would be something along the lines of not that careful. But luckily, Rose didn't say it. Rey gave her a small smile, a reward for holding her tongue for once. Rose grinned back.
"What's the matter?" Tallie asked, her tone teasing. "Don't you want to be a mother?"
Rose blushed. "Sure, of course I do. Someday. When I'm ready for it."
"Can you really ever be ready?" Jess wondered in a philosophical tone.
"What about you?" Rose shot back. "You had a scare with Poe, didn't you? Why was it a scare? Don't you want to be a mother?"
Jess laughed. "It was a scare because I was with Poe, Rose. Poe Dameron is truly excellent in so many ways, but I always knew we weren't going to go the distance. Poe is a moment kind of guy, not a distance kind of guy. I wasn't about to bring a kid into the world with someone like that. Besides, I don't know if that mom stuff is for me, honestly. No offense, Rey."
Rey blinked, surprised to be dragged into this. She'd been content to just listen. "None taken? I think?"
"What's it like?" Tallie asked curiously. "Having something grow inside you?"
She might as well have asked what it was like tasting salt for the first time. Rey thought for a minute, trying to choose her words carefully. "It's…weird. Really weird. It builds by degrees so you almost don't even notice how weird it is. Like, sometimes you almost forget, but then something happens. Like, she'll get hiccups. And then you remember."
"Hiccups?" Rose's eyes widened. "How do you know that?"
"It's kind of obvious." Rey floundered for how to explain the strange sensations that flittered around in her, beneath the surface but still just as tactile. "I can feel them. Like a twitchy muscle, but...not. Sometimes you can see them, if she's in the right spot. It makes my whole stomach kind of...move."
"Creepy," Jess said, wearing this grin like she sometimes got if someone put on a cheesy eighties horror film.
"Or adorable," said Rose. "Very adorable."
Their food arrived. They parceled it out to each other and set to their task.
"So, forgive me for being so curious, but I don't really know many pregnant people," Tallie disclaimed before launching another question, "But what kinds of things do they do at the doctor? Like, do you have to get a pelvic exam every time so they can check on the baby?"
"No," Rey laughed.
Jess gave Tallie a confused look. "Girl, do you not know how your own cervix works? It's not like they just shine a light on up there and say hello."
"Look, I don't know! Maybe things are different when there's another human inside you," Tallie said defensively.
"Mostly they just measure you and check your blood pressure, things like that. They do find the heartbeat, which is kind of cool." Cool was an understatement, but Rey didn't really want to gush about how crazily magical that experience was right now. "Today she told me I should think about finding a birthing class."
"Oh my god," Jess said with a wince. "That sounds…traumatizing,"
"My thoughts exactly," Rey sighed.
Rose perked up. "No, it doesn't have to be! Paige is really good friends with this lady. She's a doula. She helps women give birth, and she totally has a class. Yeah, we hung out with her at Paige's one time and she seemed kind of nice. She said her class is all about taking the fear out of birth."
"That sounds like exactly what I need." Rey nudged Rose's phone towards her. "Have Paige get her info. If her class time lines up with our schedule, we'll go."
"We?" Tallie's brow lifted skeptically. "Ben would go too?"
"Yes?" It came out a little more uncertainly than Rey meant. "I thought…I think you're supposed to bring someone with you?"
"That's definitely what I've heard," Rose agreed supportively.
Jess wrinkled her nose. "God, that would be so awkward with someone like Solo. Don't they show you videos of other women's coochies and stuff?"
"Coochies giving birth," Rose corrected, laughing. "I don't think Ben or anyone else would get off on that kind of gore."
"I would think just the whole birth thing in general would be way outside Mister Serious' comfort zone," Tallie said, agreeing with Jess. She glanced at Rey. "Gwen said he's always taking time off to come with you to the appointments. Isn't that really weird?"
"No, actually, it isn't." She picked at her fries. "He's been great. I feel like I'm more outside my comfort zone than he is."
"Weird," Tallie sighed, glancing at Jess, who nodded sagely.
Rose turned to Rey. "Ignore them. I think it's sweet that he's being great. He's always great to you. Anyway, Paige sent me her doula friend's website, I'll text it to you. You can check out her class times and see if any of them work, and then you can just sign up right there on the site."
"Thanks, Rey told her. "It might be exactly what we need."
"Plus, like, a carseat and a crib and stuff like that," Jess said with a wry grin.
"I'm pretty sure that between Poe and Leia," Tallie laughed, "And the showers they both have planned, they're going to be plenty outfitted in time."
THIRTY WEEKS — BROCCOLI
"What is a doula, anyway?" Ben asked as they pulled up in front of a softly illuminated building. In fancy script typeface over the side was written Better Way Births.
"I have no idea," Rey said, eyeing the structure. "Maybe like a midwife? I'm hoping she'll explain that part."
There were a few other cars in the parking lot, which made Rey check the time because she suddenly worried they were late. Nope. Five minutes early, because Ben was nothing if not a punctual person. Maybe the other classmates were just extra ambitious.
He took her hand as they walked up the short cobbled path around to the entrance of the building, lined with well-groomed hedges and the soft babble of a fountain somewhere.
"Really going for that peaceful aesthetic," Ben observed. He glanced up at the sign again. "So women actually give birth here?"
"I guess." Rey experienced a familiar tumble of anxiety as he pulled open the door. You're not here for that today, she reminded herself. This is just a class.
