Chapter 99: Of course my love

“Is there anything I can do?” I said, up to this point, I mostly felt excited. After seeing Carrick and Rion's children, and some hazy memories of Ford when he was little, I was sure I was ready for my own. But now that it was actually happening, I was suddenly a bundle of nerves.

“You can stand there and offer moral support for now,” said Segel.

“That I can do,” I said, taking my mate’s hand. I smiled at him. “You're going to be okay. You've got this.”

“If you want an epidural, it's going to have to be now,” said Segel.

“Oh,” Milan said, “I actually hadn't thought about it. I'm a little nervous about the whole thing.” “It's okay, I'm going to walk you through it,” Segel said. “Eron, help him sit up. I'm going to

have you sit on the edge of the bed, Milan. And as soon as your next contraction ends, we're going to go ahead and do the epidural. Okay?”

Milan nodded and I helped him into position. As another contraction started, Segel started cleaning a patch on cleaning a spot on Milan's lower back, explaining the procedure as he did. He started detailing the whole needle going into the back part, and told Milan that he would have to tell him if it felt like the needle was going over to one side or the other. That was when Milan started to get worried.Milan obeyed, and nearly broke my fingers as he squeezed my hand “One more good push should do it. Come on!” Segel cried.

Milan yelled and suddenly there was a baby crying. “Oh my god,” Milan gasped.

There,   in   Segel’s   arms,   was   a   little   tiny,  somewhat   wet   and   gross                     looking         baby. “Congratulations,” he said. “It's a healthy baby alpha girl!”

Chapter Thirteen Milan

I lay back and closed my eyes, listening to the amazing sound of a child, my child crying. “We have a daughter,” Eron said, as if echoing my disbelief.

I laughed and opened my eyes again. “We have a daughter.”

Segel handed Camry some medical scissors and said, “Will you do the honors, Eron?”

He smiled and cut the umbilical cord. Then, the doctor expertly bustled about cleaning her up and handed a little wrapped bundle to Eron. “There you go, daddy.”

“Oh my god,” Eron said. “She's so tiny!” He studied her for a moment, head tilted to one side. “Actually, she's really tiny. Carrick’s son was a lot bigger when he was born.”

“She is a little small, but nothing I’d worry about,” Segel said. “In fact, she is…” He checked his notes. “Six pounds and two ounces!”

“That is small. I thought she was supposed to be huge, given my size,” I said with a laugh. “Sometimes you never know,” Segel said. “Let's get you all tidied up.” He came back over to

check on me. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” I said. I took a deep breath, I could feel pressure again, like another contraction. “Actually, I’m a bit uncomfortable still.”

“Probably the afterbirth,” Segel said calmly. “This is going to be a little uncomfortable, but it will help.” He started pushing on my abdomen. I watched him and felt a pang of alarm as his eyes widened, then narrowed. He started pressing harder.

“Is something wrong?” I demanded.

“Not wrong,” he said slowly. “But I think you're in for a surprise… Start pushing again, please.” “What?”

“Push now. Push!” he said quickly.

I obeyed. gritting my teeth and pushing just like I had before. “Is something wrong with the placenta?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“No,” he said. “Keep pushing.”

Eron was hovering by my side, clutching our daughter protectively to his chest “Is something wrong? What's going on?” he asked.

“Nothing's wrong, I assure you,” Segel said. He still looked a little stunned, but calm. “Just a little surprise for you is all. These things do happen.” He shook his head. “I should have known when the baby came out so small.”

“What things?” I demanded. “You stopped pushing.”

With a frustrated growl, I pushed again. Hard. Eron cried out. “Is that another head!?”

“Yes,” Segel said with a soft chuckle. “Yes, it is.” I froze. “What?!”

“Push please, Milan.”

I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and pushed with all my might.

“There we go. Good. Good. Good,” Segel said. And all at once. More crying. “There we are!

Oh, look, a beta boy!” he said as he held up another baby.

“We had twins,” I cried.

“Oh my god,” Eron said, looking stunned twins.

