Expecting 3

This is a short work of erotic fiction containing furry, or anthropomorphic, characters, which are animals that either demonstrate human intelligence or walk on two legs, for the purposes of these tales. It is a thriving and growing fandom in which creators are prevalent in art and writing especially.

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Expecting

"It's okay, honey..."

But it wasn't okay. Nothing could ever again make it okay, no matter how Jason held his wife, Rebecca, close on their bed, the anthro white vixen and red fox sharing their intimacy in one of the only ways that they could anymore. Sex had lost its closeness as they tried to conceive over and over again - yeah, that hadn't happened on their wedding night, as they had thought, and was told in the tale of pregnancy tests that never read what either of them wanted to see. Rebecca whimpered and tucked her muzzle down between her paws but her hiding away from the world was nothing new at this time. He didn't blame her either with everyone staring and whispering, wondering just why she had not yet swollen, heavily pregnant. Everyone expected her to be.

"It's..."

She didn't stutter or break in a sob, for she had no more tears left to cry. Heaven knew that he'd cried so very many along with her.

"It's...not what..."

Yes, he knew and he held her close, letting the words pour forth in lieu of tears, streaming from her lips. On and on, she spoke of the cub she wanted so badly, the cub that they both wanted. Their life had not come together in the way that they had wanted it to, their family incomplete while they yearned for something more. Sure, they had each other but they had both always been on the same page when it had come to having a family together, which was a lot more than could be said for other couples that they knew and loved. It was a cruel twist of fate indeed that the Arctic and red fox pair had thus been backed into a corner, forced to acknowledge that there was no way, at least naturally, that they would be able to have a cub together.

And yet... Jason had researched, day and night, although it was something that would not provide everything that Rebecca wanted. Pressing his lips together, he closed his eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath. She trembled against him. It was now or never.

"Look, there's something we can try," he said, heart beating more and more quickly. "It's different...risky...but..."

But, of course, he would do anything for his wife and he held her warm and close as he explained what could be done. Adoption was an option but they'd had his sperm tested and there was nothing truly wrong with either his sperm or her eggs, just the ability of her womb to hold an embryo. Yet rather than look for another body that could bear and carry their cub, a little fox cub, he told her right there and then that he already had the perfect candidate in mind so that they could, finally, realise their dreams of having a family, what had consumed them for the span of so many months already.

The consultations were expensive but they made it work, confirming that Rebecca was infertile, which he tried to brush past quickly. Not to do with her eggs, he said, and it didn't make her less than what she was. It only made her stronger, proving that she could get past it. Jason still saw how it took a little of the light from her eyes, however, as he kept her involved every step of the way through an experimental procedure that would, at least in theory, allow one of them to carry out a pregnancy.

She didn't think it would work but he had to be the positivity and motivation in both of them now.

He had no choice.

*

Jason's jaw dropped, sitting on the toilet - something that was not done half as often as it was for femfurs - blood roaring between his ears. Growling, he brushed his head-fur and ears back, smoothing it down, then ruffled it all up again, nerves in tatters. The pregnancy test held loosely in his paw threatened to drip pee onto the bathroom floor linoleum but he could not even find it in himself to care at that time, fingers numb and tingling with an odd sense of shock.

He had to tell her.

"Uh... Rebecca?"

"Yeah? You going to be long, sweetheart?"

She'd come back to herself a little bit but he had no idea at that point if she knew that things were progressing, whether the implant had actually worked or not. She had not said either way but held his hand through the treatment, smiling and kissing his muzzle, telling her loving husband over and over again how brave he was being for her, for them. But he would have done so much more than that just to see her smile, making it more than worth it to him.

"It's..."

"What's that? Hon, I can't hear you!"

He didn't dress as he exited the bathroom, heart hammering, a slow, goofy smile spreading across his red muzzle, stretching his shaky lips wider and wider. It was true. It was finally true. Rebecca blinked at him and Jason held out the test to her, unable to form the words that would reveal the truth of the matter, however it was meant to play out in the end.

