Author's Note: I'm so sorry this update is late! I really have no decent excuse, I just didn't manage my time properly this past week. I still haven't even had a chance to reply to reviews! I plan on doing that as soon as this chapter is posted, so I'm very sorry if I haven't responded to your review yet!

This chapter is named after the new Mumford and Sons song, I Will Wait. Give it a listen if you like.

As usual, I don't own Skins or have anything to do with it.

Chapter 18: I Will Wait

Friday, August 30th, 2013

I was curled up on the couch with Libby, nervously biting at my nails while watching TV and waiting for Emily to come home from work. The day had been miserable and rainy and full of nervous butterflies in my stomach. Emily was coming home early from work because today was our first midwife appointment. We were both rather nervous, though Emily seemed more nervous than I was. She already had drafted up a full three page list of questions to ask our poor midwife. Katie and Effy had already assured us that the first appointment wasn't anything to get worried over. But of course, Emily and I managed to get worried over something that was supposedly easy and straightforward.

Emily loudly ran through the door, looking an absolute mess. She was out of breath and was bent forward in an attempt to catch her breath.

"Am...Am I late? Is she here yet? Did you hear the heartbeat?" She wheezed, dropping all her things and shutting the door behind her. I smiled at her and walked towards her.

I grabbed her arm and kissed her gently. "You're not late, Em," I said, trying to hold back my laughter.

Em sighed and let me lead her towards the couch. "I lost...my watch and my cell phone died. I couldn't find a clock anywhere in the office so I just left! No one was there to give me the time! I got so worried I missed the appointment," Em sighed as she sat down. "Would you make me a cup of tea, love? I feel like I'm about to pass out."

I nodded and kissed her again before I went into the kitchen to make Em her cup of tea. The scariest part about this all was that for once in our relationship, I was the calm one. My pregnancy had turned Emily into a complete worry wart, and though I loved how concerned she was, I was also pretty concerned that she was going to worry herself into a heart attack. Then again, I also knew she had a lot on her plate at the minute. Not only was today our first midwife appointment, but earlier in the week was our joint announcement party with Katie and Effy. Emily had been quite worried about how her mother would take to the news that we were expecting. We'd also received an unexpected phone call from Natalie last night, saying that she'd managed to get the weekend off and asking if she could come to Bristol for a visit. Of course, we couldn't say no. We had invited her to the announcement party and she wasn't able to make it since it was in the middle of the week, so we hadn't told her about the pregnancy just yet. This weekend was going to be the perfect opportunity to do so. She was arriving later that night, a few hours after our midwife appointment. Emily had been pretty busy last night trying to set up the guest bedroom, which had been unused ever since Katie and Effy moved out.

I finished up making Em's cup of tea and handed it to her. She sighed as she took her first sip and I smiled, despite my jealousy. I desperately wanted a cup of tea, but since I was pregnant and caffeine and pregnancy didn't mix, I couldn't have a cup.

As soon as I was about to sit down next to Emily and take a few minutes to relax, the doorbell rang. I sighed and walked over to the door, leaving Emily in her few moments of peace and serenity sat next to our dog.

I opened the door and was surprised to see that my midwife had showed up an hour early. I awkwardly gawked at her for a moment and checked my watch before smiling at her.

"You're early," I said, moving over to let her in. She smiled apologetically at me and dragged in her bags full of equipment.

"I'm so sorry, I hope this is a convenient time! I was going to call beforehand but I couldn't get through to the contact number you left. Long story short is that I've been called in to assist a twin VBAC birth this evening, and I needed to reschedule a few appointments this afternoon to fit everything in," the midwife said, still smiling brightly at me. "I'm Anna, pleased to meet you."

I smiled at her and shook her already extended hand. "I'm Naomi, and this is my wife, Emily," I replied, gesturing to Emily who was hastily finishing her cup of tea and waving. Anna looked between the two of us and quickly caught sight of my bump, which made me laugh. "And yes, I'm the one who's pregnant."

Anna blushed and smiled, taking another look at Emily. "Oh, you're Katie's sister! She had mentioned that you two would be calling me shortly. Well, okay, mamas, well let's get right down to it then. Do you want to just do the appointment on the couch or would you prefer a bedroom? Either would work well for me."

I gestured over to the couch and made my way over there, trailed by Anna who was weighed down by all her bags. She set everything up and pulled over our ottoman to sit on in front of Emily and I.

"Okay," Anna said as she fiddled around with a fetal doppler system. "Any questions before I start working my magic here?"

Emily nodded. "What's a VBAC birth? You know, you just mentioned you had to assist a twin VBAC birth?"

Anna nodded and smiled. "VBAC is an acronym for vaginal birth after cesarean. Hospitals no longer perform vaginal births after cesareans, which is becoming a growing issue for mothers who had an emergency cesarean or were pushed into a cesarean by their doctor in their first labour. Most of these women just want to have normal vaginal births after they've had their cesarean sections, but hospitals won't allow it. There isn't that much of an increased risk associated with vaginal labour after a cesarean, but that slight risk that is associated with VBACs now gives the hospitals enough ammunition to no longer allow for VBACs to occur at all. This increases the hospital's number of c-sections, which increases hospital revenue and also shows a decreased risk of a malpractice lawsuit being slapped on the doctor performing the c-section. Of course, they don't say that a c-section is itself much more risky than a VBAC, since a c-section is a very major operation and recovery time is much longer than recovery from a vaginal birth. And there I go rambling on and on about hospital bullshit. Sorry about that," Anna smiled at us. "Any other questions before I begin?"

"Just a tiny one," I ventured. "Will you be able to tell us the baby's sex?"

Anna nodded and smiled.

