AN – sorry to those who find same gender relationships distasteful. I aim to write about current and possibly controversial topics – especially in this story. Teen sex and pregnancy are becoming a huge issue in Australia and I'm trying to do my bit by educating through non-fiction. As to gender roles, there will be a method in my madness but I will attempt to keep the relationship to an absolute minimum. I would hate to feel I'd upset anyone. I'd love it if anyone could give me specific reasons for their surprise at Di's relationship choice in this story (I am very curious by nature).

'It's almost thanks giving time again,' Jim stated as he stirred the soup in the cooking pot. The bitter cold day didn't allow them the pleasure of getting out into the hole for any length of time. Winter came hard and fast this year, trapping Jim and Trixie in or near the cave for most of the day.

'We've got a lot to be thankful,' Trixie reminded him. Absent mindedly rubbing her ever expanding belly, a smile lit her face. They'd spent hours talking about the new life, mostly discussing their fears and making plans. Between them, without the aid of modern technology, they knew about enough to fill three pages of a note book.

'I'm thankful we have some kind of plan for Jamie's arrival,' Jim stated. 'I'm still unsure how we're going to get through the birth. I guess we'll just have to let nature take its course.'

'There's months until we have to face that,' Trixie preferred to concentrate on the here and now.

'It'll be here sooner than we think,' Jim reminded, 'and it really worries me, Trix.'

'I feel great at the moment,' she grinned, attempting to stop her husband dwelling on the future. As much as Jim tried to change his behaviour, the protective streak still remained. At times it drove Trixie to distraction. She understood Jim really said "I love you" with each overzealous action. 'Right now I'm thankful for that.' Cheekily she added, 'especially the full night's sleep. I remember some of the new mothers at Sleepyside Hospital talking about having to get up lots of times during the night in the month before they gave birth.'

'Guess it's the bodies way of getting you use to being up several time to feed your baby,' Jim commented. 'Even though I want too, I can't help with that. I remember once we had an orphan calf. I must have been eight or nine, just before Dad got sick. I set the alarm every three hours overnight to feed him. Dad didn't need to help but he got up with me, even though he had to go to work the next morning. Mom oversaw the day feedings.'

Fascinated, Trixie asked, 'what happened?'

'He passed away,' Jim stated sadly, 'we never knew why but I suspect he'd been born to young. I helped dad dig a hole and we buried him.' Allowing the silence to fill several minutes, he finally smiled, 'I'd forgotten about that. It's probably the last memory I have of my father before he became too ill to do anything with me.'

'It'll be dusk soon,' Jim commented quietly, not wanting to continue the melancholy memories of his father's rapid demise. Recollections of his birth parents came easier as Jim concentrated on the happiest part of his life and tried to forget Jonesy's influence. His talk with Trixie about the power of love had been cathartic. 'I'd like to stay out and watch tonight. I think we might be in for a change in the weather. Hopefully, we get a big storm soon.'

Looking at him as if mad, Trixie spluttered, 'you want a storm? After what happened last year?'

Laughing at her reaction, Jim explained, 'our meat supply is running low. Another deer and some smaller animals falling into the hole over winter would be good. You're going to need protein for breast feeding when Jamie arrives.'

'That's the part of this I hate the most,' the timber of Trixie's voice changed. 'I don't have any options. Not like I would if we were home.'

Jim asked, 'what would you do differently?'

So far they hadn't asked the what if questions. Intrigued by her statement, Jim wanted to know. Taking like this gave him new respect for his wife. Giving Trixie time to think, he sat silently at her side and ate his evening meal.

'This wouldn't have happened at home,' determination echoed in her voice. 'I would have insisted you use condoms and I'd be on contraceptives just to make sure. I wanted you and I wanted to make love to you. I never wanted this.'

'Really,' Jim seemed shocked, although he didn't know why. Trixie really had done her homework, determined not to end up in the same situation as her parents.