Still, even in the quiet lobby that smelled heavily of some kind of essential oil, she listened with dread to see if she could detect any wails of women in the throes of physical hell. She pressed in closer to Ben, afraid suddenly that she really would hear it.
A young man sat at the front desk. He lifted his head when they came in and smiled. "Good evening. Are you here for the class?"
"Yeah," said Ben, because Rey was too busy looking around to pay the receptionist much mind.
"Great. Can I just get your names?"
"Rey Johnson and Ben Solo."
The kid verified their registration, then carefully wrote out their first names on adhesive name tags, unpeeled them, and handed them over. "If you'll wear these for this class, you probably won't need them next time."
Ben turned to her and stuck her name tag to her bicep.
Rey's eyes widened. "I'm pretty sure it doesn't go there."
He smirked, shrugged, and placed his neatly on the right side of his shirt. "You're such a weirdo, Rey, why would you wear it like that? Now everyone in the class is gonna look at you funny."
The receptionist smiled and motioned down a hallway. "Please proceed down this hall, to the very end."
"Is anyone — having a baby down there?" Rey heard herself ask, rubbing the sticker better onto her arm and peering skeptically down the corridor of doors.
The young man smiled. "No. Our Earth Mothers use a separate entrance and are guided directly to their home suite. You won't be in that part of the building at all."
Ben choked in a sound like was suspiciously like a laugh. Rey elbowed him. He took her hand again and tugged her down the indicated hall, waving his thanks to the receptionist as they breezed on past.
At least Rey wasn't worried about walking in on something awful anymore. She let herself relax a little.
At the end of the hallway they found an open door. It led to a wide room, carpeted in plush, clean carpet and illuminated in the same muted yellow glow as everything else here. It too smelled like essential oils. The walls sported a collection of art from various cultures, all images depicting women, either with distended bellies and breasts, or in acts of birth.
The room was already plenty occupied when they stepped in.
Approximately six other couples sat together in a circle of round pillows on the ground. Each couple sat side by side, with a few feet between them and the next. At the head of circle knelt a middle-aged woman with highlighted brown hair, a sharp nose, and a slow smile.
"Welcome," she said on a smooth, even voice. "You're right on time. Please, remove your shoes and take a seat."
Shoes? Rey glanced around. There, in a neatly arranged row, were all the other shoes of the previously seated couples. Huh. Okay. Maybe the carpet was new. She slipped of her sandals and Ben placed them tidily beside the others, and then they turned back to the group. There were exactly two pillows available. Rey and Ben awkwardly shuffled to them and sat down. The other couples turned and looked at them with nervous smiles.
All of the women sported bumps of varying sizes, some tiny — one who looked ready to drop a baby any minute. One pair looked unmistakably like mother and daughter, but most of the couples sported wedding rings. Rey self-consciously hid her hands in her lap.
"Now that we're all here," said the woman in front, smiling again, "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Katie. I have been a doula with Better Way for fifteen years. In that time, I have assisted many Earth Mothers through the sacred journey of life-giving, and witnessed every single tiny miracle that enters the world with them."
Rey snuck a glance at Ben. She could see the corner of his mouth twitch.
"Now," Katie said serenely. "We're going go around and introduce ourselves. This is an environment of trust. Here, we will explore deep waters together, so do not be afraid to own your concerns. No one in this room will judge you. We are all here to keep each other afloat. When it's your turn, please state your name, how far along you are, and what your greatest fear is regarding the act of life-giving. If you are a support partner, please state instead your relation to the mother, so we can all be companions on this road together."
She turned to the first couple in her left, two women who looked to be in their thirties.
"I'm Whit, I'm twenty five weeks, and honestly I am afraid of ending up having a medicated birth," said the first woman.
Noises of sympathy ran around the group.
Her partner went next. "I'm Angie, and I'm Whitt's wife."
They looked expectantly at the next couple. Sophie and her husband Daniel, as they introduced themselves. Sophie was thirty weeks, like Rey, and her fear was also receiving unwanted medical intervention.
Afterwards went Penny (twenty weeks) and her mother Donna. Her fear was also being forced into an epidural.
Then came Julie (thirty eight weeks) and her husband Oscar. Julie was afraid of the baby being given vaccines right after birth.
The next two couples, also married, also in their third trimester, also reported medical intervention as being their fear.
Rey was feeling decidedly self-conscious by the time her turn came around. It curdled in her chest until it felt like inappropriate laughter trying to crowd its way up her throat. She swallowed it back.
"Uh, hi, I'm Rey. I'm thirty weeks as well, and um…my biggest fear is that something horrible will happen and the baby won't make it."
Shocked silence and horrified glances flew around the room.
She cleared her throat and amended with a small laugh, "But I guess that's everyone's ultimate fear, isn't it? After that it's probably being afraid of tearing so badly I get a vagasshole."
A startled bark of laughter escaped Ben before he hurried to conceal it with a cough. A few of the others frowned. Nobody else laughed.
She pulled her lip between her teeth and glanced at Ben, hoping he'd rescue her by taking his turn.
"I'm Ben," he said when he got a hold of himself. "I'm the father of the vagina-ripper."
A few more frowns this time.
Katie cocked her head to the side. "Ben, respectfully I issue a correction, you're supposed to tell us your relation to the mother, not the baby."
"Oh, that." He gave Rey an amused look. "She's just some woman from craigslist who I paid to impregnate."
Rey's cheeks flamed bright and she shoved his shoulder. He grinned. Even though nobody else laughed, she appreciated his attempt at levity anyway. Seemed like they were in a tough crowd. It made the urge to giggle nervously even worse.
