Author's Note: I have other bits and pieces of the pregnancy that I'll find a way to share at some point, and I've been working on the birth / early days of parenting stories for literal years at this point, but this was a recent inspiration, and I'm excited about it it. It's 80% done in my docs, so I'll share it slowly and be done hopefully without leaving you hanging for too long. Please excuse me as I consider hopping around this pregnancy timeline. As always, thank you for reading and reviewing. It really makes this worth it.

In her fourth month of pregnancy, Laura was interning full-time at the ACLU. Steve was still working full-time at ForWard, of course. With the time they had leftover, Laura was devoting most of it to self-care, trying to care for her pregnant body and nurture their growing baby. Steve was also devoting himself to Laura-care with the very same goal. This meant that he was taking on more and more household chores to lighten her load and whatever they could let go, they let go. Occasionally, a small task slipped through the cracks.

That was what had happened when Laura walked into the office and noticed the trash can was overflowing. No big deal. It was a light, office trash can filled mostly with paper. Though Steve would have thrown an incredibly unreasonable fit to take over that job for her if he had been there, she was very easily able to pick it up and bring it to the kitchen trash. She dumped the bin in their larger trash can and turned to leave it. Steve never let her actually take out the trash anymore. He always lectured her about her need for constant rest if he came home and saw the can empty. Her doctor didn't put her on bedrest or anything. Steve had simply put her on Goddess Rest. That was what he was calling it anyway.

As she turned away from the bin, one of the crumpled up pieces of paper caught her eye.

"Roberta"

She grabbed the piece of paper and carefully uncrumpled it. It was in Steve's handwriting.

"Herb and Roberta,

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to tell you this, but—"

The letter ended abruptly. Steve had stopped mid sentence and threw it out. She picked several more half-written letters out of the trash.

"Mama and Pop,

I've missed you. I have some exciting news to share, and I know you've cut me off, but I want—"

"Roberta,

I told you I would write if Laura and I were ready to take any big steps in our—"

"Herb,

I'm going to be a papa, Papa! I know you haven't always been the dad I wanted you to be, but I have so many ques—"

"Mom and Dad,

You're going to be grandparents! Laura and I are having a baby. I couldn't be—"

Laura dug every letter out of the trash and read them all multiple times. There were eighteen in total. In none of them did he complete his first paragraph. She finally looked at the clock. She was due in court in an hour. She had to go. She quickly gathered the papers and shoved them in the briefcase Steve had given her for graduation. She had to do something about this, but first, she had to defend a Black apartment tenant from her slumlord's discriminatory eviction attempts. She had been helping a more experienced attorney on this case for months, and she had moved on to another, higher profile case, which left this one to Laura entirely. Steve's childhood trauma had waited this long. It could wait another couple hours while she kept a single mom with four kids in their barely affordable housing.

———————————————————————

When Steve got home that night, he was surprised to find candlelight illuminating their main room. "Laura Lee?" he called as he entered.

"Coming, my love. One sec," she called from the bedroom.

He walked in and closed the door behind him. He took off his winter jacket and hung it up in the closet, sweeping the snow from his shoulders. He took off his suit jacket and loosened his tie a bit. He walked further into the room and looked around. There were roses on their table and two places were beautifully set. There was a bottle of what looked like champagne in a bucket for chilling. He approached it and lifted it from the ice. Sparkling apple juice. He smiled and carefully popped the cork. He poured them each a glass and turned around just as she was exiting the bedroom.

"Hey, baby," she said sweetly, placing a hand affectionately on her baby bump which was finally starting to show. In the right outfit and from the right angle, she just looked a little bloated, but she deliberately did not wear the right outfit. She dressed in a tight, long dress. It was a soft, white cotton, but it hugged her bump and displayed it.

"You even look like a goddess," he whispered breathlessly. He slowly stepped toward her and handed her a champagne flute. He moved his glass toward hers but didn't touch them. "To us and to our growing family and to the love of my life who is giving me everything I've ever wanted." He clinked his glass to hers.

"Cheers," she replied softly. She made intense eye contact with him as they both took a sip.

"What is all this, Sweetums?" he asked eventually in disbelief. "How was your case today? Are we celebrating?"

Laura frowned. "No. My case did not go well. Nancy and I talked, and she talked to some people who were there, and everybody agreed it wasn't my fault. The judge was just… the worst, and they're appealing, but Sandra is still getting evicted in the meantime."

"Oh, butterfly, I'm so sorry. So are we drowning our sorrows?"

Laura shook her head. "No. I definitely am disappointed, and I wanna talk about it eventually, but not tonight. We have something else on the docket tonight."

"What is it?"

"Go sit down at the table. Let me get our dinner first."

"Should I be worried?" he asked nervously.

"No," she said firmly. "It's nothing bad."

Steve took a deep breath and steeled himself. "Then how about you sit down and I serve you? You've already done too much. You know you're on Goddess Rest."

Laura chuckled. "And you know that's not a real thing," she laughed.

Steve grabbed her hips and pulled her closer, her baby bump keeping them further apart than usual. "Please sit down and relax, Laura Lee. For me," he begged.

Laura smiled softly and rolled her eyes. "Fine," she agreed. "Thank you, baby daddy," she purred, leaning in to kiss him softly.

Steve pulled away as her lips left his, and he moved to the kitchen to plate their dinners. He brought them over and kissed her again as he set hers in front of her. He sat beside her and picked up his silverware, ready to dig in. "You know, I love everything about you being pregnant," he began.

"I know," she nodded immediately.

"But one thing that I love and I never saw coming were all these cravings."

