Holding it in, For You

Pregnancy & Birth Denial

[gravid-transluna]

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Hi! You can call me Luna, I’m a 22yo queer writer interested in exploring my kinks and meeting people with similar interests. If it’s not your thing, don’t interact with my blog. I also will not respond to minors/people with age not listed in bio. (MINORS DNI).

That being said, if it IS your thing, please, I love roleplay and steamy asks. Message me!

Interests

Labor/birth

Birth denial

Crowning

Pregnancy

Lactation

Dom/sub dynamics

Loss of control

Sapphic content

OPEN TO ROLEPLAY!!!!

Pronouns - she/they

Femme, submissive

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[gravid-transluna]

As far as I could tell, she hadn’t really planned anything. Not the pregnancy, and certainly not the birth. At first I couldn’t tell if she was making frustrated grunts and huffs because of her League match, but when I open the door to her trash-littered mess of a room, I realize she might be ignoring a bigger problem.

She whips her headset off, glaring down at her belly, which bulges out distended and taut, oversized boxer shorts yanked up around her swollen mounded stomach, full with baby.

“Gnnh… it’s this thing’s fault that I went 0-7. Why can’t it wait until I’m positive again?”

I can’t resist, watching her in the doorway as matters progress—her flashes of gamer rage become increasingly punctuated by surprised, unwelcome grunts. Her belly heaves and roils under her desk as she plays, squeezing her baby down. Her thighs spread and close, boxers slipping down the curve of her pregnant belly.

“Fuck,” I hear her muttering under her brush. “Push, you useless fucking toplaner. Push!” Then, she grunts hard, her entire body stiffening. Her belly seizes, and she bears down into her boxers.

“GNNNNGHHHHH—oh, FUCK! Mmm—I’m—I’m PUSHINNNNNGGGG!”

My mouth goes dry as I see her legs spring apart and her eyes pop open, goggling down at her clenched round orb. She breaks for a startled, gurgling cry before her birthing urges force her into another deep, hard push.

“Nnngh—guh!

One hand on the mouse, she uses her other to yank her now-soiled boxers down to her knees.

“What the fuck,” she whispers under her breath. “I-it’s in my—pussy? The fucking head’s coming out?!”

An ult, followed by a sudden death screen. She wrenches her attention back to the screen and curses loudly.

“Listen you…” she says to the head bulging impatiently out of her. “I don’t care how much—urgh, f-fuck… you make me want to push… you’re not being born until I finish this match!”

[gravid-transluna]

Two semesters ago I’d had her pressed to her dorm bed, her thighs curling as I squeezed into her. Put a baby in me, she’d begged. Then shuddered, groaning into the pillow as hot spurts gushed into her.

Now she’s pacing our dormitory. A portable fan creaks and rotates on the night stand. She’s soaked in sweat, having already shed her undershorts. Even now and then she pauses and squats down, placing her hands on her knees, and bellows as she bears down deeply into her bottom.

“It’s not coming,” she gasps. “Why isn’t it coming?”

I don’t tell her to call someone, a campus doctor, maybe. I’m content to just watch as her body slowly expels her tremendous load.

An hour later she’s screaming into the pillow, back arched, belly hanging low between her spread thighs. And between them, a huge head fills her opening, stretching it into a taut circle.

“It needs to come out,” she sobs. “I need to push so fucking badly.”

I tell her the only thing I can tell her.

“Babe, you need to hurry. Dorm inspections are in the morning.”

[gravid-transluna]

Standing in line for an expensive theatre performance, her hand clasping mine tightly. She’s elegant in her black dress, her makeup flawless. Her thighs tense and widen. She presses her trembling lips together to avoid a moan.

“It’s like I can’t not push,” she hisses.

“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry but the tickets were just so expensive. It would feel like a waste.”

She grunts. Her knees dip, tenting her dress slightly. “Wanna squat.”

“Not in those heels!”

The line flows like molasses. She gasps suddenly, eyes blown wide.

“I just… pushed.”

Subtly, without even looking, I slip my hand under her dress to feel the wet bulge of her distended crotch against her tights. She shudders.

“It’s okay, love. Just… hold it until intermission, ‘kay?”

[gravid-transluna]

When she’s so full, her belly’s just all baby. Misshapen, churning with fetal movements. The head is already between her hips. Dropped.

She groans, arching her back. “I’m full. I can’t grow anymore. It’s taking up everything inside of me~”

[gravid-transluna]

When a woman reaches a point where ‘pregnant’ is always the first thought when she enters a room>>>>

She’s starting to waddle. It’s subtle, but her hips sway and roll now. Her belly’s curving, from sternum to pubic bone. It’s beginning to arch and sag forward with true weight now. She kneads her back often. Shifts her position. Just can’t seem to get comfortable.

People offer her seats. Conversation pauses when she walks in and doesn’t resume until she’s awkwardly sat down. They jump up to get her stuff. Eyes on her midsection like they’re watching a countdown and waiting for her to pop. They talk to her gingerly: “Feeling okay, hon? Are you getting rest?”

She’s changing now and everyone can see it. Her entire body is becoming something different. She’s visibly swelling, growing heavier. More pregnant each day.

[gravid-transluna]

Low bellies. Overdue, hanging down between her thighs. Stretched. Not round, but elliptical. Torpedo-shaped. Oblong.

Her navel bulges and points straight downwards. Like it’s telling everybody where her baby’s going soon. It’s so low, so full, that it sags. It droops. It pulls down toward the floor.

Her back is agony, arched permanently like a bow string. She has to lift the underside of her heavy load to walk. Lift it, just so that it’s level with her hips.

It’s so hot, seeing a belly drop. The lower they are, the readier they are.

[gravid-transluna]

Something I find underrated about birth are the movements. And not just the obvious ones (suddenly feeling that urge to squat, spring your legs apart for a crowning head) but the more subtle ones. The winces, the visible flexing of a belly as it contracts. Thighs tensing. The infinitesimal roll of her hips as she feels it drop. The constant shifting, tension, the need to widen, to open.

Maybe she clambers to her feet, pacing. Movement, restlessness. It’s too low, too uncomfortable. She needs to do something. Her body’s telling her. Soon. Soon.

[gravid-transluna]

Commission for @birthedstars, I adored this prompt!

Melanie, a popular cosplayer, has been keeping pregnancy a secret from social media and her fans. It's con season and she is currently at the final one before she is due to give birth along with her non-cosplaying friend Lea. As she's taking photos with her fans, she feels a trickle in her pants and a pain stronger than any she's had before hit her belly. It's a week before she's due; panicked and struggling to keep her composure, Melanie has to rely on Lea to shoo away people begging for photos and conversation. Melanie doesn't want an audience for this, but as each contraction passes it becomes less likely. Lea either needs to get her out of the convention center or find a secluded spot for her friend. If she doesn't, this baby is going to come out in a room filled with hundreds…

Cons, Cosplay and Crowning

words: 3158

content: clothing birth, inconvenient birth, birth denial, fpreg

Melanie had told herself that this would be her last convention before the baby arrived. Giga-con was one of the largest cons in the country. Packed from floor to ceiling with fans, cosplayers, collectors, artists, photographers; lines out the door, every booth crowded, a sea of vibrant anime-hair… It was a sight to behold, and something Melanie had no intention of missing, pregnancy or not. She had quite a few fans as well. Enough to have a pretty constant stream of attention focused on the booth where she sold autographs and photos and voice recordings.

A minor detail: her fans didn’t know that she was nine months pregnant, due in a week. Her baby bump had remained small throughout her pregnancy, allowing her to hide it fairly well, relying on cosplays involving belts or flowy skirts and dresses. Her various social media accounts mentioned nothing about a coming baby, only her next convention dates and wig ratings.

“You’re seriously doing Zero Two for your last con before the baby?” Lea, her friend, had asked Melanie. This character, a mech pilot, wore a skintight suit.

“It’ll be okay,” Melanie said, patting the tight curve of her abdomen. It was smooth, and only nude it was obvious that there was a stretch to her skin that could only be from a swollen womb. “People notice the cosplay, not the person behind it. Besides! This is the biggest con we’ve ever done. I want to do something that’ll steal the show!”

Lea sighed. “Just don’t be walking around too much. And let me know if I need to yell at some fans. I know you’re too nice for that.”

Melanie had smiled. “What would I do without you?”

“Whatever. Here,” walking over to Melanie, who was busy struggling with her suit in the mirror. “Let me zip you up.”

This was a week ago. The night before the con she’d been experiencing Braxton Hicks, small irregular spasms in her back and belly. When she woke up in the hotel, padding to the full-length mirror in the bathroom, she couldn’t help but gasp. Her belly had dropped overnight, the head of her baby nestled deep in her hips now. When she placed her hand under the taut surface, she could feel the weight, low. As she watched the mirror, the muscles around her womb clamped in a fiery band. She winced, doubling over.

Is this… a contraction?

“Mmn,” she moaned quietly under her breath, cupping her small bump. Lea yawned and rolled over in bed. Sleepily she lifted her head. “Mel? You okay?”

“Um.” Melanie straightened as her belly relaxed. “I’m not sure, but I think I just had a contraction.”

“Jesus, Mel!” Lea was awake now, trotting over to the bathroom. “Wow, your belly. It looks lower. Should we head to the hospital?”

“No!” Melanie shook her head. “No way. We dropped so much on these tickets, they’re non-refundable, you know. Besides, that was my first contraction. Labor can take days.”

Lea hesitated. “Are you sure you’re even gonna fit into that suit now? It was a challenge before your belly looked like, well, that.”

“It’s a stretchy material,” Melanie assured her, and sure enough, it fit—barely.

They waited in line at the center and got checked in, and by the time they set up the booth, Melanie had been enduring constant regular contractions. They wrung her womb, squeezed the breath from her lungs. The baby’s head was ramming against her cervix with nearly unbearable force, and soon she couldn’t keep sitting at their booth, gritting her teeth behind a smile for her fans, hand trembling as she signed autograph after autograph. She was getting nervous now. The convention closed at eight, and it was barely two. She and Lea hadn’t even had a snack yet. All she could think about was the baby in her belly, the movements, even more forceful as her belly shrank and squeezed her restless child on all sides. No, she had to stand and pace. The pressure was too bad to be sitting, it felt almost as if she was seated on a bowling ball, lodged between her legs.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lea knit her brows. Sweat beaded on Melanie’s forehead and her cheeks were red with exertion, but she could blame those things on an overheated scalp and too much powdered blush.

“Fine!” Melanie chirped, a little out of breath. “Just feeling very, very pregnant.”

Lea looked apprehensive. “Not long now.”

“Long enough,” Melanie said. “Hey, let’s walk around for a bit.” She painstakingly climbed to her feet as Lea assisted. Standing, the pressure was so much worse, and she had to resist a low groan.

“We’ll be back later,” Lea told the people lingering around the booth. “Hey—c’mon people, give her some space.”

Already overwhelmed with the sensations in her body, the pain and pressure and urgency she’d been ignoring for so long, fighting her way through the press of bodies was downright dizzying. She was sorely regretting the body suit now. She was streaming sweat, blinking it out of her eyes, and yet the suit didn’t permit the slightest bit of room or air, practically boiling her alive. The hot pleather irritated the skin of her stomach, taut and sensitive, broiling with her impatient baby. Worse, the pleather rubbing against her tender, pregnancy-swollen nipples sent shivers coursing down her spine. The stimulation wasn’t exactly slowing her labor.

Lea, her knight in shining armor, led her through the crowds to the nearest restroom. Suddenly their path was interrupted by a troupe of Mandalorian cosplayers, and one of them passed between Lea and Melanie, breaking their grip. Suddenly, Melanie was alone and couldn’t spot Lea anywhere, couldn’t even spot the restrooms anymore.

A contraction was coming on, a strong one. The pressure was nearly buckling her legs. “Oh no….” Melanie said under her breath. 

