Page 22 of You Otter Know
He was sweaty. He was hurting. He was crying. His birth line was splitting down the middle, and he really wanted these babies out of him right now.
“Nnnnghnn.” He needed to push, but he didn’t think he was allowed yet. The midwife hadn’t told him to. She kept murmuring about how his birthline wasn’t quite ready.
“Can he push yet?” River was right there with him, holding him. River had started supporting his back and rubbing it about an hour ago. They had walked so much, letting gravity pull at him, and they had soaked in the tub, now they were just waiting for it to be time to apply some pressure to these babies.
The midwife might not be sure whether there was one or two, but Bodhi knew. He was ready.
Peering at his birth line, the midwife smiled and nodded. “It’s right, Bodhi. It’s time. You can push.”
“Thank the gods.” River kissed the top of his head. “You can push now, baby.”
So push he did. He strained and he sweated and he panted and he cussed River a lot and he pushed. River held him and then held his hands when he had to have something to squeeze down on.
“It’s okay, baby, you can do it.”
It passed in a haze of cramping and contractions and pushing and begging for it to be over. And all along, River encouraged him. Held onto him, loved him, and he felt it deep in his chest.
The first baby arrived a couple hours later. Her little face was red as a beet, and her silky hair was as black as night. She cried with a lusty power, which told him she had a perfectly good set of lungs on her.
Her brother came after another half an hour of hard labor, appearing in a much less dramatic fashion. He still had a good, hard cry when he came out, protesting the entire experience.
“Look at them, baby. Look what you did. You did this amazing thing.”
Totally exhausted, Bodhi laid back and looked at his babies, a boy and a girl. They were so small but perfectly formed. The midwife pronounced them utterly healthy after she cleaned and swaddled them. River held the babies while I got cleaned up, and then he was able to put one in each arm and look at them, really look at them.
He smiled out at them, then looked up at River. “We did it.”
River stroked his sweaty hair off his forehead. “We did it, love. You did it. I can’t believe how amazing you are.”
“So are they.” Bodhi felt the weight of his exhaustion dragging him down. “Will you feed them?”
“Baby, we have an entire family out there that will help me do that. You rest. You’ve earned it.”
He blinked, trying to keep his eyes open just long enough to smile at River. “That was one hell of a baby shower, huh?”
“You know it. We never do anything in half measures.”
“True enough.” They’d gotten pregnant the first time they’d been together, but it didn’t matter. They had this life now and these babies, and Bodhi could teach them how to shift and be otters. And he figured that was the most perfect thing ever, as long as he had River there to love them all.
Epilogue
River carried an armload of presents wrapped in bright paper to the Christmas tree, putting them down and standing back to admire his handiwork. His folks and Bohdi’s were both coming today for Christmas Day. So there was a ton of crap for the kids and for him and Bohdi and for their folks too.
It was kind of stunning to realize that no one was going to poke him and prod him about getting married and having babies because, well, he had.
“What do you think, baby?” He stepped back so Bohdi could see everything from where he sat on the couch with the baby in each arm. Their twins, Miranda and Thiago were perfect and still deeply asleep at this time in the morning.
It looks amazing. You know I love a twinkly light on a Christmas tree. Bohdi beamed at him, and he had to say his lover had absolutely blossomed since the babies had been born. Bohdi was taking a leave of absence until the first of the year, and he had been able to spend time bonding with the babies and just figuring out where everything fit in what part of the world that they had created for themselves.
River, well, he had never been happier in his entire life.
“These days I love Christmas,” River did, so much. “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”
“Did we send a thank-you note to the lodge?” Bohdi asked.
“Yeah, we sent him a gift basket with fruit and summer sausage and stuff too, and a Christmas card with the kids’ picture on it.”
“At the time, I was so pissed off that we were double-booked. But now I know it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
