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alexus74 · 15 days ago

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The birth of Sara Elizabeth

his is the story of a surrogate home birth. The baby’s siblings are present. There are some hetero normative stereotypes and mention of homophobia, along with a graphic delivery.

The timeline of the birth and the mechanics of it are based on an actual birth story not linked here. I integrated some actual quotes from the story, but the original story is really just an outline. I removed the part about the midwife encouraging the mom to hurry up after the 3 hour peekaboo and instead just had the carrier go naturally into the lengthy crowning phase described in the original. This is more of a detailed minute-by-minute accounting

The Logan character is based on this guy: https://linktr.ee/bigmanbigbelly Go check out his other pictures! He also posts audio role plays, including mpreg content. Photo used with permission.

Picture link here:

https://twitter.com/BigManBig_Belly/status/1569639600531849216?s=20&t=pGzvmjHyTN8Zm1qT5H6how.

***

By 11:30 PM, Logan was lying on the couch breathing through his contractions, which were down to six minutes apart, and he was starting to feel like he needed to get up and move around. The 36 year old slowly sat up, letting out a heavy breath. He looked over at his wife who was sitting on the recliner dozing off to a rerun of Saturday Night Live. The tall man smirked, stretching his long arms in a yawn. “Honey,” he said louder, startling her awake.

She looked dazed for a second, then smiled at her husband when she regained her senses. “You ready?” She asked, yawning a bit as she tried to steel herself for a long night.

“I’m ready.” He said quietly, a peacefulness settling over the room in their moment of calm. They both know that wouldn’t last long. Soon the baby’s family would arrive and Logan would be busy bringing the baby into the world.

This wasn’t Logan’s first time as a surrogate. His wife’s brother, Cole, had always wanted a family from the time he graduated college. Cole met his husband, Nate, soon after graduation and they both decided to get started on the family thing right away. Fate being what it is, Nate and Cole weren’t able to conceive naturally, but they knew that Logan had no such problem because he had carried his and Michelle’s son just months before. It didn’t take long for Michelle to start feeling bad for her brother and brother-in-law and hinting around at Logan about the idea. Logan wasn’t too keen on it, of course, partly because being pregnant and giving birth to someone else’s kid sounded like all squeeze and no juice, but also because the idea of being pregnant with his gay brother-in-law’s baby just made him feel a little uneasy.

Fast forward twelve years and Logan is now hours away from delivering his fourth niece or nephew while his own son is studying for his driver’s permit. It has been a few years since he was in this position (his youngest nephew is almost 8, which Logan can hardly believe). Logan smiles a little, cupping his belly as he thinks back all those years to his protests and how long it took him to even consider the idea. From today’s perspective, he feels like a homophobe for ever having second thoughts about carrying a baby for gay men. Now he’s delivered more children for Cole and Nate than he has for his own family.

The time passed by quickly for Logan after that. He lazed around, pausing regularly to contract and breathe, letting Michelle take care of the busy work of setting things up for what was coming next. His waters broke just before 1 AM, with Cole and his family showing up not long after.

1:03 AM

“What’s up, big man?” Cole said at seeing his nephew, Trevor, sitting in the living room in his pajamas looking pretty lifeless.

”Ay,” Trevor said in a monotone voice and nodded to his uncle, still trying to wake up after only getting a couple hours of sleep. Cole couldn’t help but chuckle at the tiny exchange. His oldest son was a couple years behind Trevor, and he thankfully hadn’t caught up to Trevor’s turbulent attitudes yet.

“Where’s your dad?” He followed up, looking around as Nate and the kids trickled in with all their bags and various items in tow. This could be a long day, after all. Just then, he heard a deep groan coming from the back of the house, smiling as he lifted a finger. “Never mind. I recognize that sound.” Cole let out as he glided toward the hallway to find his sister and her husband.

“We all do,” Trevor quipped, face in his phone as he waited for the late night commotion to subside. He would have stayed in his room, but his mom knew he’d fall asleep and she didn’t want to be rude to her brother and his family, so here he was.