Nodding, she continued in a low voice. 'It's not that I didn't want kids. I just wanted them with you. I thought it'd happen sometime in the future, after college and when we'd both started on our careers. Now it's real, we've both come to terms with it and I have to deal. I can only ever remember Mom's breast feeding Bobby. She looked down on mothers who used formula or a bottle, so I never really thought about any other way. Besides everyone knows it the best for a baby,' lifting her face up to Jim, Trixie spoke from the heart, 'I've spent hours trying to remember any little thing to do with newborns. I've come to the conclusion that instinct will have to guide us. We don't have a library, or parents and friends to call on. Women have been going this for centuries,' shrugging her shoulders which demonstrated Trixie's distress more effectively than her tone, she continued, 'without the help of doctors and hospitals. I'm sure there are places in the world right now, where a woman is giving birth to her child without any help.'

'I'm still scared,' Jim confessed. 'Every time I think about it, all I can see is you in pain and we don't even have a Tylenol. You know I've never been one to watch much TV, but your brother got addicted to several medical dramas in his first semester as college. Some other pre-med students came around and they discussed what would really happen, pointing out the error or inconsistence in TV dramas.'

'Brian,' Trixie sounded surprised, 'watching trashy TV.'

'You better believe it,' Jim nodded, a delighted smile playing about his face. 'I remember one,' a serious expression replaced the joviality, 'when a woman went into labour in a barn.' Shaking his head, Jim couldn't recall a great deal 'Brian scoffed at the delivery, saying you need to twist the kid's shoulders on the way out and who'd have a camera on hand at that moment, much less think to film it. I guess I'll know what to do when I see it, not that I feel any less anxiety.'

'Me too,' Trixie's smile turned sad, 'but playing the "what if" game won't help. I'm going to take each day as it comes, and enjoy it the best way we can. I need you, Jim. I need you beside me, to have faith in me when I don't and to be strong when I'm not.'

'That goes both ways, Shamus,' he echoed, a melancholy smile twitching his lips. 'We've only got each other.'

'I love you,' Trixie whispered, laying her bowl on a rock. Leaning into her husband's warm and welcoming embrace, she didn't need to say more. The gentle kiss he placed on Trixie's crown emanated with the emotion. Together they stayed to watch the glowing orb disappear over the rim of the Hell Hole. Dusk became a display of red clouds in a deepening sky. It foretold warmer weather in the coming days. After such a spell, they could expect a thunderstorm and howling winds.

The middle of December brought the storm Jim wanted. The cold snap afterward keeping him in suspense until the snow and ice on the ground melted in spring. Somehow he knew they'd find enough protein to survive yet another year down here. In his heart, he wished for someone to find them. In his mind, Jim knew next June or July became their best hope. Some annual event must be run in the area surrounding the Hell Hole. He had months to work out a way to get them rescued.

Jamie weighed about a pound as the year came to an end. Able to move little limbs, the child began to protest at the limited space in its mother's womb. Trixie spent an uncomfortable night, tossing and turning as the butterfly movements she experienced for the last couple of weeks increased in frequency and intensity. The multiple bathroom breaks she now needed became painful as she attempted not to wake Jim several times each night.

'Jim,' she muttered after lying awake for several hours. Unable to find a comfortable position, Trixie sat with her back against the cave wall.

'What, Trix,' he answered, sleepily.

Taking his hand, she felt around until she could feel the gentle movements on the outside of her womb. Placing Jim's fingers over his mobile child, she couldn't help the smile. Her husband's sharply inhaled breath his only response, she knew the moment he felt it too.

'I've only realised what it is,' Trixie explained, 'and I wanted you to experience with me.'

'Amazing,' Jim muttered while sitting up. Pulling himself next to Trixie, he didn't let his hand drop from her extended belly. Finally he felt a connection to his child. Until this moment, the baby had been an academic construct. With that first movement, Jamie became a reality. 'That's our little guy in there,' he rubbed, hoping to feel the motion again.

Disappointment coloured Jim's sigh five minutes later. For whatever reason, Jamie chose not to move again. Turning to face her husband, Trixie had to work not to laugh at his expression.

'If a touch from its father can make it sleep,' she teased, 'I'm going to take it while I can.' A yawn escaped her. Taking the opportunity, Trixie slid back onto their sleeping mat. 'I only hope you can do the same after it comes out.'

'As long as both of you are safe,' Jim spoke quietly, aware Trixie's eyelids fluttered closed with exhaustion, 'I don't care.'

