( start a family together )

[wrongs]

the "Starting a Family" meme

Nature is no respecter of persons, my friends. Whether it be childhood friends, newlyweds, or one-night stands, a single decision or accident can change everything, and there will be three people instead of just two.

Congratulations! The characters in these threads and those who reply to them are now expecting babies, no matter what their unique situation may be. Of course, depending on the characters, this might go over like a lead balloon. But wait! Even if the decision to have a baby was made and was consensual, the process is no walk in the park. There is lots to do...and only nine months to do it. Nine potentially drama-filled months.

HOW TO PLAY

• Comment with your character, preferences, etc.
• Not all options here are fluffy and happy. Some are potentially angsty or possibly triggering. Tread lightly. Be sure to mention what you want and what you don't want.
• Reply to others.
• For this, male characters can get pregnant because why not.

PROMPTS

• How'd It Happen: What led up to this event? How are you in this situation?


• Realization: There's a wrench in the works...or maybe it was expected, but you're just realizing you're pregnant.


• Positive Reaction: Yes, after all this time and planning! You're finally ready for a family.


• Negative Reaction: Oh, no. This is terrible. You're in no position to take care of a child!


• Freak Outs: But...how? You're a human, she's an alien, how -


• Deciding What to Do: If this wasn't planned, there needs to be a plan of action now.


• Keep it Secret: You're attempting to keep your pregnancy a secret from your partner. This is only a bandaid for the bigger problem.


• Telling Others: The other people in you two's life have to know at some point.


• Drama: No one wanted you to have a kid and the anger is palpable.


• Morning Sickness and More: Everything hurts and the mornings are hell.


• Learning: If you're in a technologically advanced society, you may get to see an ultrasound. Otherwise, there are folk remedies that can be tried.


• Manipulation: One of you is using the prospect of a child to bend the other to their will and make them stay.


• My Body is a Cage: The person carrying the baby is having a decent amount of discomfort, mentally and physically.


• Showing: It's a secret no longer with an expanding stomach.


• Support: The partner who isn't carrying the child should do their best to be there and help out...


• Overprotective: ...but to a degree. Don't act like the partner carrying the child is made of paper.


• Getting Ready: The house or apartment or castle has to be babyproof.


• Heart to Heart: It's time to talk about the big changes before the happen. Where do the two of you stand?


• It's Happening: THE BABY IS COMING.


• Rough Going: Childbirth is still a dangerous affair and there's no smooth sailing for you. So pace if you're lucky, scream in the bed if you're not.


• Bad End: Not all new beginnings last. Sometimes, they become unhappy endings.


• Coming Home: Finally, parents and baby get to settle down.


• Getting Used to This: Well, maybe settle down. There's still crying in the night, feedings to do, diapers to change...

Comments

[call_4766626]

"Delmar's? Sure thing baby, we can go after this." He thought for a moment, considering Peter's usual order that had become so familiar to him now. "You're craving pickles, huh?"

There would be a massive jar of pickles waiting in the fridge by the time they got back from the bodega.

Helping Peter into his seat, Tony took a place on the stool next to him. The doctor hesitated, not sure if she should tell her boss that he just took her place. It was clear that there was no malice in the act though, just another excited daddy completely focused on the love of his life. It was sweet.

She circled the machinery and pulled up a stool on the other side of Peter and clicked a switch to make his seat slowly lie down.

"Okay, Peter, I'm going to pull up your t-shirt and put some gel on your stomach, okay? It'll probably feel a bit cold..."

[spider_m4n]

"Well, actually, I started thinking of Doritos when we went past one of those vending machines and how I could totally have some of those spicy ones right now. But then I remembered getting the number 5 with my Doritos after school and how I'd always ask for pickles in it and.... Yeah." Sometimes you just need to share the process with your loved one. And he always felt kinda bad asking for random things seemingly out of the blue. At least Tony understood this way.

With his fingers woven to Tony's, Peter tensed up a little but as the chair he was sitting on started decending until he was practically lying down now. His free hand, almost out of habit now, came to hold his belly protectivelly.

The way he kept touching it made him wonder if it was instinct or really the awareness that something was different and fragile about his body. Like having a loose tooth and constantly poking at it with his tongue.

"Okay, yeah, ma'am."

Gathering his t-shirt himself, he started pulling it up.

[call_4766626]

"Spicy Doritos? So you're craving spicy food too?" This time he hesitated, looking across at the doctor. "Is that okay, doc? Can he have spicy food? When Pep was pregnant with Morgan we were told to have curry when she was close to her due date to get labour started. We don't want Peter to start to give birth too early, we can't say for sure how-"

The doctor put her hand up before Tony could spiral any further into that whirlpool of worry. "Old wives tales. It'll be fine. He can also take hot baths, ride a bike and have sex safely. Don't worry."