“Good thing we didn't find out the gender,” Segal said with a laugh. “You would have had to come up with a whole new list of names! Now, the umbilical cord again, if you please.”

Eron moved our daughter with what looked like ease, into one arm. I suspected he had a lot of practice with his cousins’ children. He cut the cord once again and the doctor picked up our second child, and went about cleaning him up.

“There we go. Six pounds, four ounces.” “Twins,” I murmured in disbelief.

Segel bundled up our son and went over to Eron. “Can you manage two?” he asked. Eron looked slightly panicked, so I held out my arms. “Do I get a turn?”

He laughed. “Of course, my love.”

“Can I change my mind about this?” he asked. “This sounds kind of daunting...”

“You want an epidural,” I told him firmly. “Brooks didn't get one. And he was miserable.” I didn't add that Carrick confided in me that he felt a good amount of pain from it through the bond as well.

“Okay,” Milan said reluctantly. “Let's do it, I guess.”

Fortunately, the epidural seemed to go in without a hitch. Soon Milan was comfortably on his back with his legs up.

“Ready to push?” Segel asked him. “What, now?!” Milan cried.

I tried to remember Carrick’s description of the birth of his son. It seemed like this was pretty low tech. “Don’t you have too, I dunno, hook him up to more stuff?”

“I'm afraid I don't have a lot of portable equipment,” Segal said apologetically.

I nodded, thinking that he should go ahead and invest in some. I couldn't believe we were the only shifter couple around here who preferred to stick with a traditional birth at home. Not to mention any that didn't want to risk the snowy roads with a pregnant omega. Then again, maybe local shifters were a little more comfortable with the snow than I was. It probably it probably didn't help that I typically didn't do a lot of driving back home, and that I was using Milan's car here.

“I think I'm having another contraction,” Milan said.

Segel placed his hands on my mate’s stomach and felt around. Then, all at once he announced, “Okay, it's time. Let's go. Push!”

Milan started to push, squeezing my hand as hard as he could. And even with the epidural, I could feel the discomfort as he pushed.

“This is awful,” he panted.

“Keep pushing, keep pushing,” Segel instructed. “And stop.”

Milan sagged back with a groan. “How many more times do I have to do that?” he asked. Segel smiled sympathetically. “Until the baby is out, I'm afraid.”

Milan flopped his head back on the pillow. All at once, his eyes widened. “I feel sick!”

“That can happen,” Siegel said. “I can get you some medicine for that.” He left my mate’s side to get something out of his bag.

“No, I'm going to be really sick,” Milan said. He leaned to the side, which was extremely difficult looking, given his humongous belly and numb legs, and vomited all over the floor.

“There goes the bread,” he moaned, sitting back. I stepped around it and gently rubbed his shoulder.

Segel returned and looked down at the vomit. “Did you eat something recently?” “I didn't think a piece of bread would be too bad,” Milan admitted.

Segel shook his head. “Next time you do this, don't eat once the contractions start,” he scolded. “No wonder you felt sick. Here.” He grabbed a little something and carefully injected it into my mate’s arm.

“What is this?”

“A little anti-nausea medicine. You should be feeling fine pretty quickly,” Segel said. “Of course, in my office I have a much better setup. But, we’ll get through this.”

I wrinkled my nose and made a mental note to never have another child without Dr. Nolan Craik, the best shifter doctor there was. It didn't hurt that my cousins and I knew his assistant, Asher, quite well. In fact, I was pretty sure Asher was more competent than Segel. Nothing against the man, but he was either wholly unused to doing this sort of thing without a bunch of medical equipment at his

disposal, or he just did not have the knowledge and skills that decades of having a medical practice afforded Nolan. Nonetheless, this is what I was stuck with.

“Time to push again,” Segel announced,

I stood there clutching Milan's hand, wishing I could do more, and hoping that if nothing else, we would come out of this with a healthy baby. We didn't even know the gender yet, thanks to the lack of portable sonogram. I forced myself to stop comparing doctors and focus on the task at hand.

Milan pushed several more times, until at last…

“There's the head,” Segel announced. “Let's give it another good hard push. Push. Push. Keep pushing, push!”