Results
Xander sighed and fought the urge to throw his book across the room. He was bored. Bored and nervous and scared and worried and tired of waiting for the results of what seemed like half a million tests.
He’d spent over two hours talking to Joanna that first night, and this was after the woman had gone over every file they had from the Initiative. Then he’d been poked, prodded, tested, and had enough blood drawn to make Spike growl at the woman. That was on top of not being able to eat and having to drink what felt like a gallon of water for an ultrasound during which he did get to see his baby, but it looked rather like a blob. An alien blob at that.
That didn’t keep him from feeling all sentimental though, or from having Spike nearly crushing his hand to keep from showing his poofish-ness to a woman. It also didn’t keep them from getting pictures of said alien-blob and having them copied. There was a picture tacked up on the fridge, one framed in the bedroom and they’d gone out and bought a memory book and it was on the first page.
Not to mention, Joanna had copies of the ultrasound on CD and the files had been emailed to a certain red head who assured him that they also graced Giles’s refrigerator as well.
“After all,” she had said, “you’re the first in our group to have a baby, and therefore everyone will be spoiling it.”
Spike, of course, had been eavesdropping on the phone call and had started asking when “you and Glinda are gonna pop one out. Our little nipper needs a best friend, after all.” Which caused Willow to go totally speechless for the first time Xander had known her.
The only problem was, now they were stuck waiting for the results to all those test to come back. About five days after the first round of tests he’d been called back to Joanna’s office and had them done all over again. It had been two weeks and Joanna was actually coming by the apartment tonight.
So they were stuck waiting. Actually, as soon as the sun set Spike had set out to go grocery shopping and Xander couldn’t go with. His blood pressure had been a bit high and, while he wasn’t under bed rest, Joanna had told him to keep off his feet. With Spike being growly and overprotective, he was lucky his mate let him walk to the bathroom.
It was a Wednesday night in mid-July, and the Red Sox weren’t playing. Which meant there was nothing on television worth watching. He had been trying to read, but reading pregnancy books just made him worry more, which probably didn’t help his blood pressure.
As it was, he was now living with hardly any salt or sugar. He figured he was getting a good base of guilt to use against the baby when he or she turned into a teenager. Not that he’d use it all the time like his parents did, but maybe when said child wanted to do something stupid, like slaying demons five times its size.
Then again, this was Spike’s kid they were talking about. And his. Combined with whatever vamp powers the kid might have, demon slaying might just turn into a family outing, complete with pictures of baby’s first kill.
Xander shook his head and reached for another book. The lack of sugar was making him warped.
He fought the urge to talk to himself while looking for baby names. Despite the radio being on, it was too quiet without Spike’s usual presence. Usually his husband made lots of noise, sang under his breath, talked and swore and generally filled up a room with his…Spikeness.
He flipped through the book, looking for a name that he and Spike could agree on. William Jr. had been passed because then the poor child would be called Willie at some point in time and they had promised not to be cruel. Xander had issues with any form of Alexander, thanks to his parents, so anything like Alexis or Lex was out.
Plus he might be a geek but he was doing his best to not name his child after comic book villains. Heroes maybe-- James, Diana and Mathew were all good names-- but not villains. That knocked Edward, Harry, Norman, Wilson, Emma, and Pamela out of the running as well.
Selena was a maybe. After all, Catwoman was damn cool. He’d suggest it at least, just to watch Spike’s head spin. Xander laughed to himself, remembering what had happened when he'd suggested they name a boy after John Sheridan from Babylon 5. His mate had absolutely refused to allow any “progeny” of his be named after anyone who might have a convention and fan following.
Out loud he had argued with Spike that John was a very nice name, very English. Inside, however, he was giggling and wondering if it was a girl could they get away with calling her Delenn. He was waiting till later to suggest it, though. He actually liked the idea and D’s were traditional for the females of the Aurelius line.
But there was no way in hell any boy of his was going to be named Damien, no matter how well that fit.
He was thinking about the merits of Danielle/Daniel when the security alarm rang. He rolled out of bed, something he knew he would have problems with later when he was big as a whale, and walked quickly into the living room.
They had both gone to extremes with the security in their building, one of the reasons they’d bought the small apartment building. There were cameras in the stairwells, and security sensors and only people who had a key could use the only elevator. Those were just some of the security precautions they’d taken on the building itself, not even mentioning their private apartments.
Then there were the magical wards Spike had cast on the place. If anything tried to break in, be it human or demon or even a ghost, one way or another it would be fried.