Then her body clenched violently. A low mooing noise was drawn from her throat, nearly unrecognizable from her usual pitch. The constant murmur of the crowd was enough to drown her sounds out, but she could scarcely believe they were coming from her in the first place. Teased pink strands of hair fell into her face, disguising her strained features. All people noticed was a Zero Two standing strangely wide-legged in the aisle, with an odd curve to her midsection.

The pressure surged and Melanie gasped. Instinctively she widened her stance even more. The pain clasped her, then suddenly— a release.

“Oh, god,” Melanie moaned as fluids trickled down the seams of her body suit. The contraction faded, leaving her thoughts racing. Those are my waters. Shit! Shit!

“Mel! There you are!” Lea’s face appeared from the crowd. Melanie looked at her, clasping her round bump, and Lea noticed her stricken expression.

“What is it?” She leaned in and cupped Melanie’s cheek. “Hey, what happened? Who do I need to kill?”

“No,” Melanie said breathlessly, closing her eyes under Lea’s touch. “I think—I think my water just broke.”

Lea’s eyes widened but before she could say anything they were interrupted.

“Excuse me?” A younger teenager brandishing an iPhone. “Could I get a picture? I love Zero Two.”

Melanie plastered a smile on her face and smiled before Lea had the chance to shoo the girl away. She just couldn’t say no to fans. The girl’s friend backed up to get the shot, and as Melanie posed, she felt another contraction brewing in her stomach. She could tell it was a bad one. Without the cushioning of her waters, the skull of her baby drove mercilessly down through her cervix, the pressure mounting by the minute. Hold the pose, she told herself, panting through it. Hold the pose, legs shaking, sweat pouring from under her arms, she couldn’t believe that the girl didn’t notice her violent trembling, didn’t notice the way her thighs spread and her knees bent slightly….

Fuck, she almost wanted to push.

Snap! The girl’s friend trotted back to them, smiling. “Thank you so much!”

Melanie’s smile was slipping. She tried to answer, and instead let out an acknowledging grunt. The contraction was releasing her now but she could barely remain standing with the immense pressure of the head dipping into her birth canal.

The girls receded back into the crowd, and Melanie heard Lea’s voice in her ear. Her hand went to her back, steadying. “You okay?”

“The baby’s trying to come,” Melanie whimpered back. “I can feel it.”

“Shit, Mel!” Lea hissed. “I told you!”

“Just—please, get me out of here.”

“Alright,” Lea breathed. “Okay.” Trying to look casual, Lea scanned the convention hall for exits. Even if they were to make it outside, Melanie thought, what then? Squat down and pop her baby out on the sidewalk? In the summer heat? No, they needed somewhere private, away from all the eyes and cameras. 

Heat flashes. She was shivering, legs swaying. The mass filling her canal was nauseating and the pressure was almost enough to collapse her. Lea yanked her shoulder suddenly and Melanie was jolted back into reality. “Restrooms! This way!”

The main hall had become quickly congested since they took the photo, and they were forced to double back and pick their way around the edges. Along the way Melanie suffered another contraction that had her stopping to brace herself against the wall. The pressure was blinding. It was as though the baby was filling every part of her, slowly, an all-encompassing descending fullness that was impossible to ignore or stave off.

“I gotta push,” she gasped to Lea before grunting and bending her knees.

“No! No way! We’re so close.”

“I’m trying not to…. Oh, god.” She tried to resist the urge. Her body was demanding that she bear down.

Some passerby called over to them. “Hey, is she okay?”

Lea sprang up. “Oh yeah, perfectly fine,” and Melanie recognized the nervous lie. “Just some cramping, you guys had better avoid that sushi truck outside.”

Would Zero Two just give up like this? Lose control so easily? Melanie shook her head. No, she wouldn’t, and neither would Melanie. With an almost superhuman effort, Melanie took her palms from the wall and straightened and tried to pinch her thighs as close together as they would go. The fullness peaked, stretching her wide from within. “Fuck!” She felt tears forming in her eyes.

She leaned heavily against Lea, blinking the tears from her eyes as she glanced up. “Oh no…. mm, the line is that long?!”

People were lined against the wall and crouched by outlets, plugged into phones as they waited. She couldn’t wait that long. Her body was already utterly fatigued from fighting her most primal feminine instincts. She couldn’t imagine undergoing even one more contraction without giving in to the need to birth.

She spun Lea and held her shoulders, trying to convey the impossibility of such a task. “Lea, please, there’s no way in hell I can last that long. Mmgh, it’s coming, I’m gonna have to push, I can’t not push.”

Lea raised a hand to cup Melanie’s cheek, her touch light and tender. “Oh, Mel. Just hold on to me, all right?”

They took their places in the abysmally long line, Melanie fling, bowlegged, and clinging onto Lea for support. When another contraction struck it arrived with violence, and immediately every other thought deserted Melanie’s head except for the need to push. She buried her face into Lea’s shoulder, hanging onto her for dear life, and planted her feet wide. Then she PUSHED, with a long, breathless groan.

“I’m pushinggg-mmmgh,” she sobbed in Lea’s ear as she bore down.

Lea rubbed the small of Melanie’s back in soothing circles. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Every push shoved the baby further down, filling her birth canal more and more with its immense mass, and she couldn’t stop the descent, couldn’t even keep her thighs together any more, her legs permanently spread in preparation for the coming baby. Contractions wracked her belly; her womb clenched and seethed. With each one she was forced to stop and squat and bear down as subtly and silently as she could manage. It was all she could do to stop from releasing guttural roars as she pushed.

Twenty people down. Ten. Five. They were almost to the restrooms now, leaning against a vending machine near the doors. Unfortunately, Melanie just couldn’t hold it back. She and Lea had their back to the others, pretending to examine the vending machine for snacks when in reality, Melanie had both hands braced against the glass, pushing with all she had. Her powerful internal muscles thrust the baby down, and her tight groan sharpened the head shoved through her hips and began to fill her vagina. She fumbled between her legs with one hand, crying out at the sensation, and felt the slightest bulge in the leather at her crotch. The head was so close to emerging, the fullness was nearly unbearable, and it had her panting, open-mouthed, lolling her head even after the contraction had ended.

“Oh god, Mel,” Lea whispered, half in horror, half in awe. “I can see it! It’s starting to come out!”

“Can’t—” Melanie gasped. “Not, guh! I-it can’t come out yet!”

“Excuse me,” Someone behind them in line said. “I think the woman’s bathroom is free now.”

Lea ushered Melanie from her position against the machine; she could barely walk now, stuck at nearly a half-squat, toddling into the bathroom with the head trapped between her legs.

As Lea closed the door and flipped the lock, Melanie had already clamped her hands against her thighs and dropped into a deep squat, grunting the baby deeper into her bottom. The fabric at her crotch strained even more, and she could feel her lips distending outward, tautly enveloping the head but beginning to open. Her most intimate part, now being unrecognizably stretched. The burn had her panting in tiny, whimpering grunts, trying to hold back but failing altogether.

“Ohhhh,” she moaned. “OH. It burns, Lea! I’m giving birth, it’s coming, oh fuck, that HURTS.”

She doubled over with vigor, utterly consumed with pushing, with the desperate, overwhelming need to get this baby out of her. Her body suit stretched more and more, and the damp tent between her thighs grew until her lips were parted in a tight, fiery circle around the head, finally reaching full crown.

“Ah!” She gasped, and then Lea was by her side, cupping her face, murmuring into her ear how well she was doing, telling her, “I need to take this off, okay? Baby needs to come.”

“Yes, please, get it off!” Melanie pleaded. She wasn’t Zero Two anymore, wasn’t anyone right now except a birthing mother, giving into her natural instincts.

Lea circled around to her back, parting the pink hair of her wig to locate the zipper at her neck. She fiddled with it, struggling to fit it into the teeth. “C’mon, stupid thing!”

The next contraction was quickly taking hold. “Hurry!” Even as Melanie said this she was already settling into her squat again, readying herself to birth. 

The crown in her bodysuit was unforgiving, the fullness and pressure driving her nearly to her breaking point. She just needed the head out, then she could focus on getting the suit down. “I gotta push again!”

“Just—wait,” Lea commanded her, fingers scrabbling with the zipper. “Ugh, I knew it’d be too tight for you.”

Melanie was panting, shaking her head back and forth, trying to escape the pressure and urge to push. Then she suddenly growled, mind going blank, stars spiraling behind her eyelids as she squeezed them shut and bore down. The head shunted forward, only to meet the sudden resistance of the unyielding leather. Stretched to its limit, it wouldn’t permit the head to move any further out of her. She was stuck at a full-crown.

“Lea!” She shrieked. “Get it down!”

“Trying,” Lea muttered. “Hold on—got it!” The bodysuit parted down Melanie’s back, exposing her smooth, slick skin. She reached the end of the zipper, just above Melanie’s rear. “Mel, hon, you’re gonna have to step out.”

“No,” Melanie was already shaking her head. Every part of her was trembling. ”No fucking way.”

“The baby can’t come until you let it,” Lea said, stepping close and wrapping her arms around Melanie’s convulsing pregnant stomach.

“Mmgh,” Melanie moaned, and raised one leg from the suit draped around her waist, feeling her vaginal walls twitch and pulse around the head splitting her apart.

“One leg out, that’s it!”

Melanie shook loose her other pant leg, feeling her thighs brush the dripping head, then fell back against Lea, moaning, and then pushed with all her might. Her lips slipped around the head, then she shuddered as fluids spurted from her opening and it popped free.

“Oh my,” Lea said, reaching down between Melanie’s legs to hold it. “Oh, Mel, you did it…. you’re almost there.”

Mel couldn’t speak, could barely remember to breathe. She’d come here this morning to dress up, have fun, and meet fans. Now there was a baby coming out of her. Get it together, she told herself as she moaned uncontrollably, tossing her head as the shoulders rotated. Get it together and PUSH!

One more push, shoulders spreading her wide, opening throbbing around them, then— a rush; the baby slipped out into Lea’s waiting hands. Melanie sagged to the bathroom floor and Lea lowered with her, holding her in her arms. Melanie looked up at her as she took her baby and held it to her leaking chest. Her anime bangs were matted to her forehead, face flushed even behind her false blush, eye makeup stained and running. Lea smiled at her and she smiled back tiredly.

“You were beautiful,” Lea said.

Melanie glanced down to her chest. “I wonder what baby’s first cosplay will be.”

[gravid-transluna]

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[gravid-transluna]

Commission for @shhhsecretsideblog, hope you enjoy just as much as I enjoyed writing this!

Final signing of divorce papers. He’d cheated with his secretary on a business trip, she threw him out and filed for divorce. Not long after she realised her period was late and after doing a test she discovered she was pregnant. She tried to hide it from him for as long as she could, but he eventually found out. She made it clear that he would have nothing to do with this child.

The divorce negotiations were messy, lots of drawn out arguments and back and forth with solicitors. It had taken months. She wanted it concluded by now but he was dragging his heels. To what end she didn’t know. But eventually they reached a resolution and he agreed to sign the papers, which was happening this afternoon. The only problem was, she’d gone into labour during the night.

Just You and Me, and No One Else

words: 3142

content: clothing birth, inconvenient birth, birth denial, fpreg

Celia wasn’t one to drag things out, neither in her corporate life or personal life, and certainly not in her romantic life. The divorce lawyer’s name was Mr. Einhardt, and he didn’t tolerate very much nonsense either. He was a sort of neutral party, tasked with settling legal matters amicably between the couple. Between this small thing they had in common, and the circumstances leading to Celia’s divorce with her husband Dave, Mr. Eindhart’s sympathies seemed to lie quite decisively with Celia. Cheating on her with his secretary, a young woman just barely out of college! So cliche it nearly bored Celia to tears. The problems had begun long before the discovery, but Celia had rehashed that story enough times by now.