Katie cleared her throat. "Okay. Well, we're going to move on but I just want to pause here and reassure you that all your fears will be addressed throughout the course of this class. Rey, your fear of tearing — while unusually articulated — is not unfounded. Fourth degree tears are much more common in medically assisted birth, as the body does not have time to properly adjust and accommodate before it is forced to perform a clinical procedure, instead of undertaking a natural journey. So we will cover that in our discussion of labor and medicated versus unmedicated. But first, we're going to split. Partners in one group, mother's in another."
Ben's head snapped around and he gave Rey a vaguely panicked look. "This is how it ends, isn't it? They'll separate us and kidnap us for organ harvesting or something."
Everyone had stood. Katie was directing the support partners to follow another instructor named Mila to another room.
Rey shook her head. "Count your blessings. They'll only take your kidney. Maybe part of your liver. I think they're gonna steal the whole fetus from me."
He smirked. "I forget how dark your mind is sometimes."
"You're the one talking about organ harvesting." Rey caught his shirt and pulled him down for a quick kiss before pushing him off to join the others now filing quietly out of the room.
Penny, the young woman whose mother had accompanied her, gave Rey a funny look. "Does he pay you to kiss him, too?"
She laughed incredulously. "Eh, no, he was kidding about that."
Penny sighed, and it sounded a lot like sympathy. "My ex couldn't take anything seriously either. That's why he's not involved. I don't need a bad influence like that in my child's life."
Everyone had re-arranged their cushions closer together and now sat again. Rey glanced over at Penny, her voice gentle when she said, "I'm sorry you have to go through this alone."
Penny waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, I'm not alone. For centuries, women have primarily given birth and raised their children with the help of other women. I have my mother, my sister, and my grandmother. There's really no need for males to be involved at all. Really. You can do just fine without them. Better, sometimes."
The way she said it, carefully encouraging, like she meant Rey to learn something from it. Rey's brow lifted and she turned her attention back to the instructor.
Katie settled onto her cushion and smiled at them. "I'm so excited you're all here today," she said warmly. "You might not choose to give birth here at Better Way, or you might, but either way I hope you'll take something positive away from this class. What I hope you most understand is that what you're going to go through is very, very natural. Your body knows what to do. There is nothing to be afraid of. Modern medicine has taught us to fear, but fear is the enemy of a peaceful and successful labor."
Rey was, admittedly, a little reassured by this statement. Maybe it was the way Katie said it, like she was confiding a secret as old as time itself.
"Now," she continued, "We're here to share with one another. We're going to go around the circle again. This time I'd love for you to share if this is a first baby, where you hope to deliver, if you know the gender, and what your birth plan is. Whit, looks like you're first again."
Whit lit up excitedly. She ran a hand over her small belly. "This is my first baby. I'm pre-registered to give birth right here at Better Way. The baby is a boy. And I actually brought a copy of my birth plan—" she turned and fished out from her bag several sheets of paper, folded in thirds. She unfolded them and began to tick down the list.
Rey's eyes widened with each passing minute. Whit had everything planned out, from what music she would have playing while she labored, which she would have while she transitioned and pushed, which oils she wanted in the room, what comfort items she wanted to bring, how long she wanted to stay at the center, even things like laboring first on a ball, then in a tub, then squatting for delivery.
By the time she was finished reading, Rey was pretty sure the class should be over. It felt like it had taken so long. But then Sophie went next, this was her second baby, a girl, and she had a similarly outlined plan. As did Julie. And Penny too had a very specific, very detailed plan for her journey of life-giving. After the other two women (Trista and Eden) shared their plans, Rey felt distinctly sick to her stomach.
"Rey?" Katie prompted with a smile.
"So…" She started, shifting awkwardly on her cushion. "Yeah, first baby. A girl. And I'm…not pre-registered anywhere. But I'm planning on a hospital. And…my plan is... to get the baby out."
The others watched her, waiting for her to continue.
"Um, period," she said.
Whit laughed. It wasn't a nice laugh.
Katie gave Rey a patient look, but her smile seemed to waver a little. "It's perfectly alright, Rey. Many women don't have a lot of support to help them know what decisions are important to make ahead of time. Hopefully this class can help you discover what kind of experience you'd like to have. This is a judgement-free environment."
Rey felt a whole lot of judgement emanating from the others, but she pressed her mouth into a thin line rather than point this out.
Katie monologued for a little while longer about the beauty of life-giving and the spiritual journey of the birth process. She talked too about trusting one's support partners and communicating needs clearly.
"Partners," she said, "Can be your advocate and your champion."
After that, said partners were brought back. Rey glanced at the clock. Only about half an hour had passed, but she honestly felt like it had been half a day. When Ben came back in, looking as amused as when he left, she practically threw herself at him.
"This place is so crazy," she muttered softly into his chest.
A subtle chuckle rumbled against her head. "I wonder if Paige knows what she signed us up for."
Rey wanted to think Paige was too pragmatic for all this, but she no longer had confidence in anything. Some of these women probably seemed perfectly reasonable in their everyday lives. Not like lunatics who wanted to squat over a mirror so they could watch their insides become their outsides.
Everyone sat again, and Katie finally talked about the stages of labor. She didn't get into the details Rey actually wanted — she'd have preferred to know about how contractions actually felt, and how to know when it was time to go to the hospital — but she did produce a model of the pelvic bowl and show them how it opened to allow for the passage of a head and shoulders. She showed them a board with different sized holes, from very tiny to positively enormous, and cheerfully told them that this was depicted a progression of the cervix during labor.