Cole rounded the corner, seeing the bedroom door open, and smiling at the scene. There was Logan, in a well-fitting tee cupping his belly, dark basketball shorts, with his 6’2” frame kneeling on the floor. His head was rested against the edge of the bed with his arms draped on the mattress and he was very clearly having a contraction. His sister walked in from the attached bathroom at that moment with a cool rag.

“Hey, Cole!” She smiled at seeing her brother finally make it. “Sorry I wasn’t out there to greet you, but his waters broke like 20 minutes ago and things got real intense after that. As you can see.” She motioned to her husband, carefully dabbing his neck and jawline with the cool cloth. That’s where he always seemed to pour off the most heat.

“Gee, I was gonna say. Glad I didn’t stop for a bottle of celebratory champagne or anything,” Cole said, looking down at his brother-in-law. The slightly younger man came out of his contraction to notice Cole standing there.

”Hey, bro,” Logan said, smiling. His voice was weak at first, but within a few seconds he was able to regain his breath. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Oh, they’re talking to my little ray of sunshine nephew out there,” he teased, referencing Trevor’s grumpy demeanor. “It kinda sounds like things are gonna get going a little faster than we thought? I figured based on when you called that we wouldn’t have a baby until at least breakfast time maybe.”

“I don’t know,” Logan shook his head. “This little one stepped up the intensity a lot,” he looked up to see Nate walk in, Logan jutting his chin in a ‘sup’ as his brother in law’s husband approached, “but I don’t think I’m ready to push or anything. It’s just more immediate now that the water broke.” He adds at the end, “if that makes sense,” realizing that he, the former community college basketball player (thank you very much), is looking up at his wife and two gay men and he’s the only one in the house who has given birth. He gave birth to every one of of those people’s children, in fact. Cole and Nate just nodded. Of course they wished they could carry their own children, but times like this showed them that there were some up sides to delegating the task.

Logan’s next contraction came quickly after, causing him to groan out as he worked through the pain. Michelle sat down on the bed, using her elbow to knead between his shoulder blades as he continued to kneel on the floor and groan into the mattress. “Feeling like you might need to push soon?” She asked him calmly as he breathed. Based on his sounds, she thought things might not be much longer.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, but was then immediately overcome with a strong pressure on his pelvic floor. It wasn’t like the overwhelming poo sensation he normally felt when it was time to push, but it was pressure nonetheless. He reared up, gripping the sheets between his fingers as he fought against the pressure. Michelle abruptly ended her massage, letting Logan spread out and move how he needed. She looked up at her brother and brother in law, making a face to communicate “told ya!” then got up from the bed.

”Why don’t we go ahead and check you out then?” She suggested to her husband, waiting for his contraction to abate and then helping him out of his shorts. He still had an objectively good body, and it was clear he was athletic even if he was nine months pregnant. While Cole and Nate didn’t have a sexual attraction to Logan, they could appreciate that he was a good looking man, and somewhere inside they knew his looks always helped them to be more comfortable during the deliveries.

1:27 AM

Michelle finished her exam as Nate and Cole waited nervously for the results, watching Logan try to relax between contractions. “You’re fully dilated,” Michelle said, causing the mood in the room to quickly light up. Nate went out to tell the kids while Cole messaged his and Michelle’s parents to let them know another grandbaby was on the way.

Michelle put a birthing stool near the bed for Logan to sit on, then she sat on the bed behind him and let him rest his head in her lap between rushes. Logan began bearing down pretty quickly after he sat on the stool. He had changed to a loose tank top, his toned arms flexing as he gripped the sides of the stool to push.

Most of the family was in the bedroom now, and Logan could sense the excitement level starting to rise. That alone told him things were getting close, because the boys usually stayed to themselves playing games or causing some sort of unsupervised mayhem during the labors. But when they quieted down and started sticking close to the adults, that’s usually a sign everyone thought baby was coming.