Negotiations had been messy; fights, late-night arguments in the kitchen, pleading, door-slamming. Dave was acting like a child throughout the whole thing. Which was doubly unfortunate, as Celia had received a second shock after the cheating, staring at a test and two pink lines in the bathroom. She was pregnant. Nine months later, she was wedged in the office seat as Mr. Eindhart recounted estate laws with Dave.

Please, she had been praying for the last hour; please, just let it be over. Incessant questions from Dave. More often than not, about the baby. No, her baby. Celia would be damned if she let that cheating, childish scum get within a mile of her child.

Mr. Eindhart was speaking as patiently as possible, but at this point it had all become a soft drone for Celia. The last issue: she had gone into labor during the night. Regular contractions, tightening her midsection and flaring sharp in her lower back. Standing before the mirror in the light of the morning, she’d been able to see clearly just how much her bump had dropped, hanging low between her hips, stretched completely taut, a reddened torpedo, with not another inch of room for the baby. It had been enough of a chore to get dressed and ready and lug herself into Mr. Eindhart’s office every week. Laboring, it was a superhuman feat.

Her hips burned, jammed into the seat. They had widened over the course of her pregnancy, and now she barely fit into any chair available. This, combined with the massive belly sprawling in her lap whenever she sat down, made for even more discomfort.

“Ms. Greene?” Her maiden name. She saw Dave flinch slightly when Mr. Eindhart used it. “Are you alright? Pardon, but you look quite uncomfortable. Do you need some water?”

“No,” she sighed, brushing his concern away. “No, thank you. When you’re this pregnant, doing anything is uncomfortable.”

Dave was frowning at her. “You sure, hun?”

Celia scowled. She knew the feigned concern had only been prompted by Mr. Eindhart’s comment; nothing more than an excuse to use the word hun. “If you could cut it with the pet names, that would be nice.”

He rolled his eyes, tried to catch Mr. Eindhart’s eye: Women, right? A comment she’d heard frequently during her marriage, even more so with her so-called ‘pregnancy hormones,’ the ‘mood swings’ that were preventing her from thinking straight.

Today, they weren’t entirely unfounded. All she could think about was her belly, the sheet of muscle over her womb, rippling and contracting as she tried to cut Dave off from some long-winded procession of his victimhood. The baby inside, the head positioned right into her cervix, pressing with increasing urgency. She had to ignore her body for the time being. She had to remain calm and collected and—

“Listen,” Celia interrupted, leaning over her tight swell. “Could we please hurry things along?” —glaring at Dave— “We’ve been through these questions enough times, wouldn’t you say?”

“I just want to make sure we have all the information,” he protested, the slimeball. “To make the right choice.”

Celia was about to retort when she felt the familiar banding around her stomach, and clenched in on herself, riding out the waves of pain and pressure once again. She hoped that her gritted teeth and wrinkled brow could be attributed to her impatience.

Her baby squirmed, cramped in her full, brimming belly. She shifted again. Things were really ramping up. As the contraction receded, she thumbed through the pages of legal documents until she reached the last one, the blank line where their joint signatures would go, and stifled a huff of frustration. There were still at least forty pages?! This pressure was a bad sign, she knew. Soon, she’d barely be able to sit, the head felt dangerously low.

The minutes ticked by. Contraction after contraction. Her belly, hot like a furnace, wracked and misshapen with their clenching force.

“Jesus,” Celia muttered unconsciously under her breath. “The pressure….” Then she looked up to see Mr. Eindhart and Dave staring at her.

“Excuse me, my dear?” Mr. Eindhart said, head tilted politely.

Celia cleared her throat, straightened her back. “The pressure he’s been putting me through, lately. It’s, er, getting to be unbearable.”

Dave was shaking his head solemnly. “You can’t even imagine my feelings. You just can’t see the other side.”

“Oh, that’s rich!” Celia covered up her consternation with a sarcastic laugh.

Another fifteen minutes. Contractions about five minutes apart. Celia realized that she had to use the bathroom, and had to use it now. The pressure was beginning to force her legs apart, despite her efforts to keep them tightly pinched together. The weight, god, the heaviness. She felt fuller than ever, an all-encompassing fullness. It stood to reason, she thought, her bladder would be feeling the strain.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I need to use the restroom.” She painstakingly stood, unable to conceal a grunt at the weight of gravity on her sagged, bowed belly. Hoping they didn’t notice the slip of skin under her blouse that certainly hadn’t been there this morning, Celia waddled from the office and found the lady’s room.

On the toilet she suffered a contraction that had her hunched over her stomach, toes curling in her pantyhoes tights. Suddenly, eyes wide, mouth open, she felt a spike in the rising pressure. Then— a release. Liquid gushed from her crotch. Celia moaned loudly at the relief. Then she clamped her mouth shut. She wouldn’t have put it past Dave to wait for her outside the bathroom.

Panting, she rose shakily from the toilet and wiped her inner thighs and crotch. She knew her waters had broken, signaling the rapid advance of her labor.

“Please, little one,” Celia murmured. “Just a little longer. Just until it’s only you and me, no one else.”

Dave was looking at her suspiciously when she returned. Even with her effortful concealment, he’d spent enough time around her to know her more subtle forms of expression. She cleared her throat and smiled.

“Where were we?”

Mr. Eindhart smiled a bit absently as Celia dabbed at the sweat beading on her forehead. He shuffled his papers and continued. Soon another contraction was taking hold of Celia, and she stiffened, bracing herself. Still, she wasn’t quite prepared for the intensity, coming on even more severe without her bag of waters to cushion the skull. Her swollen mound flexed visibly beneath the desk. She set her jaw, her knuckles going pale as she gripped her seat. This time the pain was accompanied by the undeniable urge to push. She nearly gasped aloud. Fuck, she wanted to push. It was like nothing else she’d felt before, the deep, overwhelming desire to bear down as hard as she could against the pressure. She held her breath, counted, blinking quickly as she tried to distract herself from the urge. It only grew stronger, pounding through her body, washing over her like a compulsion.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t control her body entirely, and she could feel herself giving small pushes, each one shoving her baby further down through her birth canal. With some mercy the contraction began to ebb, and she floated back into the conversation at hand.

“....and, what if the kid had to list another parent as an emergency contact? That role would go to me, right?”

Celia tried to intercede as smoothly as she could, ignoring the tremble in her voice, the vicious wringing of her womb. “They’re going to have a godmother, and she’ll be listed as a secondary guardian.”

“That’s fine,” Mr. Eindhart said. “Spell her name for me, just in case?”

“Is it Shannon?” Dave asked. “It’s Shannon, isn’t it? I never liked her. A bitch, that’s what she was.”

“Mr. Gardner, I don’t tolerate that kind of language in my office. Another remark and you can go ahead and find a different representative.”

Celia flashed the elderly divorce lawyer a grateful smile before turning her attention back to the impatient baby now beginning to stretch her birth canal wide. She was giving birth at this desk and nobody knew except for her. She could do this.

A hard, clamping pain. She exhaled, suddenly breathless, though it seemed to her company that she was just huffing in annoyance at Dave’s theatrics. When the urge coursed through her, it was nearly impossible to deny.

Don’t push, she told herself. Belly gripping her midsection like a tight closed fist. Don’t push. Internal muscles squeezing around the baby. Don’t—

The need to push was dizzying. She couldn’t help it. Before she knew it, she was bearing down at the desk, thighs spread as far apart as they could manage in her seat. A flush spread to her cheeks. She pushed, and pushed, feeling the baby move downward toward her exit. She couldn’t stop, was barely even aware of her surroundings anymore. All that mattered was the baby coming out of her, the need to get it out, bear down on it with the single-mindedness of a birthing mother.

Her silent straining went unnoticed until she ended her push with a loud grunt. Suddenly there were two heads turned towards her.

“My dear, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Celia?” Dave furrowed his brow. “What kind of sound was that? Didn’t you just use the bathroom, like, thirty minutes ago.”

Exhausted, losing hope that she’d be able to hold this baby in until after the signing, Celia snapped at him. “They’ve been kicking up a damn storm this entire morning, and whose fault is that in the first place? You insist on dragging this out for as long as possible, with me ready to fucking pop” —no comment from Eindhart; he knew better than to lecture a heavily pregnant woman about her language— “so, please, can we just get this over with.”

The head was so big in her canal. The pressure was so bad. She was full to the brim, utterly stretched and gravid with the baby. She couldn’t think about anything else except the need to get it out.

“Yes, well—” blinking, Mr. Eindhart scrambled with the pages. “I suppose we can just skip over a couple of pages…. let’s see here, joint signature, page 87, please.”

“Hey!” Dave protested. “Now, wait a minute.”

Celia was picking up one of Mr. Eindhart’s elegant fountain pens…. Another contraction was coming on, she could feel it broiling in her belly…. every muscle tensing up at once, working with the singular effort to expel her baby…. raising her trembling hand to the page….

To Dave and their lawyer, it may have looked like she had gone stock-still. Really though, she was pushing. Her knuckles shone pale around the pen. She was biting her lip so hard she thought she might draw blood. The baby was moving between her legs, she could feel it. She could have sobbed. The massive head was sliding through her hips, down, down, down towards her exit. She was pushing it out.

Dave took her sudden pause as hesitation. “Oh, honey,” he said. “Look at you! Overcome with emotion, I knew it was just a charade. It’s okay. We don’t have to go through with this.”

The fullness was very low now. A new sensation. The baby was in her vagina! Her labia had begun to bulge grotesquely; the head, of course, was huge. With a laborious effort, Celia scrawled a hasty, spidery signature onto the page. The final step. Done.

She slumped in her chair, push releasing, and her belly sank as her womb muscles relaxed. Her crotch throbbed. The baby’s head was right there, sitting heavily at her entrance, and it felt as if she was perched atop a bowling ball, hips nearly splitting open with the pressure.

Dave looked at the signature with despair. Mr. Eindhart cleared his throat, eyeing him like he suspected Dave might just grab the papers and bolt with them. Instead, he reached for a pen and, even more slowly than Celia had in the throes of giving birth, signed his big, sloppy signature.

“All right,” Mr. Eindhart said, tucking the papers into a folder. “That should be the last of the proceedings!”

Before Celia could react, Dave had stormed from the room. The door swung violently on its hinges.

She knew that she should leave as soon as possible, but getting up from her seat was a monumental task. Still, she struggled valiantly to her feet, containing a scream behind sealed lips as gravity thrust the head further into her nether regions, a wet tent forming in her underwear. She thanked the heavens that she had worn a skirt today. The body, it seemed, was slipping between her hips now, forcing the head down even more. Her gait was less a waddle at this point and more a bowlegged half-squat. She bore the pain and pressure and looked Mr. Eindhart in the eye, smiling as she shook his hand.

“Thank, mm, you. For everything.”

“Please, dear. Get home, get some rest.”

She nodded, unable to speak anymore. The head, god. She was so close to crowning. It was about to come out, she could feel it. She shuffled indelicately from Mr. Eindhart’s office. ‘Getting home’ was not a feasible goal. Celia didn’t even know if she could make it to the lady’s room in time, but she had to try. She couldn’t possibly give birth in these dirty carpeted corridors! One hand following the wall, knees barely supporting herself. She was trailing birthing fluid, leaking through her panties.

Whenever a contraction struck (and they were coming on without pause or respite now) she was forced to stop and squat, grunting the baby further into her nether regions. With every push her lips bulged more and more into the fabric of her underwear, burning with the obscene stretch. Slowly, the head parted them open, and she tried to pant through a contraction, drawing from some intuition that she needed to go slow and let herself stretch, her vagina straining to accommodate the huge head. Instead she loosed a guttural groan, bearing down again until her lips had unfurled into a tight oval. She was limping now, one hand cupped between her thighs as she walked.

