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The Beginning of Happy Birthdays

Even if some scientists were now finding that there were some genetic causes of OCD Ryan Wolfe highly doubted it was the case with himself. He firmly believed it all had to do with his "messed up" childhood and the emotional rejection he suffered from his parents. None of his relatives had the problem. And since children usually learn behaviors from their parents, the father-to-be was determined that Bella not pick up his OCD tendencies. Ryan was confident his OCD wouldn't be an issue in his helping care for his baby daughter.

Ryan would be damned if he let it.

Ryan's thirtieth birthday's was this week.

Normally, turning thirty would bother a person and normally Ryan wouldn't even celebrate his birthday. But this year had been the best year of Ryan's life. He was married to the person he had loved since he was a boy and in a few months they would have a beautiful daughter. He, Emily and the team were going out to dinner for his birthday on the Friday of the week. Emily kept asking her husband what he wanted and he kept telling her he didn't want anything; he had got what he had wanted after eleven years of being lonely when the two found each other again.

"You're all I thought about for the last 11 years," Ryan told Emily the first night they were together. "No one ever filled that the void in my life."

That night, for the first time in years he felt whole. Ryan had many nights when he had dreamed of Emily and cursed when he awoke and she wasn't next to him. She was somewhere across the country. Emily had similar nights, only she didn't wake up cursing, she woke up in tears. Since that moment in a Miami restaurant now nearly a year ago, neither thought about that now. They had the present and future, the past was gone. Neither parent-to-be took for granted just how lucky they were to conceive their baby so fast and for Emily's pregnancy to be going so smoothly, either. Life was going so well it was almost unbelievable.

His in-laws were in the process of selling their business. Along with their new granddaughter being there, Miami sounded like a great retirement destination from the cold winters of Massachusetts. The couple had found a nice apartment a few blocks from the Wolfes' place. They may have wanted to be closer to Emily and the baby but they didn't want to smother them or make Emily and Ryan think they moved there to "take over" the baby. Vanessa and Harry knew how insulting that would be and that the young couple were going to make incredible parents anyway. If they tried "taking over" they imagined how fast that would end. Bottom line, they were moving to Miami to be dotting grandparents, not parents, to Bella. They wanted to be able to watch their granddaughter when her parents went for "date night" and be able to drive down the street and visit.

But not everyday.

Emily and her husband had lives and so did they.

Vanessa and Harry were going to be settled in Miami two months before their grandchild was due to be born. The first time grandmother was asked several times by friends whether she was going to be in the labor room when her grandchild was born. Some just assumed she would be there. Vanessa personally thought having more than the father there in a stable, loving relationship like Emily and Ryan's was ridiculous.

"Don't get me started on people who invite a bunch of family and friends in to watch!" she said. "That's crazy! It's not a party!"

Of course, if Emily had wanted her mother, it would be different. She knew this was not the case. The expectant couple thought that the delivery room "guest list" was ludicrous as well. The birth of a child was supposed to be as private an affair as possible, what crazy person wanted an audience? For Bella's mom and dad, unless you were necessary medical staff, if you weren't present during conception, you didn't get to witness the birth.