Tony settled again, giving Peter's hand a little reassuring squeeze as if he'd been the one panicking instead. Meanwhile, the doctor squirted some gel onto Peter's stomach and gently spread it around before taking the scanning bar and placing it against his stomach. Instantly, a fuzzy image appeared on the monitor in front of them.

[spider_m4n]

"Is that possible to go into labour that early?" Peter quietly asked, but his worries were drowned by Tony's loud concerns. Truth is, their work had been quite groundbreaking, they really didn't know what to expect. But spicy Doritos rushing labor?

Thankfully the doctor quickly reassured them both. There was no reason to doubt her. She was one of the brilliant minds that had been at the very top of this project. If they could trust someone with their pregnancy, that was her.

Squeezing Tony's hand back the moment the cold gel covered his belly, Peter smiley coyly at the doctor. He turned his attention to the monitor and soon enough, their baby was there. It was so weird. In a way, it blew his mind a little to think that was their kid. At the same time...

"It looks like a bean. It's so weird."

[call_4766626]

Still squeezing Peter's hand, Tony's other hand came to softly stroke along his arm as well. That had been a silly moment of worry, and he didn't want to burden Peter with it. Everything would be fine, he was making sure every base was covered.

"We have your hormones carefully monitored twice a day, Peter. If anything changes we can correct it before your body even starts to react," with things like a miscarriage, then he didn't even dare invoke the word. But, these advances would help women in their pregnancy too. They were doing good work.

He looked now at the strangely fluctuating shape on the screen. He'd seen this before, with Pepper and he'd felt just as elated then as well. That was their baby! His and Peter's! little webby fingers growing, a button nose on a big head. A speck within the bean pulsed rhythmically.

"Look, Peter. Look. You can see the heartbeat..."

[spider_m4n]

Peter was aware of many of the perks in his position. Not only he was the boss' boyfriend, the dad of his kid. Everyone was extra nice towards him and he could tell. Sure, Starn Industries department of Health and Care had been publically praised by many organizations now, but at the end of the days workers are allowed to be tired and Peter guesses maybe some client or two don't have not had the perfect experience he does.

But that is not the only perk he enjoys.

His body is unlike others. He is the perfect subject to test male pregnancies and the reason why it was him who went to the procedure instead of Tony is, well, aside from their age... He heals faster. If anyone will endure this with almost a 100% of chances of things going right, that's him.

"That's the heartbeat?" He tried to shift a little without disturbing the scan. "That's so crazy. How long before we know if its a boy or a girl? Not that I care, I'll love it no matter what? I just... I should have googled this. Oh, God, that's the heartbeat. It's like, alive and inside me. Like in Alien."

[call_4766626]

"Its not going to come out of you like in Alien though. I'd be worried if you were carrying it in your chest..."

It was all in hand, more or less. If all else failed, Tony knew caesarean would be fine, but he wanted to be able to provide something that was more natural. He was working on it.

The doctor did her best to zone out the strange chatter. She'd heard worse before...

"We can find out the sex of the baby at around fourteen weeks. You're at about six and a half at the moment." The doctor turned from looking at the screen and making her careful, silent evaluation of what she was seeing to make sure nothing was going wrong so far, to look at both dads. "What are you hoping for?"

Tony stayed silent. He didn't mind, genuinely. A sister for Morgan or a boy to balance it out, it all sounded great to him. But he knew that if he said that Peter would want to answer the same. He wanted to hear, genuinely, what Peter was feeling.

[spider_m4n]

The doctor explained it all so carefully and with the patience of someone who's been doing this for ages, clearly. Suddenly Peter felt a little ashamed of having made such a stupid question. It was like going to a test and having not studied anything at all!

Except, you know, this was their kid they were talking about...

With his elbow on the armrest, Peter raised his first and pulled Tony's towards his lips to press a distracted kiss at his knuckles. At the question he looked at him briefly, already remembering what they had briefly discussed on a few occassions.

"Well, I mean, its pretty much the same. It's not like we are gonna raise one like a boyish boy or a girlie girl. I think either would be cool. But knowing in advance would narrow down the names?"

Of course, he was still trying to think how to introduce the idea of a gender neutral name based maybe in some of his favourite TV shows and sci-fi movies.

"I mean, if we name them in a rush our kid might end up being called 'Sandwich'."

[call_4766626]

Tearing his eyes away from the monitor with that almost ghostly image of a life not quite fully formed yet, Tony looked into Peter eyes instead. As Peter answered he could feel his own heart swelling at his boyfriends words, his own smile growing to match it. That last bit earned the biggest smile, a chuckle coming out too.