Logan barely had time to notice the room filling up before he was hit with another contraction. He gripped the sides of the stool, curling his toes and yelling out as he directed his energy downward. Deep sounds, loose sounds. That’s what he kept thinking. Nobody directed him or gave him any suggestions. The contractions still came about five minutes apart, and Michelle clocked them at just about 75 seconds in length. On the second push, Nate put a mirror on the floor under the stool. To Logan’s surprise, at the height of the push, he looked down to see a small bulge to his perineum with a copperish patch of hair holding him open.

Michelle gasped when she saw the image in the mirror, smiling at Cole as she saw that the baby shared Michelle and Cole’s hair color. Logan’s nephews stepped forward, cautiously curious, craning a bit to see the mirror on the floor where they caught the first glimpse of their sibling’s head. There was an excited but muffled chatter among the group and quiet rustling sounds from people shuffling to see the mirror. For that brief moment, a nearly palpable sensation of the love and excitement in the room washed over him. He smiled as he focused on pushing and gawking in awe at the miracle in the mirror.

When he finally relaxed back and caught his breath, he looked up with a content but lazy smile. He switched his hips a little, looking down to see that the baby had disappeared from sight. “Well, then I guess it’s already time to play peekaboo,” Logan said, causing the younger kids to laugh when they heard the reference.

“How’re you doing?” Cole asked his brother in law softly, kneeling down to check in on the laboring man.

Logan took a drink from his ice water as Cole spoke, then handed it back to Michelle. “It’s weird,” he said. “I keep feeling all this pressure down in my pelvis,” he responded, “which is normal, obviously. But usually at this stage I always have an overwhelming urge to just push these suckers outta me. But I don’t have an urge. I’m just pushing because there’s pressure and a contraction,” Logan explained.

Cole wrinkled his nose a little bit at the detailed explanation, but tried not to recoil too much. “Is that better than a poo sensation?”

Logan just shrugged. “I guess I’ll see, huh?”

The deep, breathy vocalizations went on for another twenty minutes with the little copper head coming and going out of sight. Everyone was still buzzing with hushed excitement, but they were all starting to wonder why things were taking so long. Trevor had even showed up after a bit and was eventually coaxed by his cousins to go up and look in the mirror while Logan pushed. Michelle couldn’t swear to it, but she thought she saw a little smile crack in the grumpy teen’s mouth when he saw his little niece or nephew just barely poke out to say hi.

Michelle texted her friend who was a seasoned midwife to ask her for a little guidance. Luckily, as a midwife, her friend kept crazy hours, so a 2 am text about a labor complication was not something that threw her off.

“Do you feel urges to push yet?” Michelle asked her husband after a brief exchange with her friend.

Logan shook his head. “No,” he turned his head to look back at her on the other side of the bed with her phone in her hands. “Who are you texting?” Logan took a quick glance at the clock.

“Robin. I’m just making sure everything is going okay,” Michelle said, sensing that her husband was annoyed that she was texting someone to go into detail about his labor. Eventually, Robin suggested that Logan probably wasn’t really ready to push yet. His pelvic floor was too tight--she mentioned something about his years doing parkour that Michelle definitely didn’t quite get--and that he had probably managed to push the baby’s head into the canal, but that the shoulders weren’t ready to come through the pelvis yet. It wasn’t a problem, but it did mean that they probably weren’t as close as they really thought they were.

Michelle explained the situation, seeing some of the excitement drain out of the room. “So, I shouldn’t push?” He asked his wife to clarify.

“Robin thinks you should wait until you get the urge to push. If your body isn’t telling you to push, then she thinks it’s probably not time and that’s why the little one isn’t coming out yet.”

Logan took the news better than she had expected. He arched his back a little bit, stretching his hands high above his head. “Well, then. I guess I don’t need to be on this thing.” Logan blushed a little as he felt foolish, realizing he was needlessly sitting on the birth stool with a mirror reflecting an image of his bum to everyone in the room.