As she rounded the hall, the restroom came into view. Almost there, Celia told herself. Just a couple more steps. Dread poured over her as a contraction began to brew in her belly. Oh no— Celia braced herself, steadying her hands against the wall in preparation.

Just then, she heard a shout. “Celia!” Dave had been waiting at the end of the hall, and now he jogged to catch up to her. “Shit, Dave!” Celia hissed as her birth canal wrung her from the inside out. “Fu-u-uck, what could you possibly—urgh! want?!”

Dave caught her arm, too involved in his own self-pity to notice Celia’s wide half-squat, the pinching of her face, the dribbles of liquid from between her spread thighs.

“Just hear me out, okay?” He was upset. His bottom lip quivered like a petulant child’s. He seemed, absurdly, betrayed. “You love me. I know you love me, and that baby is mine. I’m its father, I have a right to meet it.”

Celia stared at him, flabbergasted, the baby crowning into her panties momentarily forgotten. Suddenly she squatted down and bellowed loudly. “OOOOOHHHH!!”

Dave backed away in fear.

“Listennn-mmmfgh!” Celia groaned as she bore down furiously. “Grrrruh! Ugh, ah! I have had it up to here with you. Fuuuuck, I’m only gonna say this one time.” Despite her deep squat, she suddenly seemed to tower over him, red-faced with fury and the exertion of birth.

“Get out of our lives.”

Dave glanced at her in consternation, then scurried down the hall and hopefully out of her life for good.

Celia’s legs finally gave out and she dropped to her knees, unable to withstand the searing pain and pressure spreading her wide open and filling her so completely, it was as if there was no room for anything else anymore; no Dave, no legal documents or income discussions, not even herself or her identity as anything but a mother. Everything was focused on the baby coming out of her, crowning her most sensitive, private region. She gripped her thighs and bore down. Then she pushed her hips back, opening them, and rested her heavy body on her hands and knees. An animalistic urgency coursed through her. This primal position felt good, felt right. This was what she needed to be doing. Pushing, without any other concerns.

Her skirt rode up, exposing the apex of her thighs, her sodden bulging underwear, soaked fabric revealing what was happening behind it. The head slipped further out. Her lips formed a burning circle. Celia’s groans tightened and rose in pitch and she strained, the head unmoving as a boulder for a nerve-wracking second. A full-body shudder. Celia’s eyes rolled back in her head as she pressed her chest to the floor and sloped her rear end into the air, pushing with all she had.

The head burst free, and fluids spattered the hallway wall behind her, soaking the carpet. Celia gasped and panted, but the ordeal wasn’t over yet.

“O-okay, okay, baby.” The shoulders were rotating, she could feel the body turning inside her. The entire head hung from her opening and sagged her panties. “Th-this is iiiittttt-ooooooh!” With one last giant push, the body slid out and a river of fluids gushed freely behind.

Celia sat up on her haunches, scrambling between her tights and underwear with the instinctual desperation of a mother, searching frantically, needing to hold her baby, needing the touch-contact. She brought it from under her skirt to her chest, and heard a gurgling cry. A beautiful girl! Nothing like her father, everything like her mother. Tears streamed from Celia’s eyes and dripped down her nose and cheeks.

“Oh, look at you! Look at you!” She held her to her warm heart. “It’s okay. It’s just us. Just you and me, and no one else.”

[shhhsecretsideblog]

Would love for you to work your magic on this prompt 💜 @shhhsecretsideblog

Heavily pregnant and overdue, she’s been waiting in line for over an hour to meet her favorite author. Unfortunately, the baby’s decided to arrive now. If she could just make it a little longer, she could ask her all of her burning questions about her novel and tell her how appreciative she is of her work!

(birth denial, inconvenient birth, public labor)

What an amazing prompt, your ideas never fail to inspire me!! Thanks my lovely for the ask, really hope you like it 💜

[fpreg, 2500 words]

Dedicated Book Worm

The contractions had started on the bus ride into town, but she ignored them. A few twinges was nothing to worry about, certainly not today; today Ricki was going to the release and book signing of her favourite author’s latest novel. Her stomach was bubbling with excitement and nerves. She'd been a fan of this writer for years now but had never had the opportunity to get anything signed before, let alone meet the writer in person.

Unsurprisingly it was a very popular event at the bookstore and the queue was already pouring out the doors and lacing down the street. She was glad to have gotten here so early, with only a few dozen people in front of her. The downside of arriving so early meant having to wait in line, which wasn’t so great when you were over 40 weeks pregnant.

Ricki rubbed the taut skin of her stretched belly and exhaled a long quiet breath. The cramping had started to ramp up on the bus journey and she tried to dismiss them, but after standing outside for the best part of an hour she was slowly realising these pains were the real deal - consistent and definitely getting stronger. She debated texting her partner, to tell her she was having contractions, but then she’d have to leave this event. Looking longingly through the glass window of the bookstore and seeing the rows of chairs all set up for the author’s reading of the new book, Ricki nodded to herself, determined. She would stay. She had time to get her copy of the new book, listen to her favourite author, and get it signed before she’d have to tell her girlfriend about the baby’s expected arrival. Labour took ages, and this baby certainly hadn’t been in any hurry to be born.

The line was slow-moving when they started letting people in, everyone inching forward every few minutes. As her large belly regularly tightened, Ricki found herself holding it and swaying slightly as she waited eagerly in the queue, thinking about what she might say when she met the famous writer. Her stomach flipped with nerves but then spasmed aggressively, resulting in a soft moan slipping out her mouth as she exhaled. The person in front gave her a worried look after clocking the large and low baby bump hanging off Ricki’s hips. “This little one is just as excited as I am to get a copy of the new book.” Ricki tried to joke and reassure the concerned looks she was getting. But her mind couldn’t help noticing just how frequently her belly was cramping.

All this standing around had put a serious strain on her back, but there was something else, something new; a weighted pressure sitting deeper in her pelvis. Maybe the baby had finally got in the right position. It would be about bloody time, but they wouldn’t be ruining this afternoon for her, Ricki thought to herself.

Eventually she got to the front of the line and presented her ticket for the event. Ricki would be glad to sit down, her back was killing her and the constant cramping of her heavy belly was draining all her energy. “Wow, you look ready to pop.” The bookshop employee said, scanning her ticket and letting the heavily pregnant woman into the cordoned off area. Ricki managed a half-hearted smile, trying to keep her face from showing any signs of discomfort.

Despite the need to sit down, the weight and pressure between her hips was squashing her bladder and Ricki made a beeline to the toilets before the reading started. Thankfully the single unisex toilet was vacant and she disappeared inside. She used the privacy to let out the pained groans she’d been holding in for the last hour, as her belly contracted yet again. “Mnnnnghhhh…. Oh why now…” Ricki moaned, palming the walls of the bathroom and shifting her hips around in large circles. “You can wait a little bit longer. You were quite comfy in there last week on your due date.”

When the contraction faded she used the facilities, noticing quite a bit more liquid leaking into her pad, and hoped that wasn’t the start of her waters breaking. Standing up from the toilet seat Ricki felt the weight quite literally drop back down in her pelvis, the head of the baby wedged harshly against her dilating cervix. “Ooof!—” she clasped her bump, taking a moment to get used to the heavy feeling and the pressure that it brought.

The hustle and bustle of the bookstore was getting louder, the sounds of excited people entering the event seeping through the bathroom door. “Come on bubs, let’s go hear all about the new book.” Ricki said to her bump before leaving the bathroom and going back into the store.

Unfortunately for Ricki the contractions were still coming and getting closer and closer, now almost impossible to stay standing. After waiting in another line to collect her copy of the latest book she had to grasp onto the counter and swallow down the grunt she so desperately wanted to make.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” The girl behind the desk asked, panicked.

“Mmm-hmm.” Ricki gritted and nodded her head, pulling her lips into a forced smile. “Just a c-cramp.”

She needed to sit down, and fast. The labouring woman took the first empty chair she could find in the back row and sighed a heavy breath of relief. She would be okay. She just needed to rest, yes, that was it. Her excitement was heightening everything, that’s all. Holding her copy of the new book in one hand, she rubbed her swollen stomach with the other and prayed the pains would slow down enough to enjoy this event.

Typically there was a delay in the start time, the author had only just arrived and it would be a bit longer before the event could begin. Ricki was sweating by this point, squirming in her seat and trying to keep an even and subtle breathing rhythm. The pressure in her pelvis had suddenly built to astronomical heights and she found herself rocking and quietly humming on the chair. Her hands gripped the edges of the seat, knuckles turning white, as the waves got stronger and stronger. She tried not to clasp her bump so as not to attract unwanted attention, but god did it hurt. The contracting muscles contorting the shape of her pregnant belly was almost visible through her clothing.

She was wearing a pair of wide legged dungarees patterned with sunflowers, a thin black cotton t shirt underneath. Even through the denim like fabric Ricki could see as well as feel the way the whole sphere of her belly hardened, squishing into a solid and narrow torpedo shape over her thighs. “Ooohhhhhhh….” She used the book to fan her damp and sweaty face, no doubt looking flushed in the bookstore, which was already getting steadily warmer as more and more people filled in.

Eventually the host took to the stage and introduced the special guest and Ricki’s eyes widened with glee at seeing her long time favourite author in person, standing only a few metres away. Her belly seized again in that moment, bringing forth a wave of pressure deep between her hips, and she couldn’t stop the groan from escaping her lips. Thankfully her labouring sounds were swallowed by the loud round of applause. Without thought, and focussed entirely on the beloved person at the front of the crowd, Ricki’s legs widened automatically on her chair. Unconsciously finding any way to relieve the building pressure.

Then, the room was silent, the writer stood centre stage with an open copy of her latest book. Ricki was going to hear a new extract, read aloud by the glorious female writer herself, and she waited like everyone else with bated breath.

As the reading began the heavily pregnant woman tried to focus, tried to give this once in a lifetime fangirl moment her undivided attention, but the pressure was getting unbearable. Every few seconds Ricki’s mind was pulled back to the baby in her womb, the feeling of the hard skull sinking deeper into her birth canal, her baby determined to be born today. She panted, as quietly as she could. The thought of attracting unwanted attention right now was mortifying, if anyone discovered she was in labour— No, she was not going to let anyone see her struggle, or give any reason to stop this talk and pull focus from the rightful star.

She lasted about 15 minutes into the reading before it happened, something instinctual and primal tripped a warning siren in her mind. The pressure, it had built too much and now… oh god, now she needed to push. She really needed to push.

It was automatic, she had no control. Ricki’s body slumped slightly in her chair and gripping her book tightly with both hands her uterus contracted and squeezed and…pushed the baby further down. Oh fuck. Her legs were wide on the chair, encroaching into the space of her neighbours. But she couldn’t close them. It felt like she was sitting on the baby’s head. Trapped in another bout of pushing Ricki sucked in a lung full of air and bore down once more. Silently as she could.

The labouring mother lost all track of what the author was saying or reading. Occasionally she’d hear the audience laugh or “awww”, and she was missing everything. All that she could focus on was not giving birth right here in the bookstore. She could make it. She had to. Her girlfriend wasn’t here, and her book hadn’t been signed. She had to make it just a little bit longer.

With every ounce of determination she could muster, Ricky shifted herself upright and painfully pulled her legs together. God it felt like she was sitting on a bowling ball. A whimper slipped from her throat and her eyes screwed shut. The person beside her gave Ricki a concerned look. The labouring woman gritted her teeth and forced a friendly grin.

The reading eventually came to a conclusion, Ricki having succumbed to another half a dozen pushes in that time, but any progress was halted by her posture on the chair and the unforgiving fabric of her dungarees. The owners of the bookstore advised everyone to start making an orderly queue to get their books signed, gesturing to a table and lines of rope set up nearby. Ricki was so close, so close to meeting her idol. Unfortunately the baby was keen to join in.

