Page 106 of Vegas Baby!

I hated the deception involved, but Charlotte’s delayed and obviously rewritten response gave me an extra push that we were doing the right thing. She knew Andrew better than I did, and maybe my trust in her judgment gave her pause. Maybe she realized she wasn’t as happy with him as she should’ve been to be taking another baby into their family.

Ava:

Send me all your flight details when you have them

We have space you and the kids can use so you don’t have to stay in a hotel

Charlotte:

That sounds lovely. I’ll let you know as soon as I book everything.

I let out a relieved breath. Charlotte was coming here. Soon it would all be over. We couldn’t avoid her getting hurt, not after all of Andrew’s lies, but hopefully mine wouldn’t be the one that broke her.

“Why does this all sound like nightmares?” Luke whispered. “I hate that we can’t know exactly what’s going to happen.”

Luke and Bryce weren’t handling the second baby class with nearly the same level of chill that Jesse and Micah had handled the first. They were both looking green in the gills as theinstructor went over information on epidurals, inductions, and C-sections.

Bryce wasreallytrying to not let his discomfort show on his face, but it was like an air raid siren going off in the bond when the instructor went into detail on all the layers that needed to be cut to access the uterus for a C-section.

“Do you need to take a break?” I asked.

“I’mfine,” he croaked.

“This seems like the perfect opportunity for us to practice some of our relaxation and breathing techniques we learned in our first class,” the instructor said, pointedly looking at Bryce, who blushed at her acknowledgement of his poorly disguised distress.

She led everyone through a breathing exercise, and I was relieved that it actually helped him. Hopefully he remembered to do all of this on the actual day.

Those of us who hadn’t already decided on everything were given some time to create a bullet point list for a potential birthing plan. I wasn’t sure how I would react at the time, but Bryce and Luke knew I wanted all my alphas there unless I told them otherwise during the process, and that I was open to basically any pain relief option they had available.

“Partners, you should know the birthing plan inside and out so you can advocate for the birthing parent when they may not have the presence of mind to do so for themselves. Now, please take a few minutes to discuss the plan amongst your parties and then we’ll move on to the baby care section.”

“You’re sure you want an epidural?” Luke asked. “I would be way too chickenshit for that.”

“You’d probably belesschickenshit if the alternative was being able to feel what squeezing a watermelon out of your bits is like.”

He paled and I knew he was imagining exactly that happening to him. “Okay, fair point.”

“I want you in as little pain as possible,” said Bryce. “I hate knowing you’re going to experience it and we can’t do anything to prevent all of it.”

He was going to share some of it through the bond, but so much genuine affection was flowing from him right now that I knew he wasn’t worried about my pain for himself, but out of concern for me.

“We’ll get through it together,” I promised.

Watching my two alphas in the next portion of the class was a fucking treat. I was pretty sure neither of them had played with baby dolls before and they were almost hilariously larger than the toys.

“Why is it so small?” Luke cursed, trying to wrangle it into a baby onesie. “These ones can’t even move. I feel like dressing a real one is gonna be like fighting an octopus.”

“Let me show you a trick.” I folded the bottom leg of the onesie inside out, stuck my fingers inside and used them to snare the toes of the doll to bring the leg up and over before doing the same with the other.

“Damn,” Bryce whispered in awe. “That’s way easier than trying to shove a leg down there.”

Next on their task list was swaddling.

“This feels illegal.” Luke carefully burritoed the doll after watching the instructor do it. “It’s like baby jail.”

“They’re in baby jail right now,” I said, patting my stomach. “It helps them sleep because it simulates being in the womb, where they have limited wiggle room.”

“Everyone is doing a wonderful job,” cooed the instructor. “Once the baby is home, it’s going to be extremely important for all of the non-birthing parents to take an active role in childcare. Post-birth should be a time of recovery for the birthing parent,which means that the partners, friends, and family need to take initiative and figure out what needs to be done without bothering them. That being said, maintain open communication about what tasks the birthing parents would like to handle themselves and what they would prefer be delegated out.”

---