2:09 AM

It turned out that Robin was right. Logan eventually got himself up off the stool, and the younger family members lost interest when they realized that the baby wasn’t going to be born soon.

Michelle, Cole and Nate sat on the bed chatting--well, mostly gossiping--while Logan paced around the room working through his contractions. He felt like he needed space to roam, but he wanted his wife nearby, so this turned out to be the best solution.

During a particularly tough contraction, Logan stopped and leaned against the wall to ride out the wave. He bent his knees, dropping his head and just breathed through it as he felt the rush roll through him. Cole happened to look up as Michelle was going on and on about something, catching a glimpse of his baby’s hair again at the height of the contraction. “I wonder if that hurts,” he said quietly, nodding toward Logan. The baby’s head was just barely showing, but Cole just imagined it must be sore or something? Michelle chuckled at him, saying something like “I’m sure it feels great” and went on about her story.

That fact was that it didn’t really hurt in the way that Cole was thinking. Logan definitely felt pressure, but it was mostly in his groin where he was waiting for his body to open up and let the shoulders pass. The head brushing his perineum was the least of his concerns at this point.

By 3 AM, Logan was in a warm bath that Michelle had drawn to help him ease his sore muscles. They had let go of the idea that the birth was imminent, so they weren’t really terribly concerned about how things were progressing. He wasn’t ready yet, but he had managed to get the head down a bit early. Logan was surprisingly chill about it, Michelle thought, but really it was because it wasn’t all that miserable for him. In fact, this whole thing was such an interesting situation that Cole asked him about it later, and Logan told him “I thought it was going to get bad. But it wasn’t bad. Insane, yes. But I was not miserable.”

The boys all fell asleep during this time. After the excitement wore off, there wasn’t much to stop them from crashing when things got slow.

During an especially quiet lull, Cole brought up an old subject that hadn’t been discussed between them in years. Before Blake was born, Cole asked Logan if he would allow them to take any pictures, or maybe even a video, when the baby came. Logan adamantly refused back then, and they never raised it again. But now, with this probably being the last child Cole would have, he really wanted to at least ask if he could take a photo or something to remember it by.

“I was thinking,” Cole said, his voice echoing a bit in the quiet bathroom. “This is probably gonna be our last kid,” he said, motioning to himself and Nate. “I remember back with Blake you said something about not wanting photos and stuff, but I was thinking maybe in the meantime you might’ve changed your mind a little?” He pitched, knowing he sounded a little wobbly like he was asking for a new puppy or something.

Logan sat back, resting his head against the wall of the tub and looking up at the shower faucet. “Man,” he said, going quiet for a few seconds. He didn’t even have pictures of himself when he was having Trevor. He didn’t really feel like he wanted pictures of himself doing that.

Michelle had pestered him about it quite a bit when he was getting ready to have Trevor, and he said no then, too. Michelle’s ears perked up when she heard the question.

He mulled it over for a bit, even having a contraction during the interval, before finally looking over at Cole. “One of you guys can take some pictures with my phone. I want approval rights for any of them before they go anywhere,” he said, still having a streak of vanity, in addition to the fact that he didn’t think anyone needed to see it. The fact that he let them be there and watch it in real life wasn’t enough for them? They wanted to watch it again another day? But, he realized he was a lot less sentimental than a normal person (at least according to his wife), so maybe it wasn’t that weird of a request.

The other three looked very pleased with the answer after such a long lead up. “You always knew how to make the most of a moment,” his wife teased him, rubbing his bicep as he turned to give her a kiss.

The brief conversation perked Logan up a bit, letting him stay lucid with the group for a time. “I like the way you threw in there ‘oh, this is probably our last kid’ as if you knew I’d be so happy to hear that I’d say yes to you taking your little photo session.”

“That was really just my way of saying this is our last opportunity, but I’m so pleased it worked!” Cole smirked, thinking back on what a difference this arrangement has made to their relationship. He can’t imagine anyone who is closer to their brother in law than he is, at least not in his circle of friends. Cole knew that was because Logan had carried his children.