January and February tested Trixie's patients. No longer able to keep to two meals a day, she found herself with constant indigestion cured by many, frequent snacks. It placed a burden on their limited supplies. March brought cramps in her calf muscle that had Trixie in tears with the pain. Although Jim tried to massage the knots, noting worked. Feeling like a whale and as elegant as an elephant, Trixie constantly complained about her size. It made her feel uncomfortable all the time.

Then the dreams started. Actually they'd been plaguing her since Christmas but she'd been unable to remember them. These could only be termed night terrors. In one she left her child to starve, forgetting about it for days. Another stared a crying infant that increased its screams and she didn't know what to do. Yet another featured Jim yelling at her for being a hopeless mother. Realising her subconscious fears provided the raw material for her dreams didn't make Trixie feel any better.

'Push,' Jim demanded on the first day of April. Something within him said the time had come. They needed to get their child out now.

'I am,' Trixie gritted her teeth and shouted back. 'I've been pushing for days. You try getting something the size of a watermelon through a hole, well, not that big.'

'Come on Mrs Frayne,' Jim used her unofficial title which annoyed her lately, 'I can see his head and he's got bright red hair just like his dad.' The attempt to distract her didn't work. 'Your almost there, Trix,' he cooed, hoping the change in his tone brought about the final expulsion of his son. 'One more good push and you'll meet our little man.'

To the best of Jim's knowledge, his wife's labour started fifteen hours ago. Waking abruptly from an afternoon nap when her water broke, Trixie cried, thinking she messed herself. Neither had managed a wink of sleep overnight as Trixie couldn't stay still. She needed to walk as the pain grew closer together and more intense. An hour ago she demanded to sit in the bathing pool, again. They'd been hopping in and out the entire night to relieve the ache in her back and anxiety.

When her contractions started in earnest, Jim wanted her to get out of the water. She refused, point blank. Instead she squatted on the natural shelf, allowing Jim to remain in the pool and monitor her condition. The position relieved some of the pressure on her abdomen and provided the aid of gravity during the final stage of labour. Neither realised this pose would be impossible in a maternity hospital.

Three more pushes and the child slithered out covered in slimly red mucus. Not expecting the baby to be so slippery, Jim found his son unceremoniously plopping into the warm waters. Scooping him up quickly, the child protested with a weak cry. Holding him upside down, Jim checked his mouth, pulling out yet more of the snot like substance. His colour improved immediately. Crying in earnest, Jim made Trixie sit on the ledge and handed the infant to his mother keeping them both warm in the late spring dawn.

'A boy,' Jim exclaimed, getting for the supplies he'd placed within easy reach. Efficiently he tied the cord in two places before cutting it. He'd seen this on TV so many times before. Reality proved to be vastly different from the sanitised visual version. Suddenly remembering all the shows, he wondered where the other end of his son's umbilicus ended. Thanking Brian for making him watch all those dreadful medical series, Jim finally recalled the next step. 'Push, Trix,' Jim demanded, 'you still have to deliver the afterbirth.'

'I can't,' she wailed, 'I'm exhausted and just want to sleep. I don't think I even have the energy to get out of this pool.'

'Yes,' Jim encouraged in the softest voice he could muster, 'you do. You need to push and feed Jamie straight away. I think I remember something about stopping the bleeding and helping the uterus contract.'

'It…it,' Trixie groaned as another round of debilitating contractions hit her, delivering a large liver looking mass into Jim's waiting hands, 'helps bring the milk in.'

Sitting gingerly on the ledge, she allowed the warm waters to sooth her. Every muscle in her body protested the smallest movement. Never allowing her son out of her arms, Trixie lifted him slightly to the level of her breast. Bringing him towards her nipple she noticed his rooting response. Jamie's rosebud mouth opened as his head turned toward the source of sustenance. Something in Trixie's memory made her pinch her breast. Wanting to let him suckle, she remembered her mother's technique. Unable to wait, Jamie attached. It didn't feel right, but they had plenty of time to work it out.

'Happy,' Jim asked, slipping back into the pool after burying the placenta. Placing one hand around Trixie's shoulders, he touched his son's head reverently.

'Tried,' Trixie sighed, relaxing back into her husband's strong embrace.

'I think we both need some sleep,' he added.

'One thing I do remember,' Trixie couldn't hold back her yawn, 'babies wake up way too many times each night to be feed.'