As she stood the boulder in her pelvis pressed fiercely against the walls of her birth canal and Ricki had to grasp the chair in front of her and instinctively bear down. Oh fuck… she wasn’t going to make it. Her primal grunt wasn’t noticed through the sounds of chairs scratching the floor and numerous conversations erupting around the room. The baby was so low, dangerously low. Feeling like it was sitting just behind her lips, bulging obscenely into her wide-leg trousers.

The crowd around her moved as one, all the guests making their way to the line for autographs. She should have said something, should have excused herself, the baby was quite literally trying to come out right here in the bookstore. Instead, Ricki got caught in the sea of people and somehow ended up in line and surrounded by excited people waiting for autographs.

Just a little bit longer bubs… please. She pleaded with the swell of her belly cradled in her palms. Sweat was dripping down her neck beneath her long hair, her black t-shirt sodden with the exhaustion of her labour. How Ricki managed to stay standing she did not know. Oddly the pain in her hips was easier to manage when upright but gravity was making the pressure unbearable. Whenever a contraction hit she was forced to give in, to bear down with the squeezing muscles, knees bendy subtly and her mouth clamping shut.

They were productive pushes… she was sure of that fact. The baby’s head was slowly but surely spreading her open, her gait unnaturally wide as the baby inched further into the world while she stood and waited in line. Oh god, just— just wait.

This queue moved faster than the one before and Ricki was shuffled forward every few seconds. The author was there, within metres, hair perfectly curled and wearing a flawless outfit. The mum-to-be looked around nervously, realising how stuck in the crowd she had gotten - the only clear way out was forward. Two people, there were just two people in front of her. She had to meet her idol, she couldn’t walk away now, not when she was this close.

Maybe she could time her pushes, was there enough time between them to say Hi, big fan, please sign my book before she had to push again? One person in front now. So close.

Another contraction, oh fuck, and Ricki widened her legs slightly, bending knees ever so subtly and bearing down. The crown in her underwear was getting bigger. It burnt, bringing tears to her eyes. The head was coming out!

“It’s an emotional time isn’t it? Meeting someone you’ve admired for so long.” The person next to her said, bouncing on their toes and excitedly watching the writer sign another book. Ricki couldn’t reply, couldn’t even nod, as her body fully committed to pushing out her baby and bringing it almost to a full crown.

Next. Ricki was next in line. Fuck, what was she gonna do? Before she could form any cohesive thought someone was ushering her forwards towards the desk, towards the friendly smiling face of her idol. The woman’s hand stretched out, ready to take Ricki’s copy of the book to sign.

“Who shall I make it out to?” The author asked kindly, despite having said it numerous times over.

“R-Ricki… w-with an ‘i’…. Oooohhhh….” She stuttered, trying to hold back the groan. Her hands were clasped beneath her contracting belly, every muscle tense and trembling as she fought to hold herself together.

“Are you alright my dear?” The writer asked, staring too long at Ricki’s swollen stomach and the way her fingers were gripped at the fabric of her clothing, knuckles thin and white.

“….no…..” Ricki admitted. “Ooooohhhhh….” The next wave of pressure suddenly hit her like a steam train and any previous plans shot straight out the window. She had to push…. She had to bear down right now…. this second. The burning, the stretching, it was all too much, she had to get this baby out—

“Mmmnnghhhhh!!!!!!!” Grabbing the edge of the desk Ricki bent her knees and dipped her hips as she pushed ferociously, bringing the baby beyond a crown, shoving it past her lips and almost birthing the head in one go.

“Oh my goodness, you poor dear. Someone call an ambulance! This woman is giving birth.” The author said, jumping to her feet and rushing around the desk. “What are you doing here in your condition?” The kind words were accompanied by the writer rubbing her back and holding her hand.

“I just— I just really wanted to meet y-you.”

[gravid-transluna]

To all queer people and people of color living in the United States right now, I love you and please,

STAY SAFE!!!!

[gravid-transluna]

If you use janitor ai can you make a birthing system prompt

I’m not too up to date on ai programs….

Like are you asking if I could make one myself?

[gravid-transluna]

COMMISSIONS OPEN

Hello all! A little bit of a shameless request here: my commissions are open! I’ve been struggling slightly to make ends meet lately and I would be so appreciative of any amount <3

If you’re interested in a fic and would like to support a queer writer, just send a message to my inbox and let’s talk! :)

500 words - $10

1500 words - $25

1500+ words - $35 ≥

[gravid-transluna]

A little prompt for you, if it tickles your fancy…

A mother-to-be is chilling at home on maternity leave. She’s been having contractions all morning and they’re gradually getting more intense and closer together. Not wanting to bother her partner at work at the first twinge of labour, she spends the day riding out the contractions until they’re close enough together to warrant the phone call.

Eventually they’re strong enough to steal her breath away, coming every five minutes for a solid hour, and she’s pretty sure her waters are breaking. Before making the call to her partner she pops in the bathroom to clean up and change, only when she goes to leave she finds the door is jammed. Well and truly completely stuck. With no phone and only a small latch window, our mother-to-be is stuck in the bathroom and dangerously close to pushing…

~ @shhhsecretsideblog 💜

words: 1177

content: inconvenient birth, fpreg

Absolutely delightful prompt, but then, I expect nothing less from such an incredible writer!

Working from Home

Cleo had been having a productive morning; despite starting her maternity leave a week ago, she had become attuned to remote work, her laptop balanced on her overdue belly, a ready supply of pillows to support her aching back and hips and feet. Even as her belly began to seize periodically, ramping up in both intensity and pace, she’d kept her focus on her work, not wanting to bother her girlfriend at work.

“Shhh,” she’d murmured to her restless womb, rippling with contractions severe enough at this point to make her gasp. “Let momma finish this email, maybe grab lunch.”

The next one had her doubled over her belly, clutching the armrest as she rode out the pain. She was having a difficult time sitting at this point. The pains had introduced a new sensation, intense in its own right: a deep pressure between her hips, weighing down on her cervix. She shifted, lifting her hips from the sofa with a low moan.

“Okay,” she panted at the end of the contraction, shakily removing her glasses to wipe the lenses on the edges of her sweater. “Okay, it might be time to make the call.”

As she stood, she realized that her yoga pants had trails of liquid running down them, and at her crotch a dripping spot had formed.

‘Shit,’ she thought. ‘That’s my waters.’

She knew her girlfriend would usher her to the hospital without letting Cleo get a word in otherwise. Messy tangled bun; sweat stains; belly hanging low from the hem of her once-oversized sweatshirt…. Cleo thought she could afford to freshen up before she went.

She waddled to the bathroom, with an awkward wide-legged gait. The pressure was getting nearly unbearable.

After rinsing her face she tugged down her sodden pants and as they dropped to the floor she suffered another hard contraction.

Braced over the counter, Cleo instinctively bent her knees and swayed her hips in slow circles. Her breathless grunt was punctuated by a sharp release of breath near the end.

The pressure was incessant, demanding. She was aware of a large mass, burrowed deep into the cervix, something she could only presume to be the head. It was getting to be so bad that she almost felt like—

Cleo shook her head. She reached for her phone, only to realize she’d left it on the couch by her laptop. She huffed. With the baby so close, even walking was an ordeal. Trying the knob, she found it didn’t turn. The door wouldn’t budge either. Tugging on it, throwing her weight back with an increasing sense of dread, Cleo realized that the door must be jammed. ‘Not now,’ she thought. ‘Please, not now.’ Despite her best efforts, the door remained shut. Turning, she scrutinized the window now. Maybe-? No. Without her massive belly, the squeeze might have been possible. Not now, though.

Cleo tried to remain collected. “Is it one? One-thirty, it must be. So if she gets off at three, then….” Two hours. She looked down at her protruding swell, swollen and almost misshapen with the size of her baby. Could she hold it in that long? She had to, if she didn’t want to give birth by herself in the bathroom.

The next contraction came with an enormous amount of pressure, nearly buckling her knees. She couldn’t help the groan that rumbled from her throat. It barely sounded like her own voice, deep and animalistic. Palming her clenched belly with both hands, she quickly waddled to the toilet, trailing fluids, and dropped heavily to the seat. Naively, she was hoping that the pressure and its accompanying urge was nothing more than a bathroom feeling. However, as the contraction reached its peak, the urge became undeniable.

She had to push.

She had to bear down, NOW.

Without thinking, Cleo was arching her back and thrusting her belly out and pushing hard on the toilet. She bellowed, red-faced with exertion, as the large round mass began to press downward, with slow force. Her knees sprang apart, struggling to accommodate the seemingly impossible width of the baby moving through her. As the contraction began to fade she was able to pull herself from her involuntary pushing efforts, and regain a semblance of control over her body.

She panted vigorously. Strands of dark blond hair clung to her damp forehead. Her glasses fogged with heavy breaths. Cleo knew she had little time before the next contraction, and spent it lifting her encumbered laboring body from the toilet seat to shamble to the window. Her fingers fumbled with the latch. Her belly felt so low and heavy, dense with pregnancy, almost ready to drop right off her frame. She managed to open the window, grunting as she was forced to strain on her tiptoes. Drawing in a breath, she began to shout.

"Help! Please! Someone, mmh, I'm trapped here and I'm in, ohhhh, I'm in labor---!"

Pressure was building again, splitting through her hips, her belly constricting into a tight ball of muscle. Her voice strained tightly as she shouted.

"Oh GOD, someone! P-please, I'm giving birth! I-I'm--- OH! I'm PUSHING!! It's coming, my baby's coming!"

Teeth gritted, palms to the wall, Cleo bore down silently again. Knees bending, dropped into a slight squat. She could feel it, moving down at an alarming speed. The stretch was immense. The weight was close to her opening, and by the time the contraction ended, she could feel herself beginning to bulge, the huge head lodged just before her lips. Trembling, cold with sweat, Cleo removed her sweater and threw it behind her before her knees gave out and she collapsed into all fours, instinctively needed to be lower to the floor, needed to be grounded as she focused on nothing but getting her baby out. She let her forehead rest against the cool porcelain tile. Her glasses clattered to the floor. One hand felt shakily behind her. Between her thighs her lips were bulging with the head, hot to the touch. She withdrew her probing fingers. They only confirmed what she could already feel, what she already knew, deep inside her, with the intuition of a birthing mother: the baby was coming.

All she could do was help it come. She raised her backside, lowered her shoulders. Readied herself on all fours for her first fully-involved push. When the contraction came she let loose a savage growl, pushing furiously, and felt herself beginning to open around the crowning skull. It was huge, fiery, overwhelming. Birth was all-consuming. She howled, with nothing else on her mind except expelling the baby from her body.

A light rapping at the window. Startled, nearing the end, Cleo glanced up. Her eyes with hazy with pain and primal urges.

A pair of startled eyes stared from the window. Her next-door neighbor.

"Miss Cleo---?!"

"Ah, ah.... hello. I need, urgh. Need to borrow your phone."

"For an ambulance?"

"No," Cleo shook her head, readying herself for the next contraction and another hard, groaning push. "My girlfriend. Gotta tell her, baby's almost here."

[gravid-transluna]

In the Name of Science

words: 7627

content: birth denial, clothing birth, mutual birth, fpreg

Co-written with the wonderful and endlessly imaginative @shhhsecretsideblog

First entry into the Spell-verse, a series of stories revolving around a town blanketed by a rapid pregnancy and birth spell.

The news already had coined a name for it. Go figure, Char thought, shaking her head at the display of pure pseudoscience on the screen before her.

“Yes, that’s right,” a reporter spoke. “Emergency services have taken a census and The Spell seems to have affected every person able to bear children in the town.”

“The Spell,” Char scoffed, shaking her head. “Call it a virus, a fluke of biology, whatever. Just don’t chalk it up to magic.”