“Ya know, mom has been on me again now to see why we’re not having any more kids before we’re ‘too old.’” Michelle said to Cole, causing Logan to roll his eyes.

“There’s never enough for that woman. Logan’s giving her a fifth grandchild and she’s wondering why not one more.” Nate chimed in, causing Michelle and Cole to look at him in surprise. Logan grinned and nodded, glad he and Nate could share the same mother in law perspective of the woman. After a second, Michelle and Cole busted out laughing.

“And that’s on periodt,” Michelle said, confusing Logan.

“I think she got that on TikTok,” Cole said, seeing Logan’s confusion at the phrase. “Don’t worry. I don’t think that’s how it goes. We’ll have to run it by one of the kids later.” He chuckled

By 3:45, Logan was back to being antsy. He got out of the bath and toweled off, but decided to stay undressed because he just felt like he was a furnace with heat pouring off of him. He was able to move about slowly, finally deciding to sit with his butt just on the edge of the bed, rolling his head to one side as he breathed. Michelle went and knelt next to him, a hand on his thigh, looking up to him. “Has the little one moved down at all?” She asked, although she knew the answer. The baby’s head was right there, so any movement would have been obvious to everyone in the room.

“No,” Logan shook his head, looking like he was a little out of it. Truth be told, he was having a rush of nausea, but he was on the tail end of it. “It felt like he maybe rotated a little bit or something,” Logan said, used to saying “he” because he had carried so many boys. “But I don’t feel him any lower.”

Michelle nodded, caressing his thigh gently while he just sat there. The next contraction came on slowly, with Logan inadvertently announcing it by putting his foot on one of the sanitary pads and causing a crinkling noise as he curled his toes. The others looked over, seeing the baby gently crest into view yet again. Michelle looked from her vantage point by Logan’s thigh and saw that the baby’s head seemed to have rotated just slightly. Just then, Logan let out a sigh and bent to his left, squirming his hips a bit as if they were uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you try a belly dance?” She said suddenly, looking up at him again and taking her eyes from the patch of hair. She remembered then that he was in mid-contraction, so piped down a bit, but not before Cole could burst out laughing.

“I’m serious,” she said, Logan still with his 6’2” frame perched on the edge of the bed, leaning to one side uncomfortably as he just sort of groaned with his eyes half closed. “Look,” she motioned between his legs. “I think the baby is rotating a bit to get into a better position for the shoulders. That’s why he’s so uncomfortable right now.”

Cole knelt down to Michlle’s leven and caught a glimpse of the baby’s head, waiting a second for his eyes to adjust. “You’re right,” he said in surprise. “The little ridge on the top of the skull is kinda facing at an angle now,” he said, surprised Michelle picked up on that.

The patch of hair disappeared and the background groaning died down, and Michelle and her brother looked up to see Logan catching his breath and staring down at the two of them crouched by feet looking between his legs. “Ahem?” He said, looking down at the two of them between his thighs.

“We think you need to belly dance,” Cole smirked, trying to hold back some laughter as he said it. Logan just blinked at his little non sequitur, but luckily Michelle was able to suppress her laughter long enough to repeat what she had just explained to Cole.

Logan looked a little skeptical at the idea of doing a belly dance, but once the two of them got up from the floor in front of him, he carefully stood up with his feet about shoulder width apart. “I feel like I”m gonna do Zumba,” he said dryly. “What do I even do?” He said, just standing there naked in front of the three of them.

“It doesn’t have to be coordinated. Just roll your hips slowly like you’re doing a hoola hoop.” She suggested to get him started.

He still wasn’t getting too into it, rolling his hips slowly at first. He seemed stiff like he was at a party and hadn’t had his first drink yet. After a couple rounds with his fake hoola hoop, his brow furrowed and there was a hitch in his circle as his hips stopped.

“Oh,” Logan said breathily. He felt the baby shifting slightly as he worked, starting to get into the groove.