Taking it from him as if she didn't know what it was, she parted her lips, eyes hazy and unfocused, striving to see. Maybe her mind didn't want to let her see, to feel again, so soon but even Rebecca and all the turmoil that her poor heart and soul had been put through could not deny the positive sign on the digital screen of the pregnancy test, the expensive one that Jason had bought when he was not sure if the cheaper ones were giving him a false reading. He'd always been a little too hopeful and a couple of false alarms earlier had hardened her to the reality of a family being far more difficult than she could have ever expected.

And now things were going to be...well...a little more positive.

"It's positive."

He said at last, the words rushing from his lips at the moment she cast the test aside, lunging for him, eyes wide, lips parted.

"Really!"

He laughed, grabbing her and hugging her tight, squeezing her too hard.

"Yes! You saw it!"

Squealing, she grabbed his paws and jumped with him, bouncing as if the sheer volume of raw energy in her could not be contained, joy seeping through. And, just like that, it was as if the months of sadness and infertility had never happened at all, her egg implanted within him, safely cradled away and fertilised with his seed. She kissed him fiercely and he loved on her in return, lapping and kissing her muzzle over and over again, arms tight, joy spinning and rising, though they were still sure that it was set to fluctuate over the coming tumultuous time. After all, it was still an experimental procedure and the worst was past, even though they would be tracked and recorded through every step in the name of science and helping other couples in similar situations.

Kissing the top of his wife's head, Jason sighed, eyes half-lidded, a soft, blurry glow fuzzing up before them. Sometimes, things could come right.

Yet they were more difficult than even he could have imagined as he worked through the trappings of pregnancy that he should have been better prepared for, considering that he had ready baby book and pregnancy book after book, wanting to help Rebecca through her pregnancy and the early years as much as he could. There was nothing, however, that could have possibly have prepared him for starting the day with his head over a toilet bowl, throwing up what felt like the lining of his stomach but was only bile, resorting to dry heaving and gulping, whimpering and whining, when nothing further came out. And yet his body still thought that it had to throw up, nausea tipping and turning the room around him as if he was bobbing along at sea, although it was just as well that he had Rebecca there to keep him afloat the best she could, rubbing his shoulders and soothing the back of his neck.

"Darling... Sweetheart, have some water. Come on now, it'll make your mouth feel better."

She already showed how much motherly instinct was in her in how she looked after him, caring for him, making sure that he both drank enough and ate enough, even abstaining from the occasional glass of wine for him. Drinking wasn't something that either of them were keen on partaking in anymore after too many nights of taking care of drunken friends - why would they have ever have wanted to actively put someone in that position? Yet she had gotten close to going too far when the lowest of the lows had clung to her and the taste of even sweet liquor now left a foul taste in the back of her mouth, the memory more potent that the drink itself.

Jason groaned and took the water, lapping it out of the glass rather than chugging it down.

"Is it always going to be this bad?"

Her brow furrowed.

"I hope not... All femfurs get it differently. It makes sense that the hormones for this may be out of 'wack' too..."

"Fantastic."

Jason's dry sarcasm was not lost on her and her lips twisted in sympathy as she rubbed his back again, lost for anything else she could do for her sweet lover.

"It'll all be worth it," was all she could say in the end, a simple truth that brought them a little nudge closer together again. "Thank you so much."

His arm slunk around her waist even though he did not want to put his face too close to hers at that time, holding her as close as he dared with a light smile playing across his lips.

"You've got nothing to thank me for."

His stomach swelling as time went on seemed to happen in odd bursts, getting more of a bump to begin with as his body and hormones reacted to what he was taking and being supplemented with all to allow his body to carry a cub within him, a growing youngster that would need all the help they could get in life and on the way to birth too. His belly grew larger than he had initially expected and his belt had to be loosened off a couple of notches for work and the like, although they had not yet told anyone that they were expecting. Why not? Some would surely wonder but it was such a strangely new and experimental thing that the jury was still out on just how other furs would react to it. The true friends that they trusted and relied on, however, he was sure would stick right by them as they always had.