Rey wanted to throw up.
Katie modeled good labor positions, from squatting, leaning over on a chair, being on a fitness ball, and finally to a downward-facing dog yoga pose.
She explained breathing as she modeled each one. Breathing and making the right noises. "The resonance of deep sounds can help ease the edge off contractions. Combined with a little movement and your support partner's help, you'll find you can get through just fine without the mask of medication. I'll demonstrate."
She got on her knees, spreading her hips wide, and flattened her top half on the ground. Mila, who had stuck around after the partner group got back, positioned herself behind Katie and pressed firmly on her back while Katie swayed her reared back and forth and began these really deep, primal moans.
"Ahhh," boomed Katie in a gutteral, low sound.
Rey squeaked. Ben glanced at her. A fit of laughter rose up in her with so much force that to keep it back physically hurt, and tears sprang to her eyes. She turned her head into his arm and stifled the tortured bursts that tried to escape her. Ben snickered, which only made it worse, and soon a tiny little whine was wheezing out of her.
Everybody else was paying close attention to Katie, their expressions hungry like they wanted to know it all. Not like there was a woman writhing in an almost sexual way, bellowing like a whale right in front of them.
Rey thought she might combust before it was all over.
Finally Katie got up. She didn't look the least bit embarrassed, which Rey really thought showed a worrying lack of awareness. "Alright, we're going to practice. Mothers, get into position. Partners, your job is provide counter-pressure."
No, no, Rey wasn't going to be able to handle this. The hysterical laughter still fizzled there, awaiting a proper release, and when Ben turned to her, the look of mischief in his eye told her this was going to be a disaster.
"Well?" he said expectantly, smirking.
Rey got onto her hands and knees, gritting her teeth and lowering the top half of her torso to the floor.
"You really want to open up that pelvic bowl," Mila said gently, and Rey jumped because she didn't even know the girl had come up beside her. Mila smiled apologetically. "Sorry. You'll have to spread a bit wider."
Ben snorted. Rey glanced back to cut him a dirty look as she shifted her knees further apart. Her belly sank comfortably between her legs. Okay, not so bad. Actually, it kind of took some pressure off her spine.
Mila navigated Ben into position behind her, placing his hands on her lower back, on the firm plane of her hip bones.
"Now, you're a pretty big guy," Mila said in a way that said she was clearly impressed. "Don't put all your weight on her, you don't want to crack her spine, but just enough to help. She'll tell you when it feels good."
Even though the position had the same effect as a really good stretch, Rey still felt like an absolute idiot, glancing around at all the other women in a similar position, like they were part of some weird clothed sex class learning about doggy style. Maybe Ben thought the same thing because he grabbed her hips and pulled her back towards him. She threw him a warning look over his shoulder. His mouth twitched and he gave her a few subtle bounces against him.
"Practice a few moans," Kate encouraged, "Feel what the reverberations do to your body."
Rey shook her head. She couldn't do that. She couldn't even breath now because — yes — god, they were all doing it, and — she gasped, the tears springing back because she couldn't laugh (don't laugh, don't laugh, fuck, don't laugh) — but they were all waving their butts in the air and mooing and—
A crack in the dam. A pressure built up in her belly, in her chest, in her throat.
Beside her, Penny lowed exactly like an ox, and Rey giggled.
And then it was over. She buried her face in the cushion beneath her and exploded with laughter. It flowed out of her in long waves, her whole body racked with the barely suppressed screeches.
She laughed and laughed and laughed, and she was certainly everyone was looking at her now but she couldn't help it. She was completely gone. Tears streamed down her face and her stomach ached with how hard she laughed, sometimes her sound disappearing all together because she couldn't draw breath enough to make it. And when she could drag air through her lungs she howled.
Ben stepped over her and wrapped his arms around her middle, hauling her to her feet where he took her hand and practically dragged her out of the room, snagging their shoes on the way and saying behind him with barely concealed chuckles of his own, "Um, so sorry, we gotta go. See you all next week."
Something in Rey had been unhinged, and uncontrollable peals of laughter cascaded out of her all the way down the hall and out of the building. When they finally got to the car, Ben's little huffs of suppressed amusement got the better of him and he laughed too.
"What —" Rey wheezed. "What the hell — was that?"
Ben shook his head. "Best I can guess is we actually stumbled into an interpretive theater group contemplating the subject of livestock breeding."
That set her off again and she sank down right there on the asphalt next to the car, holding herself together against the audible gush of delight. Her abs, her lungs, everything was on fire but she couldn't stop seeing all those rocking rumps and hearing all those women trying to make the sounds of bull elk deep in rut.
Ben sat down next to her. He wasn't one to fall into fits of laughter like this, but he did now, whether pulled their by her own or whether he thought the whole thing as absurd as she did, she didn't know.
After what felt like an eternity, Rey finally gulped back her giggles and regained some sense of control, wiping her hands with her eyes.
"Congratulations," he said, tipping his head back against the car. "None of those women are going to be able to labor in that position without hearing your hyena sounds echoing through their heads."
"God," Rey sighed happily, completely exhausted. "That was…"
"Something else."
"To put it mildly."
A couple quiet minutes of recovery later and they saw the door to the center open again. The other couples were starting to file out.
"Shoot, run," said Rey, struggling to rock her awkward body onto her feet. Sometimes she felt like a beetle stuck on its back, her limbs scrabbling around a new center of gravity she didn't understand.