Because if it was magic, that would mean her science would be ineffectual on the obvious life growing inside her belly, now looking full-term with a baby that she hadn’t been pregnant with this morning. It rippled, hanging low between the scientist’s thighs. She placed a palm on her stretched tummy. The evidence, she thought, speaks for itself.

“Shouting at the tele again Char?” Laura said as she waddled into their lab. Her long white coat hung open at her sides, her own newly formed bump making the coat too small to fit round her frame.

“Got you a coffee.” She passed the hot drink to her boss and went over to sit on the stool by her own workstation. It took a bit of navigating, still not used to this extra weight she now carried, but eventually she plumped herself on the high metal chair.

“I mean, they aren’t wrong calling it ‘The Spell.’ What’s happening here is unheard of. All these pregnancies are popping up very much like magic.” Laura rubbed the circumference of her large belly that now sat heavily atop her thighs. She could feel the baby moving inside, it was so strange. Pregnancy and birth was never something she thought she’d experience. She understood it, she knew all about the process, but it was something else entirely actually experiencing it. And going through it all within the space of a day was a bit of a rollercoaster.

They’d done scans and knew they were carrying human babies, it wasn’t anything supernatural or alien, but it was just the speed, it was unprecedented. The baby in her womb shifted and kicked her in the ribs “Oof!” She huffed. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.” Laura commented to her boss.

Char nodded, smothering the instinct to cup her own belly as devoted her attention back to her work.

“Hopefully, you won’t have to. We’ll find a way to reverse the process without delivery and things will—“ she paused, startled by a twinge in her stomach muscles and the subsequent squirming of the baby inside her. She cleared her throat. “Things will return to normal and we can take the time to research this phenomenon thoroughly.”

Secretly, Char’s urgency stemmed from another reason—already she’d struggled to adapt to the feeling of her body so unrecognizably changed, the idea of a passenger inside her, her body growing and stretching to accommodate it without any of her say in it. Even the tiniest signs of motherhood she steadfastly resisted, trying not to waddle or hold her heavy mound, wearing her usual lab wear instead of anything more comfortable. Yet—

She knew this was nothing compared to birth. She also knew that they were on a strict time limit. Shaking her head, she dispelled these thoughts. ‘We don’t have to worry about that. All we have to worry about is finding a cure,’ she thought.

“You really think we can find a cure before these babies are born?” Laura asked hesitantly. She knew how her boss was handling this sudden change in their bodies, and it wasn’t very well. Not that she’d admit it. She disappeared quickly into the work when it first started happening to people and completely ignored the signs this morning that it was happening to them both as well.

“I’ve heard that some people are already starting to give birth… we might not have the time. Not before these ones are born anyway.” Laura patted her bump affectionately. She wasn’t fighting this as much as her boss. Yes it was a shock, but Laura was leaning into the experience, it was fascinating.

She noticed her belly start to twinge, felt similar to period pains. Laura shifted in her chair, trying to ease the uncomfortable feeling, her legs widening on the stool to fit her rounded stomach in between. “Have you had any twinges or cramps or anything?” Laura asked.

Char glanced at Laura, absorbing the gravity of her condition, the way her midsection protruded from her open lab coat and her discomfort that so mirrored Char’s own. “Nope,” she lied easily, convincing herself that it was the weight she was now carrying, that the pressure in her hips and the aching of her back was all because of the new load in her belly.

“Well, I’m not exactly hasty to get these babies out the old-fashioned way,” Char said.

A part of her shared sentiments with Laura, though. Call it a scientific curiosity, but the process of birth was quite a marvel. Another cramp seized her belly and she stiffened slightly, bearing it without note. Her own belly hung low, having dropped without her realizing, but Laura’s taut, overhanging swell was immediately apparent to her.

How about you?” She asked while peering into a microscope.

“I’m not sure… I’m feeling something… oof—” Laura took a sharp breath as the ache peaked before easing off again. “It’s probably just my body adjusting to the quick pregnancy. I’m not in a hurry to give birth myself.”

She didn’t want to say it but the rate at which their stomachs had swelled, Laura didn’t think they would have long before the pangs of labor hit. It was difficult to ascertain how “far along” they were, given the speed in the growth, but judging by the bumps alone Laura guessed her and Char were developing at the same rate.

“We better work fast then, before either of us goes into labor.” Or both of us, Laura thought to herself.

Char pressed her lips together at the reminder, and without knowing she palmed the underside of her swollen stomach, attempting to soothe the tightened muscles.

“Yes, right. Could you come over here and we can analyze these lab reports together. Bring the files from the corner bench, please.”

Her back ached, yet she was too restless to sit and besides, she always worked while standing. She’d be damned if she let this baby inside of her intrude on her routine.

“Sure thing.” Laura said to Char’s instruction. Holding her taut stomach, Laura slipped off the stool onto her feet and waddled over to the corner bench to pick up the files.

Standing seemed to have jolted her baby, feeling the weight sink lower into her hips as it kicked. A sudden sharp tightening slashed across her belly causing her to gasp and grab on to the table. “Mnngh!” She groaned as the muscles pulled and squeezed, its intensity surprising.

“Char… hooo… I think I might be having a con-contraction…” Laura panted through the pain, hips instinctively swaying beneath the white lab coat.

Char snapped her head up from the microscope to see Laura doubled over, clutching the table. With her back flat, her weighty belly seemed to strain toward the ground, dragged downward by gravity. Char watched as Laura swayed her hips in an almost hypnotic pattern, as though instinct had taken over. Her panting, even, seemed instinctual, the sounds of an imminent mother.

“Laura? Hey—“ Char struggled to walk without a waddle, across the room to Laura. She was stopped by a squeezing in her tummy that took her breath away, the entire surface hardening painfully. She dismissed it before it even ended. ‘Braxton Hicks,’ she thought. ‘No big deal. I have time…. Laura, I’m not so sure.’

She placed a palm on Laura’s lower back and she breathed and swayed. “You’re okay,” she said, her usual brisk tone softening. “Just breathe.”

“Hoooo-hoooo…..” Laura forced herself to take measured breaths, in and out, breathing through the sudden pain. Her head dipped and her eyes scrunched, the weight and pressure suddenly peaking before gradually fading away. Slowly the assistant straightened back up and faced her friend (?) and boss.

“Jeeze, that was… intense.” She breathed, rubbing the underside of her belly. “I wasn’t expecting that to come on so fast. Guess I’m in labor. I’ll start running a log of all my symptoms so we can add to our research.” She picked up the earlier requested files and handed them to her boss, noticing a slight glistening of sweat on Char’s forehead. “You still doing okay?”

Char nodded, appearing uncharacteristically distracted. She made an effort to straighten her back, feeling the clamping around her womb subside for now.

“Fine,” she said. Then, appreciative of Laura’s dedication to their studies, “Good work, Laura. If it gets to be too much for you, let me know. Until then, we’ll work around the clock and develop a cure before you progress too far.”

And, before I do as well, Char added to herself.

Noting Laura’s significantly widened stance and the way she stroked and circled her dropped belly, Char felt a twinge of apprehensiveness.

As they worked, fighting the clock, Char listened to Laura’s pained breaths become sharper. Eventually she began to vocalize, softly at first, closing her eyes and rocking her body back and forth, making slight grunts and moaning under her breath.

Char wasn’t in a much better state. Her contractions had grown into strong, regular surges and every time her belly seized up she could only focus on it and the baby inside it preparing to be born. Born, she thought. Not if I can help it. Her familiarity with the process and inevitability of birth did nothing to halt this line of thinking. Yet with each contraction she felt like nothing else existed but her swollen, contracting belly. She released a breath after a particularly brutal one. There was so much pressure. She felt it deep in her hips, wanting so badly to open herself up all the way.

Laura let out a pained groan herself, and Char glanced up.

“H-how are you, mm, holding up?” She asked the other laboring woman.

“As w-well as can be expected… hoooo…” Laura held her heavy belly with one hand, the other leant on her workstation as she swayed through the pain. “They are really picking up now Char, oof, the pressure is a lot.”

The lab assistant had abandoned her chair a while ago, finding the most comfortable position was to stand at her desk as it allowed her to follow her body’s rhythm and its instinct to move. Plus the baby was sinking way too low to be sitting down on that ridiculous high stool. She had spent entire days on that chair working before The Spell, but that idea seemed downright ludicrous to Laura now.

Their research seemed to be slow moving, and it wasn’t entirely down to the fact she was in labor, the science just wasn’t providing them with answers, still proving to be a mystery. She’d been keeping track of her contractions, which were getting dangerously closer together and time was running out.

Whilst the waves of pain coursing through her body every five minutes were consuming, Laura wasn’t oblivious to the fact her boss was also struggling. Perhaps it was because of her own labor she could recognise the signs; the way Char kept moving around the lab and never stayed still, her heavy breathing and occasional moan, and the way her hips would shift and bounce when she thought Laura wasn’t looking. Yup, her boss was almost certainly in labor too. But Laura knew better than to ask her outright.

“Are you feeling okay Char? You’ve been on your feet for quite a w-while now..”

Char tried to imagine sitting and found she couldn’t, with the baby dropped so low, the head pressing heavily on her cervix. She knew from the strain in Laura’s voice and her repeated movements around the room that she was feeling the same pressure and slowly increasing urgency. She wanted to moan, openly sway and rotate her hips against the excruciating pressure, to release instinctual grunts with her contractions like Laura. But, not yet. She couldn’t be in active labor.

“Just frustrated,” Char growled. “We’ve barely made progress and this current batch of tests has yielded no results whatsoever…. mmgh!” She winced, closing her mouth so as not to cry out as a contraction clamped her midsection.

“Also,” she added. “I might—urgh, be experiencing some Braxton Hicks.”

“Oh… braxton hicks… okay.” Laura acknowledged calmly, knowing full well there was nothing false about the pains plaguing Char. “Just try and b-breathe through them. They’ll soon pass. You can move around you know, follow your body’s instincts if you need to, I’m sure it would help with the, errr—false labor pains.”

They continued working in relative silence, except from the unusual noises Laura found herself making through the pains. She thought she heard her boss whimper, and asked “Is there anything I can do to h-help?”

Not that she was capable of doing much, the pains were so strong now she could barely do anything other than catch her breath between waves. Laura stayed close to her work bench, not daring to move too far for fear she’d crumble to the floor. Her bump hung heavy and low off her hips, her baby was pressing hard against her cervix clearly marking its exit. A particularly forceful contract had Laura folded over against the bench, forearms on the white surface, hips jutting back, and her head buried in the crook of her elbow. Her groans had turned more primal, the pressure building to the point she almost mooed like a cow. Something was slipping down, she could feel it. With a grunt Laura felt something give and the immediate dampness that followed trailing down her leg.

“Ummm… Char? Hoooo… I think my water broke.” Laura whimpered into her arm, not daring to move.

Char turned when she heard Laura’s animalistic groans and grunts, undeniably the noises of a woman deep in labor. She saw Laura standing wide-legged, a wet patch forming on her lab trousers and puddling the floor beneath her. Her cheeks were flushed with exertion, and Char knew she was feeling the same pressure against her widening cervix as herself, increasingly overcome with the sensation of the head moving into position, the instinctive need to open herself up for the baby getting ready to come out of her.

“Laura—! Hooo um, okay,” Char faltered, taking large waddling steps to Laura and cursing the weight in her pelvis and the unwieldiness of her belly. .Normally in control of the situation, she felt lost at the sight of Laura’s waters puddled on the floor. This was an uncontrollable variable. No matter how much they wanted to keep their babies in, once their bodies decided it was time there was little they could do. But Char wasn’t ready to give in yet.

“I’ll, mmgh, find you some towels,” she promised Laura.