In one of the monitors they’d had installed in the foyer was Joanna. He didn’t want to buzz her in while he was alone, but he wasn’t keen on letting her stand outside in the dark either. Fortunately, before he could make the decision Spike walked up, carrying several bags.
Ten minutes later Spike was putting up groceries while Xander was lying on the couch, trying to make small talk instead of pouncing on the midwife for answers.
“So…you never did say how crazy your Dad thinks you are now, helping a vampire and his consort.”
Joanna laughed. “Actually, he believes in the supernatural. He blames his friends who keep quoting Hamlet at him. Well, that and one of his friends isn’t exactly human. But you should have heard him swear about secret government organizations and messing with things that were against nature and playing god. He went on for over ten minutes; it was fun to watch.”
Xander laughed with her and Spike had a smile on his face as he brought drinks in from the kitchen. “Sounds like your Da has some sense, then.” Spike sat on the other end of the couch and put Xander’s feet in his lap. “All right, we did the polite bit. Out with it.”
Joanna sat up straight and put her hands in her lap. She had a bag beside her that looked half-briefcase, half-medical bag. “Okay, first of all the fetus is healthy. It has some odd vitals but that is to be expected. It’s a bit on the small side, but again that’s expected. There are no signs of Downs Syndrome or any other genetic anomalies. It appears the genetic tinkering the Initiative did was designed to make the resulting child stronger, faster, and virtually disease resistant.”
Xander felt a whoosh of air leave his lungs and he felt instantly lighter. He could feel Spike’s hands on his legs spasm, and then grip even tighter. “That’s good, ducks, but I hear a but coming…what’s wrong?”
Joanna took a deep breath and Xander instantly got worried all over again. “What’s wrong is the fact that human males are not designed to carry a child, much less give birth. The scientists that thought of this little process really didn’t care about that, they just cared that any implanted zygotes would thrive in the artificial womb they created. So this is going to be very, very hard on Xander. You already have signs of high blood pressure, thankfully not pre-eclampsia, as well as gestational diabetes. I’m very glad that you’ve both been careful about nutrition and changed your normal eating patterns. As it is, your kidneys are at high risk, as is your liver. Men aren’t made to be able to filter out the added waste in your system that carrying a child causes.”
Spike’s grip on his legs had gotten painful but Xander didn’t move. He needed that grip to help him feel connected. He knew this was going to be difficult, but not that bad.
“In addition, you’re severely anemic. I brought prescription strength iron pills that are safe for you but I doubt if even that will help. Diet will help to a certain extent, but most of the red blood cells in your body are being used as…well, as a nutritional source for your fetus. With Spike’s permission, I’m going to take a few samples of his blood and do some experiments, see if I can add it to some red blood cells and give you a transfusion to see if that helps the situation any.”
“Wait…we already share blood, doesn’t that count?” Xander was beginning to believe he should be taking notes or something. Did everyone else get so confused and frightened in situations like this or was he already failing as a parent? In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing wrong that he couldn’t give his unborn child enough.
“Not really. You’re drinking it so it’s going into your digestive system. Yes it helps, and it changes your blood, but not enough for the child. I’m hoping putting it directly into your veins will help more. You don’t mind donating, do you, Spike?”
“Fuck no. You can drain me till I’m near dry if it helps him and the nibblet. Will it help?”
Joanna leaned back in her seat and ran a hand through her hair. “Hell if I know. The transfusion, sure, but I don’t know if adding your blood in will help or hurt. I just figure it’s worth a shot. I do know that I want Xander on bed rest, not total bed rest but he doesn’t need to be running around the city or doing any heavy lifting here. I also want you to drink more water, as much as you possibly can. That will help your kidneys and liver filter impurities out and flush your system.”
“Umm, I don’t know if you realized but more water plus bed rest does not compute.” Xander already felt as if he was wearing a rut in the flooring from how many times he visited the bathroom. “And may I just say, eww, I hate water? It doesn’t taste like anything.”
Spike snorted at that and some of the tension went out of the hands on Xander’s legs. “He’s telling you the truth, it’s getting so I think he spends more time in the bloody loo than he does with me.”
“I know, I know. Still, it’s needed. And if you don’t like the taste you can mix in some fruit juice or something. Just be careful that the juice doesn’t have too much sugar. I think with meditation and deep breathing techniques we can keep the blood pressure under control, and diet will help with that and the diabetes. It’s not bad yet, but I want to keep an eye on it. I also suggest V8 as well as cranberry juice. You’ve already started drinking tea; I brought a couple of special herbal brews, green tea mixed with chamomile, raspberry leaves and rose hips, things like that. I want you to start on those as well. Rose hips are a great source of potassium.”