“See, I’m just good. I don’t know why it’s always weird looks and questions when I make a suggestion,” she teased, though finding them between his legs saying he needed to do a belly dance surely wasn’t the way to open that discussion.

4:26 AM

Trevor roused when a commercial came on TV, causing him to sit up in a start. His phone, which was resting screen down on his chest while he slept, hit the floor and caused a small thud. “Shit,” he said, picking it up. The screen flickered on and he saw the time. Almost three hours. He stood up and went down the hall to check on things.

Logan was kneeling on the bed with a sanitary pad between his knees. The belly dance seems to have worked, and now the little shock of copper hair was permanently visible between the folds of Logan’s delicate skin. The intricate pattern of the scrunched scalp looked incidentally about the size and shape of a large walnut even between contractions, with the opening at the top of the now bulging mound of skin yawning slightly. The baby’s pale scalp and matted, almost ginger colored hair were on full display. Still, though, the resistance wasn’t coming from Logan’s stretching skin. He didn’t feel a ring of fire yet, but it was a bit early for that anyway. The resistance still felt like it was coming from the baby’s shoulders trying to get through his pelvis. But he didn’t know how to explain all that in the moment.

Michelle had a better understanding of it than Logan realized. He still hadn’t complained of any urges to push yet, or shown signs of it, so she had pieced together pretty well what was happening right now.

The four of them were looking down at the mirror Michelle was holding between Logan’s legs, checking the progress of the baby’s head and finally starting to get excited. “He still doesn’t feel ready yet, but there he is,” Trevor heard his dad say as Trevor came down the hallway. Logan put his hands on his hips and scrunched up his face a little as he let out a breath. Another contraction. He bit his lip as it surged in and just put his head down, breathing and gripping the sheets next to his knees with his fists. At the height of the contraction, Logan could almost feel the baby teetering in his pelvis like it was ready to move to the next step, and Cole held back a tear as Logan’s bulge grew, the skin spreading slightly and revealing even more of the baby’s head. This wasn’t new, of course. This was the second time this had happened since he got in this position. But it was progress. It’s just that usually the baby was all the way inside Logan when this part of labor was happening, so they’d never gotten a visual representation like this before.

“It getting close?” Trevor asked quietly, finally speaking up from the doorway. Everyone but Logan looked up at him as Cole waved him into the room. “Pretty close, bud. I was just gonna come out and see if you guys wanted to come in here. I think it’s probably about time to start thinking about it,” Cole said to his nephew.

Logan let out a “phew” sound and hunched over his belly a little bit before getting a little louder. His vocalization started low and rose as he drew his face up toward the ceiling before finally releasing his push. The baby’s head sank back, no longer pushing Logan taut, but at least out a bit more than before the contraction began.

“You gonna be okay in this position?” Michelle asked her husband as it became evident that he’d be working on crowning soon.

“Yeah, I think gravity is helping.” He said, putting a hand on his thigh as he rested. He scratched his face, the scruff of his more-than-five-o’clock shadow making a distinct noise as he did.

Nate and Trevor left the room to rouse the rest of the kids, letting them know they could come any time they wanted. Nate also let them know it was still a ways off, so they didn’t feel any rush to jump up immediately. Nate was out there for a good few minutes tending to them, of course, because you can’t just wake kids up and split.

While Nate worked on gathering the crew, Logan diligently worked on getting Nate’s youngest kid through his pelvis. Michelle held the mirror again during the next contraction, with Cole practicing taking photos on Logan’s phone to find just the right angle to get a good frame of Logan but also to get the mirror just right so they could see the baby’s head in the shot.

Logan felt another incremental shift in his groin as the baby came down further. Now, finally, the intense pressure in his perineum was starting to burn as the head marched forward toward crowning.

“He’s gonna come soon,” Logan said, his eyes opening after the contraction. He felt the urge to push at the tail end of that contraction, just as his perineum was heating up, and now he was getting back into familiar territory. Michelle looked up at the clock to note that it was 4:44, thinking she should make a wish.