"You can come into the office where we have a full ultrasound machine for a scan once you're a bit farther along in your pregnancy. We'll be able to predict the baby's sex at around 18 weeks."

I sighed, relieved that I would be able to find out the baby's sex in about 8 weeks. I knew Emily was already dying to know the baby's sex, probably because she was also dying to start buying clothes, furniture and start decorating the nursery immediately. I wasn't too bothered with finding out the baby's sex for those purposes, I was just dying to start thinking of baby names. I already had one secret baby name in mind that I hadn't told anybody about yet, and I didn't plan on mentioning it until the absolute last minute...even if that last minute was as I was pushing this baby out of me.

Anna was finally able to start up the fetal doppler system and get to work. She asked me to lift my top, which I did. She squirted some really cold crap on my stomach and then swirled the wand around, searching for the baby's heartbeat. She had a set of headphones plugged in, so Emily and I weren't able to hear anything just yet.

"Now, don't get worried if we don't hear anything today. You're still quite early on and..." Anna trailed off as her brow furrowed. She smiled a few seconds later. "Pretend I didn't just say any of that. Are you ready to hear your baby's heartbeat?"

Emily grabbed my hand, squeezing it so tightly her rings started to dig into my skin. We were both smiling huge smiles as we eagerly nodded. Anna unplugged the headphones from the doppler set and adjusted a few things on the set before putting the wand against my stomach again. We heard some whooshing noises that sounded sort of like being under water, and then we heard it. That unmistakable loud and fast pumping of our baby's heart. It made the pregnancy so much more real. There was a person inside me.

Emily cried almost right away, which made me start crying. I had almost completely forgotten that Anna was even in the room when she cleared her throat and interrupted our moment of complete bliss.

"And also, just to let you know, there's definitely just one heartbeat in there. I know when I went to see your sister and her partner a few weeks ago, Katie had mentioned something about there possibly being six babies inside Effy, which Effy didn't seem all that excited about," Anna said with a smile.

Emily and I both laughed, remembering Katie's mathematical explanation regarding how many babies Effy could have been carrying. Even though I knew Ems and Katie were completely separate individuals with their own distinct personality traits, it was eery how similarly they were responding to both Effy's and my pregnancy. Both had turned into worriers, though Emily was slightly worse than Katie was. There were moments where Effy and I would catch Katie and Emily sneakily planning or worrying about baby related things in a way that only twin sisters could. Eff and I would just smile at each other and roll our eyes, as though to say 'those darned Fitch twins' and just carry on with our days. In a way, there was nothing either of us could do to stop our partners from worrying about us, and in yet another way, I understood where they were coming from. They weren't the ones experiencing all the changes that Effy and I had to surrender ourselves to. Katie and Emily still retained some kind of control over their lives, whereas Effy and I never knew where our day was headed. Most days I barely even knew if I would have enough energy to get out of bed after fighting nausea all night. Where Effy and I had lost our control, Katie and Effy had taken it over. It was a good thing – they just wanted to protect us and try to make things as easy as possible for us.

Anna left shortly after she finished with the fetal doppler. Apparently, Emily was so assured by Anna's thorough exam that she forgot entirely about her three page list of questions. Anna seemed to have a calming effect on the both of us. We scheduled another appointment with her for three weeks from then.

As soon as Anna left, Emily and I flew into action to get the spare room ready for Natalie's imminent arrival. We made the bed and added extra pillows, we grabbed all our fluffiest guest towels and placed them on the bed alongside a nice and fluffy bathrobe. Emily even went out earlier in the day to buy nice travel sized shampoos and soaps for Natalie to use. She was going to be the first proper guest to stay in our apartment, and if Emily had anything to do with it, it was going to be just like she was staying in a hotel.

"I hope she likes the pillows," Emily murmured as we finally got to sit down together on the couch for a few peaceful moments. "She had such nice pillows in her spare bedroom."

I smiled and kissed her cheek.

"I'm sure she'll love the pillows, Em. Don't worry about Nat, I'm sure she'll be very happy just to be here with us," I said, snuggling into Emily's side. Em draped her arm around me and sighed and looked around at the apartment with a concerned look on her face.

"Naoms," she murmured quietly, almost as though she wasn't quite sure she wanted to say what she was about to say. "Where will our guests sleep once the baby comes? We won't have a spare room."

I shrugged. I'd never really thought about how quickly we'd outgrow the apartment. When I bought the place, I wasn't really thinking about having my family in this space or watching my children grow up here. I was thinking that I needed an extra bedroom because, at the time, Effy had just left Freddie and wouldn't get off my couch. If Emily and I decided to have any more children, we would need a bigger home. The apartment was really full of safety hazards that I'd never noticed before – balconies that didn't have safe railings, slippery hardwood floors that our children could fall and bang their heads on. I didn't even know who my neighbours were or what type of people they were. Plus, carrying a pram and carseat up into the elevator would be no easy feat for me to do by myself twice every day when I would take Libby for her walks. The parking lot (though we didn't have a car yet, but were planning on buying one) was in the basement of the apartment building, meaning it was dark and often unlit and felt quite unsafe. Would I feel safe walking through that parking lot with my baby?

I realized then just how quickly we were outgrowing the home I'd come to love so much.

"Well...that's something to think about, isn't it?" I grumbled, not exactly keen on the idea of selling the flat and moving. Moving and buying another place was an awful lot of work that I just wasn't sure I was ready to commit to yet, considering I'd only been living here for about a year. But I couldn't deny that Emily was right – we were outgrowing our home, our beloved flat, our love nest.

I suppose the next thing on our shopping list was a house.

Author's Note: Please don't forget to leave a review! I still reply to each and every one.

Updates will be back to normal from now on, so expect an update on Sunday :)