Joanna pulled her bag to her and started unpacking tins and stacks of papers and tubing and syringes. Xander gulped really hard. He’d had enough things poked at him in the past year to do for a lifetime.
“Relax, Xan, it’s probably for me, not for you.” Spike was actually smirking at him. It helped calm Xander down and gave him a sense of normality.
“Good. I was beginning to think I had pincushion on my forehead in invisible ink.”
Joanna laughed as she pulled more supplies out of her bag. “Sorry, Xander, I didn’t mean to scare you. The papers and the tin if tea are for you, the rest is for Spike. I made notes and instructions. If you’re anything like normal parents, when I first started mentioning complications you zoned out a bit. This gives all the information you’ll need, instructions, things you should add to your diet for more protein and calcium like tofu and soy.”
Xander wrinkled up his nose and grabbed the papers, flipping to the nutritional stuff first. Looking through it, he saw a lot of omelets, peanut butter sandwiches and bean salads in his future. And the fact that prune juice was high in iron just frightened the hell out of him.
He put the papers down, knowing that Spike would be the one to shop as well as cook since he was supposed to be taking it easy. He’d just worry about eating whatever icky nutritional thing was set in front of him. Although if Spike tried to feed him prunes and tofu on the same day, his husband would find out how well Xander could control his gag reflex.
He looked over at Spike. His mate was letting Joanna take an entire pint of blood for testing, it looked like. He quickly looked away; he’d never been big on needles but after his stay at the wonderful Chez Nazi he really, really hated them. The only thing that had kept him from running and screaming from the room the last two visits with Joanna had been the fact that he really wanted his child to be healthy.
The possibility that he wasn’t doing enough for his child, that the baby might not be getting enough nutrition from his blood, made Xander promise to himself that he’d eat whatever disgusting thing Spike set in front of him. Even if it was tofu and liver.
He couldn’t help but worry, though. Talking with Joanna and getting the tests back eased his mind in some ways but made him even more frantic in others. Seeing that Joanna had finished and realizing he’d missed part of a conversation, Xander tuned back in.
“…Until we find out how the transfusion helps, I’d wait, Spike. Besides, I kind of thought he’s been too tired for a few weeks now. The medicine and blood should help with that but nothing too strenuous.”
Okay, Xander thought, Spike had asked her about sex. Now was the time for the couch to turn into a black hole and swallow him up. To tell the truth she was right, for the past two weeks he had been too tired to do anything; Xander knew Spike didn’t mind…flogging his own log, but he missed that feeling of intimacy.
Still, he gave Spike a dirty look and his mate tried to look innocent. Bastard. He turned to Joanna, trying to ignore her snickering and his own embarrassment. “I do have one question, kind of…”
Joanna immediately paid attention and he was glad. This was something that had been bothering him. He took a deep breath. “If the baby is okay, why haven’t I felt it move yet?”
She smiled. “There are a couple of reasons but that’s a good question. Most first time mothers don’t feel anything until they are at least 18 to 22 weeks pregnant, but it’s different for every mother. People who are thin tend to feel movements more and you aren’t thin so that sort of dampens the feeling of any movement that’s happening. Plus, well, you might be feeling it but think it’s gas or other…digestion processes. You’re different, Xander. The artificial womb and the blood supply that is flowing to it is situated in front of your stomach and large intestine. As you get further along you might even have problems eating except in small amounts because the baby will be crowding out most of the room in there.”
Joanna shifted in her seat on the couch. “There are other complications as well, concerning digestion. What I want the two of you to do is sit down and read all that and write down any questions you have and when I come back for the transfusion you can ask me anything you want. Getting everyone through this as healthily as possible is going to take a lot of good communication on all our parts. It won’t work if either one of you is embarrassed to talk to me.”
They both nodded at her statement but Xander couldn’t help but blush. He had a feeling he knew what kind of complications she was talking about, and that he’d be drinking the prune juice.
“One last thing before you go, Doc.” Spike had taken to calling Joanna Doc, despite the fact that she kept on protesting she was only a midwife and registered nurse. “Since the little nipper is alright, you said you were gonna tell us the sex of the baby. It isn’t right to keep calling it…it.”
“You really want to know?”
They both said yes and Xander found himself grinning. They’d argued back and forth for days but finally Spike had won out. He said it was going to be a surprise if they found out now, just as much as when the baby was born and this way they could pick a “proper name”.
“Gentlemen, I’m happy to say you're going to be the proud parents of a baby girl.”
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