In the hallway she suffered another contraction, and found herself vocalizing freely without Laura around, lowing insistently and arching her back. Without knowing, her knees bent slightly, beginning to sink into a squat. She realized what she was doing and tried to hold herself upright against the hallway wall, but by then the contraction was upon her and she felt a sudden burst of fluid from between her legs.

“Oh…. shit,” she murmured, panting hard.

When she returned with the towels, she met Laura’s gaze and knew that they were both feeling the urgency of birth. They were almost out of time.

The contraction had waned when Char left the room and Laura slowly righted herself and breathed quietly, taking stock of the situation, letting her body adjust and working with the new sensations. The baby was definitely on its way, there was no doubt about that. The breaking of her waters had helped ease the excruciating pressure which had been building, but Laura became more keenly aware of the shape of the baby in her womb without its cushioning.

Taking deep and steady breaths, Laura tried to calm her mind and body. It was during this almost meditative state that she heard the unmissable sound of a woman in deep labor from the corridor. She knew exactly who it was.

Char was a very methodical woman, set in her ways, but she was strong and determined which was a necessity in this field of work. Laura respected her immensely. But it was no surprise to the assistant that her boss was fighting this and seemingly was fighting it to the very end. At some point Char would admit she was in labor, she would have to if she was going to birth her baby. Laura just hoped she would be able to help Char through it when the time comes, and not be consumed by her own birth.

When Char came back she was flushed and sweaty, but gritted a smile as she passed Laura a towel. Laura noticed her boss kept one for herself… strange.

Laura threw the towel on the floor and used her foot to wipe the liquid that was now puddled at her feet. Her trousers were wet but she didn’t want to take them off, she might have known Char for years but wasn’t quite ready to be walking around half naked in front of her boss.

“This baby is definitely coming, I can feel its head right down in my pelvis.” Laura announced, cupping the underside of her large swell almost trying to hold it up. “How are you holding up Char through your… practice contractions?”

Even without her announcing it, Char could tell how close Laura was to birthing her baby, her stance and dropped belly unmistakable as signs of her imminent birth. Laura, she knew, was dependable, and though Char would rarely admit it, she relied on Laura and her stability and her easier personality tended to balance Char’s own stubbornness. Her patience was beginning to wear Char down, and she almost admitted then. The head was huge against her dilated cervix, and she could feel it oriented, ready to descend. Everything was moving painfully downwards. She could no longer even pinch her knees together, so wide was her gait. It felt as if the baby would drop out of her if she spread too wide.

“I-I think I’m, I’m in—“ Char was cut off by another contraction, doubling over with an urgent grunt, so unlike her normally composed and cool attitude. “Ohhhh,” she moaned, closing her eyes. She gritted her teeth, eyes squeezed shut as the contraction began to peak and she clutched blindly at her rigid, taut belly.

“Oh Char…” Laura said, waddling over to her boss, keeping one hand on a bench for support. “I think you’re in labor, hun.”

Char was completely doubled over, clutching her large and heavy belly, and grunting wildly. There was no way she could keep denying her situation now surely. Laura put a hand on Char’s back and rubbed up and down her spine in support. “It’s okay, just breathe through the contraction. Slowly, don’t panic, in and o-outttt…”

Laura was cut off by a contraction of her own, and without her waters it was aggressive and forceful. She immediately spun around, grabbing the nearest bench, and groaned deeply as she fell into a slight squat. The baby was slamming against her cervix, squeezing its way into her birth canal, and Laura had no choice but to push with the force of the contraction.

She tried not to panic, to stay calm, but the head filling her canal was almost making her nauseous. She wanted to tell Char but couldn’t speak, not that her boss could do anything as she was dealing with a contraction of her own right now. The only option left was to ride the wave, and follow her instincts.

Over the din of her own uncontrollable noises Char could hear Laura’s straining groans as she bore down fiercely, primal with the urgency of a birthing mother. Char tried to change her posture but the feeling of the baby descending, pressing down forcefully against her cervix was too much for her to bear standing, and she clasped her hands on her thighs as she squatted, desperate for relief. The contraction peaked, and though she tried to control her breathing, sucking in air at first, by the ends of her breaths she found herself grunting slightly. She gave a gasp, realizing that she was pushing. No! No, no! She thought desperately. You’re a scientist. This is your lab, and you have control. Try as she might, it was impossible to assert control over her laboring body. Her baby was coming, and she was pushing. Still, she tried to resist the urge to push, panting and blowing as the pressure grew and her back flared with pain.

Laura’s contraction seemed to subside a little before Char’s, and Char saw her belly visibly heave as her uterine muscles relaxed. She let out a grunt as the contraction released her. They made eye contact as Char’s contraction began to fade as well. Char shifted her gaze.

“We…. w-we,” she panted, trying to regain her breath. “We have to find this cure. Right now.”

“Char…. Even if we do find a c-cure… what do you t-think is going to happen?” Laura said sternly as she heaved herself back to standing. “These babies,” she patted her bump and also Char’s for effect, “are coming and no cure is going to make them disappear.”

Laura had seen the way Char literally squatted to the ground and pushed, and her clothes were also damp on her bottom half. “I’m saying this as both your friend and colleague, you are in labor just as much as I, and we should prepare for their arrival.”

Laura waddled awkwardly, bowlegged, back to her desk and grabbed a drink of water. Still panting after the latest contraction, she picked up a pen and carried on making notes. “I’ll help you as much as I can, noting everything down about this rapid pregnancy, tracking my symptoms and experience, but we’re going to be giving birth soon. Both of us.”

Char glared weakly as Laura patted her belly. She’d known Laura to be one of her only lab partners to actually stand up to her or challenge her, but even then she was firmly gentle. This was no different except of course so steeped in labor herself Laura had a bit more edge to her, biting just a little. She knew how Laura was feeling. Their babies were so low, pushing heavily into their canals and forcing their bodies to deliver, and she wanted nothing more to stop what she was doing right now, squat down, and let it come. Magic or science, Char and Laura were experiencing their most natural, primal instincts.

But—she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. No, this was HER body. An intruding passenger wouldn’t change that, even as it inched its way through her birth canal and demanded she work hard and concentrate on nothing but pushing it out. Char made a laborious effort to straighten somewhat, though her stance wasn’t much narrower than Laura’s own bowlegged waddle.

“Not, urgh, yet,” Char said. “I’m not having this baby. Mmm…. hoo, I’m grateful to you, Laura, for holding it together for this long. But you n-need to deliver. Please, don’t burden yourself. I’ll finish this cure on my—hmnh, hm. My own.”

She painstakingly toddled to her research table, lifting the hefty weight of her belly as though it would keep the baby from dropping any further.

“Okay, do whatever you wanna do Char.” Laura resigned herself to losing this argument. Her boss was determined but this was next level, bordering on complete denial. Well if Char was feeling even half the sensations Laura was, she’d succumb to this birth soon enough.

Laura needed to prepare for the imminent birth, her recent pushing was a sure sign the baby was close. Slowly, and whilst always holding on to something, the assistant rummaged through the drawers and cupboards in the lab. “Do we have anything we could use for clamps to cut the cord?” She asked aloud, not really expecting an answer from her disgruntled colleague. “Ah, this could work.”

She collected the equipment she’d need to clamp and cut the chord on her desk, and moved the towel on the floor with her feet again mopping up the new liquid that she’d trailed across the floor, not realizing she was still leaking. “I’m gonna go get some more towels.” Laura again spoke aloud but knew her boss had disappeared into her own world.

Laura barely made it to the doorway when another contraction struck, and damn they were close together. Her fingers gripped the wooden frame as her body sank downwards again, the pressure building and building between her legs. “Mnnnghhhhhhhh!!!” Laura grunted, muscles contracting and squeezing the large head further through the birth canal, to the point she could feel herself start to open slightly. “Nghhhhhhh the head…. I can feel it…” Laura mewled as she squatted.

Char listened to Laura’s preparations in the background, doing her best to tune out both Laura’s words and the feeling of a massive head lodged in her birth canal, stretching her from within. Her legs trembled, nearly buckled even without a contraction. She resented herself for pushing but knew from her last contraction that she wouldn’t be able to help from bearing down again. The urge to push, the pressure, it was blurring her vision, and her head pounded dizzyingly. A mantra repeated in her head: ‘Hold it in. Just hold it in a little longer.’ Her stomach felt like a hard stone weighing on her middle even without a contraction. She tried to focus, pulling herself into a chemical analysis of her own birthing fluids she’d swabbed from the towel.

Suddenly, she heard Laura’s loud grunting and her attention was drawn to the doorway to see her assistant bent and squatted, pushing hard into her trousers. She felt a tug of concern.

“Laura? Hun, you okay—?”

The head, she thought. Oh god, she’s still wearing her work trousers.

Before she could even take a single step towards Laura, she felt another contraction grip her. “Oooof,” she grunted deeply. Her knees began to give out and she was forced into a squat even as she tried to remain standing. Gripping the table for dear life, she groaned and growled. Don’t push, she thought. Don’t—

“Ohhhh.” The head shifted down. Her powerful internal muscles shoved it through. “OH—I’m—I-I’m pushinggggg, mmmmgh!”

Laura was consumed by the sensations thrumming through her entire body, it was as if something primal was happening to her - new and unfamiliar, completely out of her control, and yet her body seemed to know what to do. Her knees widened and she sunk deeper into the squat, opening her hips as much as she could. Leaning into the contraction, using it, Laura pushed the heavy weight down. It felt… productive. She knew it was what she should be doing.

The location wasn’t ideal, and she hoped she still had time to collect more towels and set up a more comfortable birthing area. But whilst the contraction raged, Laura submitted to it, letting it work her baby down, slipping further and further towards its exit.

Somewhere in the distance she heard her name being called. After a long push Laura gulped a breath and turned her head to see Char squatting at her desk and crying out that she was pushing. She would laugh if her body hadn’t forced her into another push.

They needed to get set up and quick, Char looked like she was suffering just as much as Laura was. When the contraction waned just a bit, Laura stopped pushing and somehow managed to haul her body back to standing. Char looked okay, well as she could given the situation, riding out a contraction and holding on to the sturdy frame of her workbench.

“I’m getting more towels, hang on Char!” Laura shouted, hoping her boss would hear over the groans Char was making.

Waddling ever so slowly, the head sitting right behind her lips, Laura went off to the cupboard to find more towels. They’d soon need them.

Another contraction struck mere minutes after the last while Laura was in the cupboard but she was not as successful this time in staying on her feet. The force of the contracting muscles and slashing pain splitting her open brought her to her knees. She clung on to the shelf in front of her, her heavy belly squished between widened thighs, and she pushed hard wailing with the effort. The head was peaking through, pushing apart her folds in her underwear. But her body was driving this journey, Laura was just the passenger. After a solid minute the contraction let up and when she released the push with a gasp, the baby slipped back into the birth canal. With a trembling hand she felt the fabric between her legs, she was definitely bulging, but the head wasn’t crowning just yet. She breathed deeply, gathering her strength before getting back on her feet. She needed to get back with the extra towels, not just so she could birth her baby there but so she could help Char. She’d need a friend and the support right now, and so could Laura.

As Laura submitted, pushing freely and loudly as though nothing else mattered in the world except getting her baby out and getting it out now, Char resisted her baby’s inevitable birth. Panicked, she gulped in a breath, trying to ease up on her furious pushing as she felt the head filling her opening thoroughly. It was beginning to bulge her, though her lips remained shut. The pressure and incredible sensation of the head sitting low at her opening, almost ready to exit, was almost too much to bear. She mooed deeply, from the back of her throat. Her belly tightened even harder than before, squeezing her like a vice and she couldn’t help but push again. The baby strained against her opening, and she could feel her most delicate area distending obscenely.

“Oh god!” She cried, throwing her head back as her thighs spread and she pushed again and again uncontrollably. The urge was undeniable. She was subject to her body and right now, it was telling her to birth her baby. Here, now, into her trousers. She felt helpless. Out of control.