Laura laughed. "I honestly think it's because I'm carrying an Urkel. I mean, I talked to my mom about some of her pregnancy cravings, and they were so normal. Like peanut butter and pickles or just a crazy amount of blueberries. When I told her that we were regularly eating possum and having chocolate covered squid for dessert, she almost gagged." Laura took a big bite of the badger filet in front of her. It hit a spot she couldn't imagine anything else scratching. "Mmm…"

Steve laughed and snorted. "I never want this to end. I hope my baby juice has permanently changed your palette."

"Oh, God," she complained. "I don't! I walk past the nicest restaurants in town and have to concentrate on my breathing to avoid throwing up. Nancy took me out to lunch today and I excused myself to throw up the incredible shrimp scampi she paid for before passing on dessert."

"I just like that you never complain about my breath anymore, so I can kiss you whenever," he purred, wiggling his eyebrows.

"That is a plus," she smiled, reaching out to squeeze his thigh.

"So, sugar toes, what did you wanna talk about?"

Laura took a deep breath and set her fork down. She looked at him seriously.

"Uh-oh," he said, putting his silverware down immediately and turning slightly to face her more directly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she promised. "Nothing is wrong. It's just… I emptied the office trash today."

"And you're very sorry for breaking the very reasonable rules of your Goddess Rest? Is this an apology dinner?"

"Boy," she scolded, rolling her eyes, "if you don't stop trying to control me, I'm gonna stop letting you carry all the groceries up from the car."

Steve laughed and snorted. "Sorry, puddin' pop. I'll be good." He picked up his fork and took a big bite of his boiled horned melon.

Laura smiled at him softly. "So I emptied the trash, and I found the letters you wrote to your parents."

Steve dropped his fork to the ground. "You what?"

Laura cringed at the pain that immediately deflated him. "I found the letters you were writing to your parents, and I read them," she continued quickly, "and I just wanted to know if you finished one and sent it."

Steve closed his mouth and swallowed hard. He forced a soft smile and reached for his champagne flute. He took a long sip, stalling for time. "No. I didn't send them anything."

Laura sat with that for a moment. "Why not?" she asked eventually.

"I couldn't figure out what to say," he admitted, looking down at his plate.

"Steve," she said softly, waiting for him to look back at her, "do you want our baby to know your parents?"

Steve stared at her, breathing a little more heavily. He didn't reply.

"There is no wrong answer to that question. Whatever you feel is the right answer," she encouraged, taking his hand.

He sat and looked down at her hand on his for a long moment. He met her eyes again. "I honestly don't know, Laura. If things could be different between us, then yes. Absolutely. One thousand percent, but I don't wanna subject my baby to them if they're going to treat her like they used to treat me or even treat me like they used to treat me in front of her. And I know you don't want them to act that way in front of our baby."

Laura thought for a moment. "Ok," she said eventually, pulling her hand back and removing her napkin from her lap. "Let's go see them then," she said eventually.

"What?" he gasped. "What do you mean?"

"Let's go to Russia. You can share our good news with them in person, and we can start to figure this out. If we go, and it's bad, then we'll know that we don't want that for our baby. If we go, and it's a little better than it used to be, then we have some time before Baby Urkel is born, and definitely before he or she starts to remember things, to make sure that they can handle being in our baby's life. And in yours."

Steve thought for a moment. "Laura, I couldn't even write them a letter. How am I supposed to go visit them on the other side of the world?"

Laura grabbed his hand again. "Because I'll be right there with you."

Steve met her eyes. That was a tempting offer, being able to lean on her for support as he confronted some of the demons that torture him most at night. However, this wasn't the time for that. "Laura Lee, I appreciate that, but stress is bad for the baby. I don't want you worrying about me like that. I want you focused on you and the baby. That's it."

Laura took a deep breath and sighed. "Honey, you think I haven't been thinking about you even…" She paused and rolled her eyes. "Even on Goddess Rest?"

Steve cocked his head at her and looked at her dreamily. "No, I know that, despite my best efforts, you're still wasting precious energy on me."

Laura traced a heart on the back of his hand with a gentle, well manicured finger. "Didn't seem like a waste last night… or the night before that… or the night before that…"

Steve felt his face grow hot as she continued to trace that heart on his hand and look at him with that fiery gaze. "That's different. That relieves your stress. Seeing my parents won't."

"Yes, it will," she said firmly, "because it will make you feel better. I'm going to be stressed if we just ignore it too."

Steve frowned. He didn't like this lose-lose situation.

"Steve, it is so natural that they've been on your mind lately. What you're feeling right now isn't gonna go away the closer we get to the birth, and I won't be able to fly safely forever. I want to do this now when it's safe for me to go with you."

Steve pouted and stared at her. "It will be expensive," he reminded her, "and we're trying to buy a house."

"So we shave a couple thousand dollars off our down payment. It won't make or break our next offer."

"We can't tell them we're coming, or they'll run. It's happened to me before. We have to show up and surprise them, and if we do, they could be out of town or really busy with work or be having some sort of swingers party."

Laura laughed.

"We have no idea what we'll find when we get there, and it could all be a waste."

"I'm willing to take that risk," she said firmly.

"The last time we saw them, they hurt me so bad that I tortured you for weeks in the aftermath. I don't wanna be a burden to you when you're… in a delicate condition."

Laura rolled her eyes at his unnecessary euphemism. "I appreciate that, honey, but you've grown so much since then. We both have and so has our marriage. It's time."

Steve stared at her for a long moment, and then he took a deep breath and sighed. "Ok. Then we can do this. When should I book the tickets?"

"ASAP, as far as I'm concerned. Whenever you can get off work. I work for free, so they're pretty flexible with my schedule," she joked.

Steve laughed and snorted. "Ok. I'll talk to the bosses tomorrow and let you know."

"Good," she agreed, starting to eat again.

"Tell me more about your case," Steve suggested.