Ben pulled her up and they both got in the car as quickly as possible, driving off into the night.
"Are we going back next week?" Rey asked him. Really good, hard laughter like that always left her with a warm glow for a while after. She felt it still, her smile lingering, her stomach muscles aching. Within her, the baby stretched.
"I think it's only fair that we give them another chance to offer some useful advice. The stages of labor part was enlightening, don't you think?"
"I'll be forever trying to scrub that cervical dilation board out of my head." She shuddered. "But yeah, we probably should give them another shot."
He grinned, nodded, and pulled in to a drive through fast food place. At the speaker box he rolled down the window and ordered mozzarella sticks and a mint chocolate shake.
They gave him the total and he pulled around to the window to pay.
"How did you know I was craving exactly that order?" she asked, eyes wide and marveling.
He smirked. "You act like I don't know you, Johnson."
"I don't even know me right now." She shook her head. "I'm hijacked."
He gave her belly a little pat. "Broccoli and I know what you need. We have an understanding."
"Broccoli!" she winced. "That's the worst one yet, I think."
"I don't know, I think Lettuce was worse."
"You know, if we could actually pick a name, we wouldn't need to call her by whatever cruciferous vegetable she currently matches in size."
"Cruciferous vegetables are perfectly appropriate right now, given what she's doing to your digestive system," he remarked.
Rey gaped at him. "Ben Solo are you saying I'm gassy?"
"Don't get offended," he laughed. "I read that it's normal. And I'm a guy, Rey, I think all farts are funny. Your nightly fog horn sounds might be my favorite symptom yet."
He thanked the drive-thru attendant as she handed over Rey's food. She still glared at him, but honestly, the levels of shame she'd had to overcome during the course of this pregnancy — a little gas was the least of her worries. And as Ben dropped the milkshake into the cupholder and gave her the bag with the mozzarella sticks, she decided she couldn't really be that offended. Not with a peace offering like this.
"You know," he said, rolling up his window as they drove off, "they asked us about names in that support partner class."
"Don't tell me." She opened up the bag, her mouth already watering at the greasy, fried smell of the cheese. "You were the only one who didn't know."
Ben chuckled. "Are we really this incompetent at the parenting thing?"
"It's starting to look like it." She bit into one stick, molten cheese bursting into her mouth in a spill of fiery oil — way too hot, but delicious anyway. Her eyes rolled and a soft, sensual moan sighed out of her.
Ben shot her a look, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Keep making sounds like that and you'll have me chasing more of them out of you as soon as we get home."
"Trust me," she said, groaning again at the second bite, "you deserve at least as much after the wonder of reading my mind."
He looked surprised. "Really?"
She shrugged. "Maybe. Let's get home and find out."
Rey didn't really know how much worse things would get in the next ten weeks, but she was beginning to feel increasingly uncomfortable, and increasingly un-sexy, despite Ben's craze over her new shape. Her sex drive, raging in heavenly overdrive for the duration of her second trimester, was starting to nosedive. She told Ben about it so he didn't feel rejected when she rebuffed his attempts, and he'd been good not to pressure her or even make any faces of disappointment. And it wasn't like it was that bad. They went from several times a week to once a week. Distressed by her sudden drop in libido, Rey had googled it and found a forum where some women claimed to have not been intimate at all during their entire pregnancy because they felt so terrible, or had no interest whatsoever. Others said they definitely took a hit their last trimester and barely had it once a month.
Rey wasn't that disinterested, yet. She suspected it might get worse the closer to the end she got. But she wasn't sure. The advantage she had over some of the others was the newness of her relationship with Ben. Obviously they'd been together plenty of times before, but never on a regular basis, and never with so much intimacy as they had now. So it felt new. And exciting. And it kept her reaching for it even when she was tired and her body ached and she felt like a beached whale.
But tonight, she felt like it. Because she'd laughed so hard it burned away her anxieties and self-consciousness at her lack of preparedness. And because Ben was magically attuned to her unspoken craving.
When they pulled into the driveway, her mozzarella sticks were demolished, her milkshake halfway gone.
As much as she enjoyed them, she enjoyed what came after even more.
That night, cuddled up against Ben, content to use him as her support instead of her giant body pillow just this once, and right before she fell asleep, she had an odd thought. She felt bad for Penny, because for as supportive as her mother and sister and grandmother could be, it couldn't compare at all to this.
THIRTY ONE WEEKS — COCONUT
The next week didn't go any better than the first.
Everyone regarded Rey and Ben warily when they came in and sat down. Rey ignored them, determined and ready to get something useful out of this class.
For the first hour, Katie talked about the miracle of the placenta, and all the things that one could do with it after birth. She'd brought visual aids again, and passed around framed artwork — one, she said, was her own. She'd taken her placenta home, dried it out, dipped it in paint, and made what she considered to be this beautiful masterpiece. Rey happened to be holding that frame when Katie announced it was her own, and she almost dropped it right there. Luckily Ben caught it as it was slipping from her fingers. He quickly and unceremoniously passed it along without giving it a second glance.
Katie also told them about how the placenta could be encapsulated and ingested in pill form, to help with Postpartum Depression, she said. Or, if pills weren't ideal, she passed around leaflets of placenta recipes.
Ben started to gag at that and had to excuse himself for a minute to recover. Rey wondered vaguely if the goal of this class was to remind her of the misery of her first trimester nausea. She too felt like she was about to throw up again.