“It’s coming,” she moaned. “Ohhh, it’s coming!” She knew this deeply, intuitively, with an age-old maternal instinct. She was ready to birth her baby. But she felt alone and vulnerable.

“Laura,” she gasped, couldn’t say much more than that. “Laura, oh god, it’s coming and I’m pushing! I need to hold it in! Just a little longer!”

She could hear Char’s wailing from the corridor, becoming fast apparent the lead technician was losing her fight against the inevitable. With one arm carrying a load of towels, the other hand pressed against the wall as she waddled heavily back to the office. On walking into the room she saw her friend and colleague in a deep squat, white-knuckling the work bench, chin to chest and pushing. Loudly.

“Oh Char, it’s okay hun.” Laura shut the door behind her and dropped the towels beside her friend. “You have to breathe as well as push darling.” She said as she staggered to her own workbench and grabbed the medical supplies she’d collected. With the baby playing peek-a-boo into her underwear, Laura knew their time was almost up.

Cumbersomely, Laura got down to her knees beside her boss, putting the clamps and scissors on the pile of towels. “Shhhhh it’s okay Char, don’t fight it. Use that contraction and push with the pain.” Laura rubbed a hand up and down Char’s back, trying her best to support and encourage through this.

Unfortunately with their labors progressing in tandem, Laura’s role as carer was snatched away when the next contraction tore its way across her midsection. Instinctively, without intending to, her body was pushing with the pain and she could feel the baby start to leak through again and stretch apart her lips. She went to all fours and rocked, sinking backwards towards her heels whenever she had to bear down.

“Mnnnnghhhhhhh! Come on baby….” She groaned before gasping another breath and pushing hard again. She didn’t care that she was still in her work clothes, or that she was on the floor of a laboratory that was covered with two lots of amniotic fluid, she was simply following her instincts and soon the baby stopped slipping back in and stayed, keeping her lips in a perfect oval shape.

“Ohhhh god… I think it’s starting to c-crownnnn….” The assistant managed to huff when the contraction eventually dulled.

Char’s belly refused to fully relax at this point, now constantly flexing with forceful surging contractions, but there were brief moments of respite where she could pause in her pushing and some awareness returned to her. Laura, she realized, was beginning to tent her pants with pushing, on all fours with her back arched and her hips shoved forward, trying to make as much room for the large crowning head as possible. She was pushing the head into her clothes, Char realized, bulging them ridiculously, and between her spread thighs more fluids dripped and leaked. At the same time she processed this she realized that her own clothes had never been discarded, but she made no effort to remove them in her precious few moments before her body would force her baby further out of her. Instead she clung onto the naive hope that she’d miraculously stumble upon a cure while crowning into her pants, feeling the head beginning to press up against her underwear and part her lips slightly. Laura, she could tell, had offered less resistance to her body and had made more progress in her pushing, the head sitting permanently, she calculated from the bulge in Laura’s pants, at around a half-crown or more.

“Hey,” she croaked hoarsely, barely able to manage anything but grunts with her clenching belly. “You—you need to get your pants down, hun. Head’s coming out.”

Painstakingly, she began to squat down, moaning as the head was pressed back slightly into her sensitive lips by the tension of her underwear. It felt so low, so full, she needed to open up, she needed to push, relieve the immense pressure, yet her friend, yes friend, not just assistant, needed her. As she squatted low, she hooked her fingers around Laura’s waistline.

“I need, urgh, I need you to get your legs together. Mmmm, we gotta get your pants off, ‘kay?”

She was surprised to see Char moving in her peripheral vision, but Laura could pay no mind, for this baby wanted out and it wanted out now.

“Grhhhhh!!! It’s coming out… mnghh!” Laura cried into the next push, bearing down and feeling the head stretch her wider and wider. Her hips were so full, her pelvis felt like it could snap, the pressure of this baby’s head - this large and heavy mass - *needed* to come out.

Char’s attempt to remove her trousers was fruitless, though the black fabric was stretchy and comfortable with the expanding of her stomach, it was not elasticated enough to be pulled over the wide angle of her legs. The baby sat so low, right at her entrance, stretching her entrance wide with the emerging crown. There was no way in hell she would be able to put her legs closer together.

Instead, she widened them further. “Hmngh! Can’t… baby… coming…I have to pushhhh-mnghhhh!” Laura’s face sunk towards the floor, dropping to her elbows and opening up her hips to the skies. It was coming out, she could feel it sliding slowly out of her into her stretchy clothing. All she could do was push…. Pant and push again.

Char watched in utter fascination as Laura pushed with total abandonment, entirely consumed with the baby coming out of her, every last thought focused on the overwhelming, intense, undeniable urge to push. The bulge in Laura’s pants grew, stretched her thinly and Char could scarcely believe that such a huge head could come from her, pass through such a narrow opening with so much force. She removed her fingers from Laura’s waistline, realizing the impossibility of such a task at this stage in Laura’s labor. She was pushing it out into her pants, and there was nothing Char could do about that except cup the growing bulge as it emerged from Laura’s opening into the straining fabric.

It was terrifying, watching Laura push without regard for anything else. As she felt a powerful contraction wrack her own reddened, exhausted belly, she knew there was no stopping this. She was giving birth and was about to push a baby out into her pants exactly as Laura was doing now. She growled fiercely, deep in her squat—the perfect position. Her knees jackknifed and she opened her hips as wide as they could go. Against her opening the fabric of her underwear arched with the coming head as she bore down immensely. Her face turned bright red with her hardest push yet.

“Oh GODDDD!” She bellowed. “It’s COMING, I’m pushing it OOUUUTTTT!”

Her lips parted, wider and wider, trembling and convulsing around the head as it burned and stretched her. She jerked, trying to escape the ring of fire and yet she couldn’t stop pushing for a minute. She was in the final stages now, and the only way the burn would stop was when she had pushed her baby into the world. Instinct took over completely. This was what her body needed her to do. This was what SHE needed to do.

Even though they were consumed with their own births, Laura found comfort that at least they were together through this. Each laboring woman was not alone.

But the strength required to birth these babies, who didn’t even exist 24 hours ago, would be down to the mother. Gasping for air Laura pushed again with everything she had, through the pressure and pain and the burning ring of fire that had her mouth open in a silent scream. The baby’s head had to be almost out by now, surely!?

Despite being beside each other Char’s bellowing voice seemed so far away to Laura. Nothing else registered beside the baby being born into her pants. She growled with another push and suddenly yelped when the head slipped fully out.

“Oh my god oh my god…” Laura muttered over and over and pushed herself back up on her knees. She scrambled at the waistband of her elasticated trousers and pulled them down to her knees along with her underwear. Her baby, she had to get to her baby, the maternal instinct cried in her head. With a trembling hand she felt the newly born baby’s head that was now wedged between her thighs. “Hi…. baby… oh my gosh you’ve got hair!” Laura was in shock, but also in awe of what her body had just done.

It was only after the head was born that Laura properly heard the cries of her friend. “Char…” she muttered and saw the other woman squatting and huffing, red-faced, chin to chest, with an obscene bulge protruding from her clothes between her wide legs.

“Oh my god Char! Your baby is coming out!”

Had Char any piece of mind she might have answered with her customary sarcasm: oh really? I wouldn’t have guessed. Instead, the only sound that emerged from her mouth was a long lowing wail that only deepened and became more guttural as the head filled her bottom so thoroughly, and it felt as though her pelvis was creaking open to allow the massive head through. She opened slowly, barely pausing to take a breath as she bore down without repose. Dimly, she was aware of Laura’s own baby dangling between her thighs, having pushed the huge head out, and with renewed efforts Char grunted the head further and further out. Her lips tautened and thinned, red with the stretch. The head reached a full crown and for a moment Char pushed and it didn’t move, solid mass wedged tightly in her opening. She gasped, scared for a moment that it was too big, that there was no way she could push something of this size out of her body.

Then she heard Laura cooing to the head between her legs, and something stirred within her. She realized that the dread she’d been facing was being replaced with something like motherhood, her body responding naturally, automatically, to Laura’s awe and wonder. Char realized that she wanted to meet this thing she had carried inside her for a mere twenty-four hours.

“C’mon BABYYYYY!” She shouted, bearing down furiously. Her lips slipped around the head, and then—with a splash of fluids and a grunt of relief, Char freed the head into her pants.

Laura watched in fascination as Char grunted the head further and further into her clothing, it was huge. Char had been fighting this throughout the entire pregnancy and in that moment Laura understood why some women balked so much away from birth. It was hard work. But then she saw a change in her friend, the way her eyebrows furrowed with determination, the slight readjustment of her hips as she took a breath; she was no longer fighting against her body and was readying herself to meet her child.

“You can do it Char, push!” Laura called as Char bore down. She wished she could move to support her friend physically but she was still mid-way through her own rapid birth to risk moving.

Tears begun to well in her eyes at the thought of their babies, the exhaustion of labor and the stress of the last 24 hours hammering her emotions.

By the time Char had birthed the head of her baby into her pants Laura was already feeling the pangs of the next contraction and the baby’s head turned slightly in the palm of her hand. “Oohhhhh… mhhh okay okay… you ready little one?” She panted, pulling in air through her nose, widening her legs apart to steady her balance and preparing herself to push again. Both hands were between her legs when the contraction really got going and all too soon she was pushing once more and felt the shoulders stretch apart her already sore lips.

With trembling fingers, Char reached down between her legs, feeling the hard slick roundness of the head she’d just pushed out between her legs. She gasped. The aftershocks of her contraction clutched at her belly.

“Oh… oh, my—that’s a baby. I just gave birth.”

The evidence was conclusive. But she could scarcely believe that she’d pushed an entire baby through her birth canal and out into her pants. The experience she’d just been through, the effort, the haze of contractions and the hard pushes as she focused on nothing but expelling her baby, and the intense sensations throughout her body. It was all unbelievable. Inching down the waistband of her trousers, Char struggled them to her shins and sank to her knees. She panted in disbelief, feeling instinctually that this was *right,* that this was what she was meant to be doing. Her identity had irreconcilably changed to that of a mother and as she caressed the head between her legs, she felt a rush of contentment. Char was a scientist, an expert in her field, but now it all paled in comparison.

She glanced up at Laura, seeing her shock and awe mirrored in her eyes as she lifted her baby from between her legs and rested it against her chest. Laura smiled exhaustedly at her.

Char began to pant as another contraction took hold.

“Ooh—“ she exclaimed. “You’re ready…. c’mon, you’re ready to be—UGH! BORN!”

Her baby slipped between her lips with a spray of fluids and immediately she sank to the floor, sighing in immense relief.

Laura fell silent with her final pushes, holding her breath as she bore down, the head filling her palm as the shoulders squeezed their way through. She gasped another breath and pushed with everything she had, this was it, she could feel it. Come on baby…

Once the shoulders were freed Laura wasn’t expecting the speed of which the baby slipped out and the hush of fluid that came with it. Catching the slippery newborn Laura gasped, relieved and shocked, and immediately brought the babe to her chest.

“Hey…. Oh my- hey baby.” She cooed, eyes welling with tears as she looked upon this little miracle that had grown in the last 24 hours. When the baby started to cry she instinctively rocked and hushed the infant “it’s okay… you’re okay.” She said, wiping the blood and fluid off the newborn's face.

Laura had barely caught her breath back when Char started pulling down her trousers and panted heavily, a baby’s head hanging between her open legs. A second later Char was mirroring Laura’s actions and pulling her own baby to her chest and sobbing with relief.

“You did it.” Laura said softly to her friend. “We did it. I can’t believe they’re real, we just had babies.”

The Spell might currently be a scientific mystery, but as the two women sat exhausted on the floor cradling their newborns, the research could wait. For now, the scientists were in awe of the new lives they’d just birthed.