20. Damon

Once I got over the initial nausea and exhaustion, everything was great with my pregnancy. I had energy, and the joy of knowing I was carrying not one but two little dragons had me over the moon.

It also had me as big as one.

People at work were great—they knew I was having twins. I very specifically did not mention that they would be coming in the form of eggs because, well, they wouldn't believe me. Honestly, I still wasn't so sure I believed it either. How could I grow eggs? I wasn't built that way. I was a human with the parts to have live human babies who came out kicking and screaming, not encased in the protection of a hard shell. But until I learned otherwise, egg laying it was, and I embraced it.

Because nesting leave wasn't a thing, I needed to get creative, and with the midwife's help, I managed to figure out a plan. I liked my job a lot and planned to go back part-time after the babies came and needed family leave to be able to do that.

I had already been setting up for my leave of absence from work. It was not unusual for people with twins to have to go on bed rest, and that was going to be my excuse. The midwife agreed it was a good one, and she was going to write a note when the time came. I didn't like lying to them, but also, the truth wasn't something I wanted to share. And was it really lying? I was going to be nest ridden, which was sort of the same. According to everything I learned, leaving that nest wasn't going to be happening. Might as well plan accordingly.

I looked out the window and saw my mate walking out of his office. He'd had to do an overseas phone call on a Saturday, which wasn't his norm. He liked to prioritize time for his family.

This weekend it would only be the two of us. George was with my parents for the weekend. They'd been missing him, and it was always nice for them to have that time together. And with this pregnancy, frankly, I could use the extra rest. Carrying around this extra weight wasn't the easiest.

I walked out to greet them. "So, mate, I have a problem," I said.

He jogged over to me. "What can I do?"

"Oh, not a serious problem. Sorry. I didn't mean to make it sound like that. I mean my clothes—they're tight. They hurt."

"That's what happens when you're pregnant." He kissed my cheek.

"Yeah, but these are my paternity clothes, and they are only going to get worse."

"So, do you want to ride to town and get the next size up or three?"

I winced at the mention of multiple sizes, but he was probably right. Technically speaking the clothing I had now fit, I just had pregnancy sensory issues and tight was not gonna cut it.

"Yeah, we can do that." I'd been thinking more like computer shopping, but an outing would do me good.

"Let me grab my car keys. While we're there, we should probably pick up the car seat. Maybe we'll be able to see the furniture for the baby. We haven't done any of that yet."

I guess I always thought you waited until you hit viability before you bought those things. An old-school way of thinking, to be sure. But he was right, the eggs were coming. I wasn't going to have the same length of time to get shit done as other people had. Once egg-laying time came, I was going to be home for the long haul.

"Yeah, let's make a day of it. We can start with lunch. I could eat an entire pizza."

Instead of pizza, we stopped for barbeque at our official favorite restaurant. We'd tried all of them in a pretty wide radius, and the first was absolutely the best. I had chicken, and my mate had beef. Fine, I had them both. But I was eating for three, so it was a good thing, right?

From there, we drove to the closest mall. I wouldn't call it large by any means, but it had everything, including a big box baby store with tons of everything, from furniture to diapers. Cribs and baths and bassinets and car seats. It had it all, and we bought it all… in duplicate. They even gave us a discount on them because… twins.

Other than the big things like that, the store didn't really have what I was looking for. The fashion of the baby world and the fabric they used for the sheets was just—I don't know, not soft enough.

I was on sensory overload being pregnant, so maybe that was it. Still, I didn't want my children to be uncomfortable, especially when they were too young to tell me about it.

Our next stop was the paternity store. I found quite a few things that were comfortable— huge, but lightweight. They fit me like tents and were probably four sizes bigger than they needed to be, but they felt so amazing that I left the store wearing one of them.

While I was there, I asked if they knew any place that had specialty baby items, the kind you didn't find in the big box stores. They directed us to a new place that had just recently opened up across town. It was owned by a couple who were big into upcycling materials, and they made a lot of it on their own. It sounded ideal to me, and now that I was in comfy clothing, I was in a place to make some decent decisions about it.

I wasn't sure what I expected when I went inside, but it wasn't what we found. The place was filled with clothes, sure. That wasn't unusual. And they'd said that they specialized in upcycling, but I'd assumed they meant there was a rack of two. How wrong I was.

The place was filled with gorgeous clothing, for babies and toddler clothes, but also all the way up to probably kindergarten age and beyond. And all of them were made with repurposed fabrics. Even the onesies had some sort of element of recycling to them. It was difficult not to buy them all. But babies stayed babies for such a short period of time, and it would be a shame for the works of art to be in my closet when some other child could be enjoying them.

We bought quite a few clothing items, and my mate found one he thought George would love. We also grabbed a bunch of toys. It was safe to say that our babies were going to be spoiled. But how could we resist? They had handmade wooden toys and stuffies.

It was near dinnertime when we finished up our shopping. We stopped and grabbed a bite at a little diner. The food was fine. Nothing to write home about, but the storefront next door had all of my attention.

It was a furniture and home goods business, and I was so distracted by it that I barely ate. It was like I had to go there. It was weird because we already had everything we needed for the baby, pretty much. Still, I felt the need to go inside.

We didn't need furniture—we had tons. Two households merged into one would do that. But I kept finding cushion after cushion and comforter after comforter that I liked—no, needed. We ended up buying a few, but even I could see that my choices had nothing to do with what we would use. It was something else. Something I couldn't quite pinpoint.

"That was weird." I shut the car door.

"No, not weird. You're probably just starting to get the urges for nesting." My mate dropped the nesting word like it was no big deal.

"Wait, what do you mean? It's too early." These little ones needed to stay in me longer. the midwife said so. I wasn't supposed to start building my nest yet. I wasn't.

"No, honey. It's not a real nesting pull. Think of them as the Braxton Hicks of nesting. It's not real, but it's practice."

I took a few deep breaths. That I could handle. "Are you sure?"

"I am. But we can text the midwife to be sure."

I loved my mate with all that I was, but he was no doctor, and I had never typed so fast. They told me that since I was only able to buy a couple of things and not all of them, that it was definitely not my body getting ready to drop a couple of eggs.

"You're right." I gave his knee a squeeze. "Thanks for the day."

When we got home, I said, "Take me to bed."

"Was today too much for you?" He looked worried and very much didn't need to be.

"Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I meant take me to bed."

"As you wish, my love. As you wish."