"We're not going to name our kid after your dog that you had for a week."

The doctor clearly didn't fully understand what she could tell was an in-joke between the couple, but she laughed anyway.

"You sound like you're going to be perfect parents." She wasn't just kissing he bosses ass either, she meant it.

[spider_m4n]

"I'm not saying I'm naming our kid after the dog!" Peter hitched his shoulders as if that could shield him from the embarrassment. "I'm ust saying that was a perfectly good example of how things could work out if we are not prepared and stuff!"

Besides, that dog was great. He had only known him a week, but Peter knew that if anything happened to Sandwich he would have killed everyone in the room including himself.

Well, maybe not that. But it would be an honor to be named after that dog.

Sighing, he leaned in to press his forehead against Tony's cheek, suddenly feeling the need to be held. "He is already the perfect dad. I'm just taking notes from watching him."

[call_4766626]

"I think we'll be able to come up with something more thought through than the first thing we see when they're born," but he could tell that this was about more than that. "But we can start having a proper talk about names when we get home if you want."

Everything so far had been casual, dreamy ponderings. Fun, but not serious and neither of them had really given serious opinions about the names each had suggested. Some of the name Tony had let roll off his tongue hadn't even been serious. It was time to start feeling some out for real.

Tony's hand came up to caress Peter's cheek softly. He turned his head to give him a kiss on the forehead.

"You're doing great with Morgan. She was asking me the other day if she could start calling you daddy. I told her she needed to ask you that."

[spider_m4n]

"Yeah, I mean..." Really, Peter had no other words. This wasn't a particularly huge concern of his. What did concern him, however, was the possibility of failure when it came to raising these kids. He was pretty much a kid himself still. Or at least, he didn't feel completely as an adult, no matter how much adulting he was achieving lately. "It sounds like a plan, yeah. No big deal."

Closing his eyes, he smiled at Tony's touch, sighed at that loving kiss to his forehead. He had just parted his lips, sucked in a short breath when Tony interrupted him.

Right away Peter felt out of breath again. Was that real? Of course it was, Tony would never lie to him. But it was possible? It was so hard to imagine it possible.

Peter adored Morgan. She had been a challenge. Scary to say the least. But, whenever she joined them that little girl made those terrifying experiences feel like some of the easiest things he'd done. Peter had come to love that little girl in what he imagined was sure how big brothers felt about their little sisters.

Except he was no big brother. And she apparently saw him as another dad.

"... And you think that's okay?"

[call_4766626]

The smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as he pulled away was both puzzled and loving. He cocked his head to the side a little, his eyes full and deep, brimming with his adoration for Peter.

"Of course it's okay, why wouldn't it be? Morgan adores you and you're going to be having her little brother or sister."

The scanner had been still while Tony and Peter talked, but now they'd given her some space again, the doctor went back to brushing it over the space and checking the screen. She started to tap the keyboard to the monitor for a few photos to be printed.

"... Oh."

[spider_m4n]

"I know, I know. It's just so weird and... I feel so unprepared." Peter looked down at his belly, aware that the doctor was still scanning it and taking a look at the kid he and Tony had made together. "I don't wanna mess up."

He can't mess up. Not with Morgan or their kid.

Not wishing to say more, aware that the doctor was there and it was probably pretty uncomfortable for her to hear such a private conversation, he focused on her.

"Oh?"

Wait, what?

"Is everything okay?"

[call_4766626]

Tony had missed it. He was focused on Peter's worries, his ridiculous fear that he would mess this up. Peter, the one that has been reading every maternity and early years handbook he can find, who is a whiz with Morgan and even gets her to eat her broccoli! He was ready to tell him all this when he noticed the new tone of worry in Peter's voice.

"What is it, doc?"

She looked between the two of them, unsure how news like this would be received. She moved the scanner carefully and pointed at the monitor screen.

"You see this here is baby's heart beat?" A small pulse beat on he screen. She moved the scanner around Peter stomach. Another feint pulse appeared in a difference location. "Now do you see this?"

[spider_m4n]

Peter had to admit that the pregnancy had made him a little paranoid. He was very aware of every move he pulled, worried about what he ate. It made sense, right? It was one of the first make pregnancies, anything could go wrong.

No wonder his first thought were negative ones, the second the doctor sounded reluctant of what she was about to show.

"What - What'd you mean?"

His body jerked forward as if that could help him see better what was going on on the screen. That pushed the scanner, the image disappearing for a moment. The doctor tried reassuring him and placed the scanner back in the spot where the second heartbeat would be visible?

"You mean..."

Then it hit him.

"Twins? We're having twins? As in..." Two kinds instead of one. "As in Luke and Leia twins?"