People thought he was just putting on a few pounds but the pounds he gained were all for the little one, often sitting at his computer desk at work with one paw on his belly, gently protecting and cradling it.

"You nursing a food baby there, Jason?"

Steve joked and he jumped, though the otter did not know just how close to the mark on that one he was.

"Oh... No, hah, yes... Big lunch, you know?"

Rebecca had laughed her socks off at that one later that night, giggling until she was a ruffled mess on the sofa. Neither of them was sure whether they should have told people at their places of work about it or not early on but, well, Jason was going to need some time off at the end of it all to give birth and there was the issue of who really needed the maternity leave the most too. How did it work when it was not the femfur giving birth? There weren't procedures in place for that sort of thing but it was the growing rise of his sensual belly that forced their paws on that matter, his workmates growing suspicious of how his body changed.

"Hey, Jason... We don't want to intrude but..."

There was nothing more awkward than a boar trying to ask a fox if they were ill or not, scratching the back of his roughly haired neck and grunting uncomfortably. If his supervisor could have gotten out of that conversation, he surely would have, choosing any other path simply to get the discomfort of it all well and truly out of his system. But, in the end, it had to be done and it was his responsibility.

"Are you quite well? We're concerned about you here, running to the bathroom a lot, you don't seem yourself..."

He trailed off, locked up in the boar supervisor, Ken's, private office, which was at least air-conditioned. Tipping his muzzle back, Jason groaned and put his forearm across his eyes, letting the cool air brush over his fur as he languished there, spelling out the last moments before everything on that side of his life too changed forever.

"Er, well, it's a long story, you see..."

After that, the jig was up and everyone knew - because Jason told them. There was no sense in hiding it as everyone wanted to know how everything was going, what was going on, how he felt about everything and there were no end of questions that had to be answered. Caught up in the sweep of it all, even Jason found himself surprised that they were so interested in the changes, although he knew too that the males at the office that shied away were fearful and perhaps not ones that he should take too personally. That kind of relationship would go back to normal, he was sure, once he had given birth.

The first ultrasound was an experience in itself and he worried right up to the very minute of going into the examination room that something was going to be wrong. The baby wasn't going to be healthy, something would be wrong, they wouldn't be big enough, the little developing foetus. Worry, worry, worry - he was worse than Rebecca and his sweet wife had never worried more than she had when she'd been with him and he'd been pregnant. Before then, she'd been happy-go-lucky and cheerful but motherly instincts on her part had most certainly kicked in even though she was not the one who was carrying a baby at this time. Maybe, in the future, science and medicine would progress enough that they could give their little one a brother or sister but that would have to be something for the future and not the immediate one at that.

"And how are we feeling today?"

The doctor, a kind kangaroo with soft, dark eyes, perched at her computer chair as the foxes made themselves comfortable, Rebecca holding Jason's paw as a gesture of comfort. He needed her there more than he let on and returned her squeeze softly and swiftly. Their doctor folded her paws in her lap, leaning forward, long ears twitching as if to catch subtle changes in the sounds of the practice moving on and bustling by on the other side of the closed door, although the attention of Dr Jones was one-hundred-percent focused on her patients at all times. Only, in her line of work, she could assure herself that her patients were all mostly happy to be there, which was something to be happy with at least in a medical field.

"Oh..." Jason laughed nervously, brushing his fingers back through the fur between his ears, which seemed to have gone silkier and shinier of late. "It's very strange... Do femfurs say that it feels weird too?"

Dr Jones laughed, nodding quickly.

"Yes, yes, of course! It's a big change the first time, don't you worry one bit about that. Have you had any pains? Cramps? Any strange cravings?"