Nate came back into the room within a few minutes, sitting back down and letting Cole show him the shots they got while he was gone. They showed Logan a couple, but he really didn’t seem interested or impressed with the artsy look Cole was trying to go for. The only thing Logan could think was that at least he looked pretty good in the pictures considering the circumstances.

No more than 15 minutes later, Logan felt a contraction finally set in with the urge to push nearly from the beginning of the contraction. He still knelt on the bed, knees spread, hands on his hips as he let out a low wail. He started with a “Hrrraaaaaahhhh” sort of sound, but then trailed off into some kind of primal vocalizations when he was pushing and the head really started to come down.

He gave short, grunting pushes with the contraction, trying not to wear himself out by doing those long “count to ten” pushing sessions from the 1950s. The room was nearly silent between Logan’s grunting pushes, bearing down for six or seven seconds at a time, pushing the baby’s head forward as his perineum stretched for it, then releasing to let the perineum relax and swallow the head slightly once again.

The rest of the family who wasn’t already in the bedroom perked up when they heard Logan’s noises, knowing it meant the little one was probably getting close.

“Fuck,” Logan said at the end of the push, his perineum still burning now from how far the baby was holding him open. A couple drops of fluid dripped onto the sanitary pad below as it crinkled with Logan’s shifting weight. It felt like the baby’s head was positively bursting out of him, but in reality the visible patch of baby’s hair was no bigger than a silver dollar when he was resting.

“You’re okay,” Michelle reassured him, stroking the back of his forearm as he breathed. Cole managed to get a candid shot of the moment, Logan kneeling on the bed,his back and the base of his neck starting to shine with sweat as Michelle comforts him with the baby’s shock of copper hair clearly visible.

Nate smiles at the scene, then glances over when he sees his kids come through the door. Blake walks in nonchalantly (this isn’t his first rodeo), but the younger ones come in with excited grins on their faces and with slower steps, like they’re trying to be quiet. Because Logan is facing away from the door, they can see the baby’s progress as soon as they hit the threshold.

“It’s okay,” Cole waves encouragingly, letting the family know they’re welcome to come on in. Logan takes another sip of ice water from Michelle as he rests. Cole looks around the room at his husband, his sister, his kids. Then he looks at Logan and thinks about how lucky he is that his sister found a guy like him.

5:06 AM

Logan’s muscles trembled as he bore down, Michelle admiring his biceps and temporarily chubbier pecs briefly, reminding her of how great her husband looked in a basketball jersey. Logan was bearing down a little slower now, fighting the urge to power through the burning pain and instead let himself stretch, still trying to give three or four short pushes per contraction.

The two youngest kids were zipping around with more energy, clearly getting excited to meet the new baby. Even Blake had put down his phone and was actually sitting patiently, watching, at just past 5 in the morning, as the slow miracle unfolded.

Now that the head was crowning in earnest, Michelle could tell this was a decently sized baby--they had estimated around 9 pounds at his last visit. Logan decided he wanted to move to the tub at this point because of the terrible burning. It was a whole production to get the tub filled up and all the other people situated again, but Michelle coordinated the whole thing in just a few minutes.

Logan was far more vocal now, though he was still intentional about keeping his voice deep and staying open. He squatted down into the warm water, his strong thighs holding him up as his head rolled from shoulder to shoulder. His lips were pursed as he breathed and he was constantly making noises at this point, even if they were just grunts or winces as he waited for a contraction.

Michelle was so proud of him. Never once did he complain or get frustrated during this entire process. He just made his noises and waited until things were ready so he could have this baby. She beamed at how much she loved him in that moment.

The bathroom was pin drop silent as Logan’s next contraction started, causing Trevor to finally return to the bedroom out of curiosity. He was a little surprised to find it empty, but seeing his youngest cousin standing inside the bedroom just at the threshold to the attached bathroom told him right away what was going on.