When Ben came back, Rey had to pat him sympathetically because they were not done talking about the placenta. Katie showed them placenta earrings, necklaces with tiny shrunken placenta bits trapped in resin, a dried and shaped placenta resembling a teddy bear, and a powder intended for facials.
Rey's disgust turned to hilarity again and to prevent another laughing fit she had to grit her teeth and think about the architecture firm she was writing web copy for, and not the idea of women blissfully rubbing powdered placenta all over their faces.
Finally, mercifully, Katie pivoted to a new topic. And somehow, it was so much worse.
Katie dimmed the already dim lights and put on a video graphically depicting three different women giving birth. One in the water, one on her back, and one squatting. All of them were in a home-setting. All of them were set to cheesy flute music meant to induce some kind of peaceful feeling, but all Rey could feel was mounting horror.
It could have been worse. None of the women wailed or raged or acted like their bodies were being split open. But it looked like their bodies were splitting open. Every time the camera zoomed in between her legs Rey wanted to let out a full-body scream. Because that did not look normal and no matter how the women puffed and breathed and pretended to be at bliss, Rey didn't believe they weren't actively trying to leave their bodies and ascend.
Every time a baby came sloshing into the world like some kind of giant, slippery, bloody turd, everybody in the room cooed and made soft noises of approval. Rey buried her face in her hands and shuddered.
Katie went on and on about the miracle of life-giving. But that looked like a straight forward nightmare.
After the videos, Katie said that next week, they'd learn about inducing labor naturally through fun methods like nipple stimulation, eating spicy foods, and semen retention. They would also watch a video of a woman who gave birth in a wild stream behind her house.
By the time the class ended, Rey didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. It ended up being the latter. She held it together until they left the parking lot, and then Ben pulled over because he knew there was something wrong. She'd not said a word, even when he'd asked a few quiet questions.
When he turned towards her, she burst into tears. Alarmed, he pulled her into his chest and held her tight.
"I can't do it," she sobbed into his shirt. "There's no way I can do that. What am I going to do?"
"I don't know," he said softly after a minute of listening to her cry. "But I'll tell you what we're not going to do."
She lifted her head to peek at him.
He looked angry.
"We're not going back to that idiotic class."
She sniffled. "We're not?"
"Definitely not. What did you learn tonight? Can you point to one thing that you learned?"
Rey had to think. "You can do a lot of stuff with the placenta that I didn't know about."
"One useful thing, I meant."
She couldn't, really. Not even the videos were enlightening. She'd already known it was going to be bad. Seeing it didn't help at all.
"Is there something wrong with me that everybody thought it was so amazing when the babies finally came out, and all I felt was disgust?" she asked softly.
"No," Ben said, his voice firm. "Or if there is, there's something wrong with me too. And that's what I mean. This class isn't helping us, and it's scaring you. So we're done."
She pulled out of his embrace, wiping her eyes, a little embarrassed at how badly she'd fallen apart. "But then what will we do?"
"Let me handle it," he said gently. "I'll find something that suits us. That? That wasn't us. Those people were eating it up—" Rey groaned, the placenta recipes unwillingly springing to mind — "but clearly we aren't those kinds of people. So let me look into it, and I'll find our people."
Something in her chest eased, some tightness releasing. She nodded. "Okay."
What Ben worked out instead ended up being much better. He arranged a tour of the best ranked hospital for Labor and Delivery near them. They were with three other couples, all of the same mindset of being perfectly comfortable with medical assistance. The woman who conducted their tour was a certified nurse midwife. She was wonderfully informative, showing them the delivery rooms, teaching them how to check in when they arrived, walking them through the whole process.
"We have birthing suites here set up to mimic a home environment for those looking for an alternative experience," she explained. "This is ideal for those who want the experience of a home-birth but may be in a higher risk category where they'll want to be near medical intervention if something goes wrong. For those, we have queen sized beds so that your partner can be with you."
The CNW smiled happily and led them on to the maternity ward where they'd spend the next few days recovering, if they chose it. She talked about the nurses and the kind of support they provided, education from diapering and swaddling to car seat safety and postpartum care. They had a lactation consultant on site too, for those hoping to learn to breastfeed. When another of the women asked what kinds of things they should bring to the hospital, Rey felt completely reassured that she wasn't the only one who didn't have a dissertation of birth plans written out. And the CNW gave some helpful suggestions:
"Labor can be long and, sometimes, surprisingly boring. Bring a book or a game — some people like to bring laptops so they can watch movies. Comfortable, loose-fitting clothes for after. Socks — a lot of women don't think about socks, but your feet can get very cold here. We'll provide you with all the hygienic supplies like pads and underwear, but if you really prefer to use your own you can bring that. We'll also provide you with plenty of aftercare supplies like witch hazel pads and cooling perineum sprays, so don't worry about that."
Leaving the hospital, Rey felt a hundred times more confident about what to expect. Still nervous, but at least everything wasn't quite so unknown as before.
Afterwards, Ben whisked her off to his parent's house. He didn't explain much on the way, but Rey didn't feel the need to pepper him with questions either. The hospital had buoyed her spirits a great deal.
His mother was waiting for them with a big smile and warm hugs. She took them into one of the sitting rooms where they had a TV and they all three sat together on a couch.
Han came in a minute after they got there. He looked surprised.
"Didn't realize we were having company today," he said, though he didn't sound all that unhappy about it.
Leia made an exasperated sound. "I told you about this a couple days ago. We're having an impromptu birth class."
"The hell we are," Han said, his eyes widening. "I told you I wasn't gonna do that."