It was difficult to go through everything that the doctor needed to know as neither of them had had any family or friends who had gone through pregnancy in recent times who may have, at least, been able to give them a leg up on what to say, what they needed to do. Dr Jones had more than enough information to overload them, however, and Rebecca bundled up all the leaflets and information booklets into her handbag, thanking Dr Jones profusely. Of course, the foetus was perfectly healthy as she spread gooey ultrasound jelly on Jason's stomach, the fox on the examination table, legs bent, the rise of his stomach emerging from a chest that was otherwise flat.

The difference in his stomach mystified him even as he marvelled at it. With a femfur, of course, their stomachs would rise in a natural manner for pregnancy but the lack of breasts made it off-putting at first and wondrous as his eyes grew used to it. That said, not even Jason was quite sure that he would be able to stop marvelling at the miracle of life taking place within him, even if it was not all quite as he'd originally expected. His chest muscles were not particularly well-defined, considering the coat of fur over the top of them, but even other parts of his body had become a little softer already, every part of him getting ready to carry and give birth, doing all that it needed to do.

He flinched from the cold jelly and turned his head to the screen, black and white and showing nothing at all as the scanner slid over his belly, fur slickened all the way down. Rebecca held his paw too tightly as Dr Jones talked about what she was doing, the words washing right over the two of them as they held their breathing, watching and waiting, wondering if all would be well still.

"Perfectly healthy!" The doctor announced after what seemed to be an inordinately long pause. "Look, there's your little one right there. It's too early to tell the sex as yet but I see nothing to be worried about here at all, based on what you've told me and what we see here. Congratulations!"

My baby...

Jason blinked at the screen, tears clouding his vision and spilling down his cheeks, whimpering and whining even as Rebecca held him close, shushing her surprised husband against the onslaught of emotion that seemed to have unduly risen up when it was not quite welcome.

"Hey now, shush, it's okay, didn't you hear? Everything's okay! You don't have to worry about anything, sweetheart, it's okay... I've got you."

But that wasn't what he was crying about as the hormonal supplements he was on wreaking havoc on his emotions, everything upside down and turned inside out, nothing quite as it seemed or was even meant to be. As much as he whimpered, however, there was no end to be in sight and he wailed and howled and blew his nose on his sleeve as the doctor, very patiently, offered a box of tissues and a glass of water.

"There, there," she murmured, although it was the tone of Dr Jones' voice that was more important than anything else. "It's all going to be okay, this is a lot to go through. Would you two like a minute?"

It turned out that Jason needed a lot more than a minute to compose himself again, heart wrenched for the little life growing with every passing second inside him. It was too much to take in, too much for his mind to handle, and yet he would have to handle it anyway and deal with it, Rebecca washing the ultrasound jelly very gently and lovingly from his fur, cleaning him up and drying him like she would be doing too for their little one in no time at all. Life had already changed but she kissed his belly softly, the rising swell, and nuzzled it, reminding him in that small action alone that everything was changing for the better for the two of them.

There would be more appointments to come but they told their friends about what was happening - everyone, that time - once they knew for sure that the foetus, their baby, was viable and healthy. It felt like they would have been jumping too far ahead of things otherwise, even though they felt that all was well, truly, worried about complications that could still, of course, arise through an alternative pregnancy. Jason's parents, as much as they loved Rebecca, were the hardest ones to win over but it was not as if they were going to complain about having a grandchild in the family, Jason the oldest out of his siblings while Rebecca was on her own. Her family wept and clutched at her paws, drawing Jason into their midst for a group hug that was a side more gentle than the bear hugs that their little tight-knit clan was otherwise used to.

"Relax now, baby..."

Rebecca murmured, kissing Jason's lips, the line of his jaw, down his neck. It was time for her to take care of him, lying along the length of the sofa, legs kicked up over the arm. He relaxed into it, unable to do anything but as she gently instructed, muscles soft and warm after a sensual massage that she had pulled from a baby book, something about caring for mom... Whatever it was, it felt great and he wasn't about to be making any complaints about it being for expecting mothers rather than expecting fathers! It all worked the same there, or so it seemed.