As Trevor approached, he heard a terrible squeak like when someone runs their foot across a bathtub floor because they’re losing traction. He made it to the doorway and saw that Logan was squatting in the large bathroom tub, adjusting his footing as a contraction hit and caused him to yell out more sharply than he had up to this point. Logan stretched out one arm to grip the side of the tub as he pushed, the tendons in his forearm popping up as he held on to the edge of the tub for dear life. His other hand instantly went down to his gaping opening where he found the baby’s hair floating in the water.

Michelle had the foresight to bring a small flashlight, which she clicked on and shone into the water. There was a murmur as everyone took a second to adjust before Logan reared up and hunkered down once again into a wide squat, his face turning red as the veins on his neck flared. The baby’s head slid into a full crown, the last few millimeters of Logan’s perineum giving way as he cupped the area gently. “Fuuuuuuuuuck,” he complained in a deep, masculine groan, his, face toward the ceiling as the water between his thighs became slightly cloudy.

Cole wiped a tear from his cheek, unable to hold back his emotions as a camera flashed from one of the older kids. Michelle handed the flashlight to Nate, then stood up and waved Blake and Trevor over to her. She quietly gave out directions to the oldest boys before they disappeared from the bathroom.

Logan took to humming and making sort of unsteady “oooooooh” vocalizations to cope with the burning. Between contractions, he put his hands on the back of his head with his elbows straight out to the sides and his fingers interlocked at the base of his skull, almost like he had just finished sprinting the mile, just breathing and trying to maintain his composure. For some reason, Nate noticed Logan’s neatly-shaved armpits in that moment before it struck him that Logan’s belly suddenly seemed much lower, or maybe more oblong?

The oldest boys were back in a few minutes with the rubbing alcohol, scissors, mixing bowl and few other things they’d been sent to collect. Michelle thanked them and took the flashlight back from Nate, freeing him and Cole up to “ooh” and “aah” and witness the miracle of birth and whatnot. Logan really didn’t like a lot of touchy feely support during these moments, so she didn’t feel like she was neglecting him.

The next contraction took its time coming. The younger kids were on pins and needles at this point, their hands balled up in front of their faces as if they were waiting for a big surprise.

Three minutes went by. Four. The room was mostly calm, but with that many people crowded in a bathroom, there are obviously gonna be little sidebar conversations here and there. Finally, near the fifth minute, Logan felt the cramp well up inside him. He didn’t push this time, instead pursing his lips and gripping the side of the tub while he let the force of the contraction and gravity do the work. He growled out into a bellowing sound unlike anything a person would normally make. He almost sounded like a farm animal the way the noise echoed through the bathroom.

After a few seconds, his hands went down to his opening as he felt the widest part of the baby’s head causing his opening to overflow. Things kept on like this for the duration of the contraction as the baby’s head slowly spilled out, a camera flash going off occasionally as things moved, with Logan finally falling back to catch his breath once the baby’s forehead was out into the water. Even with Logan’s lower half underwater, the dark mass of the baby’s head was obvious as they waited for the final moment to come.

Logan spent the next five minutes between contractions just coping. Still making almost constant noises, he shifted his feet uncomfortably when the next contraction began and immediately put his chin to his chest. He steeled himself and gave a firm push, causing the head to slide out further. A quick breath and the next push brought the head out into Logan’s hands. Logan was gasping for breath and there was a quiet flutter of excitement in the room

Logan reached down and felt for the cord, but the baby’s shoulders spilled out almost instantly with a gasp from Logan as he started to guide the baby up. He let out a sort of relieved moan as the baby’s arms were born, taking a few seconds to adjust his hold on the baby before squeezing his glutes with a final push and bringing the baby out into the world with a rush of cloudy fluids.

There was a quick burst of joy in the room before it quickly died down, the baby’s cries starting to echo through the room seconds later. Logan brought her up to his heaving chest as he caught his breath.

“Oh my god,” Cole let out, cupping his hands as he felt a rush of emotions start in his chest and flow up through his whole body. Logan carefully sat up, still panting, and handed the baby to her father. “Meet your daughter,” he said, causing the room to once again buzz with cheer.

***

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