Pregnant During the Holidays

Alison didn't know what she hated more, the fact that she was on strict bedrest for 18 hours a day, or that she couldn't help Emily decorate for Christmas. She had never been all that fond of the holiday herself, she didn't have the most pleasant memories of it from her childhood. But she knew that it was Emily's absolute favorite and it would be their first Christmas together, and it was killing her that they weren't making the memories of putting up their first tree or decorating the house together.

She'd tried everything she could think of to get Emily to let her help, but the brunette wouldn't hear anything of it. She'd simply just give her girlfriend a kiss on the lips, shove her towards the nearest couch or bed, and resume whatever task she was working on at that moment. And even though it was sweet that Emily wanted to take care of Alison, it was driving Alison absolutely fucking insane.

Alison had all these visions running through her head. Of them putting up the lights on the house, picking out a too big tree, seeing the mix of their childhood and favorite ornaments hung up, hanging mistletoe in all the doorways, baking those Pillsbury Christmas sugar cookies, wearing insane Christmas sweaters and being snuggled up on the couch watching all the classics.

And her visions certainly didn't include being cooped up on a couch while her girlfriend did all the work.

The idea of her first Christmas spent with Emily was something that she'd dreamed about for years, something she never thought she'd have. And now, here she was, 7 months pregnant with twins, on bedrest for the majority of the day, and on top of it, she couldn't even stand long enough to at least take pictures of all their firsts without having to pee every 15 minutes.

But she tried not complaining, or looking too heartbroken whenever she'd see that Emily had half the house decorated by the time she'd woken up in the morning. She knew that this made Emily happy, and even though she couldn't be apart of it, she knew that there were decades of more Christmases and firsts to come.

So she stopped trying to help as much, she didn't protest when Emily would utter "Bedrest" to her, and she would plaster the most convincing smile on her face that she could when she saw Emily bringing boxes and boxes down from their attic.

But just as Ali was starting to come to terms with the situation, she heard a loud bang come from their stairway.

"Babe?" Alison called out, her heart skipping a beat when she didn't get an immediate response.

"Shit," was all she heard. Before she knew it, Alison was out of bed and moving as quickly as her giant stomach would allow her to where the noise came from.

"Em?" she called out, her voice dripping with fear and worry. "Emily?" she yelled louder.

"I'm over here," she heard Emily respond, her voice sounding pained.

"Oh my, God. Em," Ali said when she found Emily, tears welling up in her eyes.

"I'm okay," Emily said, not that all convincingly. She couldn't help but wince at the searing pain coming from her left foot.

"What happened? What hurts?"

"It's my foot," Emily said, reaching to help Ali remove the boxes that were on top of her foot, "I was carrying down some boxes and I missed a step."

"Jesus, Em. Why didn't you just ask for help?" Ali said, anger threatening her voice.

"Because, Ali. You're on bedrest, you're not even supposed to be lifting anything, you really think I was going to ask you to carry boxes of decorations down two flights of stairs?" Emily argued back. Wincing again as she tried to get up.

"Come on," Ali said, throwing Emily's arm around her shoulders, "We have to get you to the couch and elevate your foot."

"No way," Emily said, removing her arm from Ali's grasp, "I'll get up myself."

To which, of course, Emily's attempts failed. Ali sighed and took Emily's arm again.

"Lean on your other foot to push up, just use me for balance," Ali said, swiftly getting Emily on her feet and crossing her to the couch.

A few minutes later, Ali returned with pillows, carefully placing Emily's foot on top and wrapping it with ice.

"I don't think it's broken," Ali said, "it would have started swelling by now. I think you just twisted your ankle. Just relax, now."

"What about the boxes? I can't just leave them there, what if I broke something?" Emily said, trying and failing, again, to get up.

"Would you forget about the boxes?" Ali said, "They're not going anywhere. You need to relax. You've been running around like an insane person for weeks, and I'd really like to not have my girlfriend in a full body cast for our first Christmas together."

Emily could hear the angry tone in Ali's voice, she knew that not being able to help had been hard on Alison. And maybe she should have been more sensitive about it.

"I just wanted everything to be perfect," Emily said, her voice small.

"And I just wanted to enjoy this with you," Alison said, tearing her gaze away.

"I'm sorry. It's just-I waited so long to get to do this with you. I never thought that I'd be able to be with you, let alone celebrating our first Christmas together. And you're carrying our babies and I just wanted it all to be so special and magical, like Christmas should be."

"Em," Ali said, grabbing Emily's hand, "I'm spending it with you, it already is special. We both waited so long to be in this place with each other, I want to cherish it. I want to remember it. I want all the stupid little first Christmas memories."

"And I guess I kind of took all those away by just doing it myself. I'm sorry, Ali. I really am."

"I know," Ali said, "You were just worried about me and the babies. You wanted to protect us, and that's one of the things I love most about you."

"I love you, too," Emily said, leaning over to plant a sweet kiss on Alison's lips.

"Promise me you'll slow down," Ali said as she pulled away, "I want to cherish every minute of this."

"I promise. On one condition though," Emily said, rubbing her thumb across the back of Alison's hand.

"What's that?"

"You go get your camera and take pictures of everything. I want to remember every minute of this. Starting with me all propped up on the couch with a twisted ankle," Emily said with a laugh.

"I can't wait to tell the kids about this one day," Ali said, joining Emily in her laughter.

"It'll be our first Christmas story," Emily said, posing quickly as Alison snapped some photos.

"And certainly not our last," Ali said, bending to kiss Emily once again.