"And I told you that you didn't have a choice, nerfherder, so sit down."
"Leia, it's been thirty years since we did this. And we only did it one time. We don't have any right to teach these kids anything about the process! We don't even know how they get babies out these days."
"It can't be that different. Babies still come out of the same place, last I checked." Leia glared at him. "Sit down, Han. We're going to help them the best way we can."
With another long string of expletives, Han sat in an armchair.
Rey glanced at Ben inquisitively. He shrugged at her. "They're the best resource I have."
Leia put on a video. Rey braced herself for more visual horror, but this one wasn't so bad. No terror-inducing vaginal shots this time. It talked about coping with contractions and laboring at home, how to know when it's time to go to the hospital, good breathing techniques that did not include any mooing.
Han grumbled his whole way through it. Visibly wincing when they discussed, but did not show, the epidural procedure. He pointed at Ben. "Don't watch that garbage when it happens. Trust me, you don't want to see."
"Your father passed out," Leia said with amusement.
"You didn't see the size of the needle!" he protested with wide eyes. "It was behind you!"
"You didn't have that needle threaded into your spine," she said coolly. Then, glancing at Rey, she smiled and patted her knee. "Don't worry, it actually looks much worse than it feels. You'll be fine. They like to do it when your contractions are strong. Trust me, that's much worse than whatever they're doing back there. It's a good strategy."
Rey smiled a nervous smile. She did still feel a flicker of fear at all of this, but the familiarity of Ben's parents talking about it made it seem much less…mysterious. Less unknowable.
The video went on to talk about proper pushing technique. Han still wore a grimace the whole time. When they talked about cleaning, measuring, and weighing the baby, he lit up again. They were showing a newborn boy on the screen lying on a scale under a heat lamp while the nurse checked his weight.
"Hey! Here's something I can tell you, something I do remember — see the size of that kid's balls? Huge, right? Ben's too. I thought, holy smokes, this kid is barely a minute old and he already has the biggest ball-to-prick ratio I've ever seen. But it's a trick. Those little grapes shriveled up to normal size later after all his mother's estrogen left his system."
Ben's cheeks pinked, and Rey laughed. Leia reached over and smacked him. "Don't talk about your grown son's balls."
"What? She doesn't care." He motioned towards Rey. "She's seen 'em. Not like there's some mystery over how they turned out."
"Dad," Ben said with a wince.
"Must've functioned the right way after all that size changing because we got the evidence of it right there," Han pointed at Rey's bump.
Leia leaned towards him again, he dodged her next harmless smack. "Stop, you womp rat, Ben doesn't want you talking about his balls!"
"I thought we were sharing information!"
"How is that going to help them? This baby won't have enlarged balls when she emerges."
"Oh." Han's face blanked. "I keep forgetting. Well then why the hell am I here? I don't know anything about girl babies."
"Maybe they have questions you could answer," Leia said tersely.
"I don't think I'll have anymore questions for the rest of my life," Ben grumbled.
"Wait a minute," said Han, motioning at the screen. "Oh yeah, I remember those. The unsexiest underwear on the planet."
"They're not meant to be sexy," Leia retorted.
The video was showing the lower half of a woman's body sporting wide mesh underwear loaded up with the biggest pad Rey had ever seen in her life.
"Looks like your eyes are gonna pop out of your head, kiddo," Han chuckled. "Don't worry, it isn't forever. It'll be in Ben's head forever, but there's a lot about what'll happen there that will be in his head permanently."
"Han," Leia sighed.
He lifted his hands innocently. "What? You think I don't remember what you looked like down there? Complete war zone. Carnage — carnage as far as the eye could see."
"Dad!" Ben growled, sounding as exasperated as his mother.
But Han's gruffness had the opposite effect of those birthing class videos. Rey laughed, and the lingering feelings of fear began to dull and ebb.
"Don't worry, son," Han said, waving dismissively at him. "You're just an animal like the rest of us. You'll still be able to get it up after witnessing all that. This won't kill your libido forever. Probably not even for a day, honestly."
"For heaven's sake, Han, stop talking about this poor boy's sex life," Leia cried, getting to her feet.
"Simmer down," he told her, returning his attention to the TV. "He's doing fine. Nothing poor about it. Look, now we get to baby stuff. See, Ben? We didn't do too bad with that swaddling thing."
"We weren't working with arms or legs either, though," Ben sighed.
Leia wandered off and came back with a plate of fruit she set on the table. Rey plucked at a bundle of grapes, watching with mild curiosity as the video showed a pair of hands efficiently swaddling a tiny sleeping newborn. This one did look kind of cute, she had to admit, with a tiny hat and little mittened hands, not slimy or purple or bloody like the birthing center videos.
"Oh," Leia said in soft admiration. "I can't wait to hold our itty bitty lady."
"You're not gonna try to be in the room with them, are you?" Han gave her an arched look.
"No." Leia frowned. She glanced at Rey and Ben, hurrying to reassure them. "Unless you want that. But I remember when I was in your position, I only wanted Han there. No one else."
Rey nodded wordlessly. She hadn't really thought about that before. About whether or not Leia would want to…be in the room. She was grateful for the older woman's understanding, because no, Rey didn't want anyone else to see carnage everywhere.
The video went on to explain checkout procedures in the hospital. They showed a new father filling out the application for a birth certificate. He happily scribbled his wife's full name and his own. It cut to an image of a new (fake) birth certificate arriving in the mail a few weeks later.
Here, Rey shifted uncomfortably.
Ben glanced at her. "Everything okay?"
She wasn't sure. A feeling of unease had gone through her, but she didn't know why.
"Is it because we still don't have a name?" Ben guessed. "Because we will. I promise she's not going to go through this life without one."
"I know," she said quickly, because it wasn't that. "I…I'm fine. Honestly, I can't even explain it."
"Is she making you uncomfortable?" he asked, running a huge hand over her swell.
She shook her head.
Leia paused the video. It stilled on the image of the birth certificate. She turned towards Rey.
"Is it emotional distress or physical?" she asked gently.
Rey frowned at the screen. "It's that, I think."
They all looked. None understood.
This was…maybe a little too personal to talk about in front of Han and Leia. She swallowed and shook her head. "It's fine. It's okay. I figured it out. Can we move on?"
Han cocked his head to the side. "It's the name thing, isn't it?"
Rey met his gaze, and knew that he knew. She sucked in a sharp breath.
Ben frowned. "She said it wasn't?"
Leia waved at him to be quiet. She was watching Han and Rey intently, like someone observing a scientific breakthrough about to unfold.
Han's mouth quirked in a crooked grin. "You feel like that certificate will prove you still don't belong to a family."
Rey drew herself in, an unconscious shielding motion. She looked at the screen again. Everybody on that fake certificate for baby John Doe shared the same fake last name of Doe. So would this baby and Ben. Ben and his daughter. But not her. Like she wasn't really part of it.
Even though she knew it wasn't true, a dark, ugly voice inside her whispered that it was because she didn't deserve it. Still. After all this time. After all this beautiful summer. She was still only Rey and would always be only Rey and nothing, no amount of love from Ben or the addition of a daughter, would ever change that.
"There's an easy solution," Han said helpfully.
She held her breath.
"You could just get married," he said with a grin. "That's what worked for me. Made me a proper family man."
Ben's whole body reacted, his spine stiffening as he shot forward, his hand flying to the arm of the couch, gripping it tight.
"What?" he demanded.
Han shot him a dirty look. "Look at this poor kid, Ben. She's still running scared in the streets — in her head, I mean. No one to care about her. Hungry for a family. Why are you holding out on her?"
"What?" Ben cried again, getting to his feet. "I'm not—"
"You know," Leia said thoughtfully. Rey glanced at her. The woman's face was a careful mask of neutrality, but Rey thought she spied some ulterior motive there. "It probably would be advantageous, from a logistical standpoint. You could get on Ben's insurance. Be double-covered. Then you'd have very few bills at all."
"Doesn't she have a little less than three months left, though?" Han said to his wife. "Is that enough time to pull a wedding together and still leave her with time to get her name changed and all that legal jazz?"
"It's not ideal," admitted Leia. "But I'm sure we could throw something nice together. We could use the south lawn here — that would be beautiful this time of year. So no need to schedule a venue—"
"Stop," Ben told them fiercely.
"What about her baby shower?" Han motioned at Rey. "Won't this interfere?"
"Hmm...that's a good point. Definitely could be some conflict. I'd have to think about that."
"Hey, there's the house thing, too" Han said with dawning realization. "You guys could get the house together as a married couple, in your family name. Makes things simpler with financing and all that. If we could get it pulled together in time, of course."
"Stop it, stop it," Ben snarled. And he looked like a caged animal pacing restlessly inside his enclosure. "This isn't a group discussion here. I'm not having this conversation with you two."
Leia stood up and went to him, hands on his shoulders. She was so tiny compared to him. Her son looked like he could crush her, except his face held none of that violence, even in all his obvious anger.
"Calm down, Ben, we'll stop talking about it."
"What the hell is wrong with you both?"
"Don't talk to your mother that way," Han growled from his chair, but didn't bother getting up.
Leia waved dismissively at him. To Ben, she said more gently, "We just got carried away. It's done. I told you before and I'll tell you now, I don't care if you two want to be married or not. It's your choice. Do you want to sit down so we can finish?"
"No."
She sighed. "Okay, then. Are you still coming tomorrow for Sunday dinner?"
He threw an angry glance over her head to his father, and then back at her. "Not if this is how the conversation will go."
"It won't, we promise," Leia said soothingly. "Nobody will talk about marriage, okay?"
"Jesus, sport, I didn't realize you were so against the idea," Han muttered.
Rey didn't either.
She felt a little sick. She put the grapes back on the tray and drew a soft, unsteady breath.
Ben glanced at her. His angry expression faltered and then fell. His gaze found the floor, jaw rolling, and Rey couldn't even begin to guess what thoughts preoccupied him now. She struggled and got to her feet, going to him. Leia stepped aside and Rey took his hand. She glanced at Leia.
"Thank you so much for doing this. Believe it or not it was…really helpful, actually. I feel better about a lot of things."
Leia smiled and nodded. "Well, sorry it ended like this, but I'm glad. It was kind of fun. Sorry Han is an clueless old geezer."
"I am not!" Han protested from his chair where he sat with a large piece of watermelon in hand.
"No, he was fine." Rey assured her with a crooked grin. "Really. I had fun. But I think…I think we should probably go. I'll text you about tomorrow."
Leia nodded, walking them to the front door. She gave each a hug. Ben performed the ritual automatically, but Rey saw no sincerity or warmth in it. Leia gave her a rueful smile as they walked out the door.
A/N: wee cliffhanger, sorry about that! I promise everything will be okay! Next chapter up soon. Won't say when since I seem to be missing all my deadlines lately, but soon.