Love in the Laundry Room

Some details and all names have been withheld, but this story is a fictionalized account of the conception and birth of my actual fourth child and first son, whose first birthday we celebrated in October of this year.

***

It's Saturday morning and the hamper is full, so I unceremoniously dump the contents into the laundry basket, picking up one of my bras that fell onto the floor and depositing it on top of one of my shirts before lifting the whole thing into the air and hauling it down the hallway.

My arms are already tired by the time I reach the top of the landing, and I have to put the basket down to rest my sore arms and aching back. As I'm resting against the banister, the creaking of footsteps on the carpeted staircase precedes my husband returning from supervising the girls.

I can't help but grimace at the fact that he's still wearing pajamas and a robe; not that I'm any more presentable in my baggy sweatpants and T-shirt, but something about a man dressed that way in the daytime makes me uncomfortable. He should be dressed and ready to do things.

"I put a cartoon movie on for them," he informs me, sidestepping the laundry basket, "that'll keep them occupied for the next hour and a half."

"Good." As much as I love our daughters, corralling three kids is exhausting, and I'm relieved they'll be out of our hair for the morning. "Actually, is the cartoon suitable for all of them?"

"Yes, of course it is," he assures me, and my grimace returns.

The girls are all under the age of eight, so he'd better have put on something appropriate for all three of them. As much as I really need to get the laundry done, I also want to go check up on them, but I trust him enough to let it go and focus on the chores.

"Oh, would you mind collecting the laundry from the girls' room?"

"Sure, I'll be right down." He closes in and plants a kiss on my lips, and I briefly feel something familiar poking at my belly before he walks off.

With my back and limbs somewhat recovered, I pick the laundry basket up again and make the treacherous journey down the stairs to the first floor. Sure enough, I can hear cartoon characters talking in high-pitched voices from the living room on my way past.

I put the laundry basket down again, as much to rest my arms as to have an excuse to poke my head through the open doorway. Sure enough, the three girls are all seated quietly on the couch, watching a group of cartoon dinosaurs traipsing through a magical forest with rapt interest.

They haven't noticed me, and I linger for a moment watching them surreptitiously. Even from the back they look adorable as a trio of heads with chestnut-brown hair, a genetic compromise between their father's dirty blond hair and my own silky black tresses. They're also remarkably quiet at the moment, you'd never guess from watching them now that they scream like banshees when they're excited about something.

I still have to do the laundry and so I quietly pick the basket up again and proceed to the laundry room. I haul the heavy load through the front hall, passing the framed family photograph of my husband and me posing with our daughters and their grandparents a year ago.

My husband looms large in the photo, his handsome face sporting a strong jawline, a thin nose, and cropped blond hair, along with twinkling blue eyes and a mischievous grin on his lips. He has one muscular arm around his darling wife's shoulder, an Asian woman with mixed Chinese and Japanese ancestry cradling our baby daughter sleeping in my arms.

His other arm is embracing our older two daughters, both grinning happily at the camera with smiles that match their father's, their chestnut-brown hair swept away from their mixed Wasian features, and their eyes matching the color of their hair. They're wearing matching dresses, and we managed to get them to sit still for long enough to pose for the family photo.

Their grandparents are in the back of the photo. My in-laws are standing behind their son with the same mix of Irish, German, and Slavic ancestry in their faces. Although my father-in-law's hair is starting to thin out, he has the same twinkling blue eyes and grin on his face as his son, while his wife looks more relaxed in her smile.

As for my parents, my second-generation Chinese American father has a more restrained smile, but with one loving hand on my shoulder, while my Japanese mother squeezes in between him and their son-in-law so that she's standing behind me. I definitely get my hair from her, and the same silky-black tresses are flowing over her shoulders.

Actually, I can see my reflection in the glass of the photograph and my hair looks like a bird's nest right now. I'm pulled out of the pleasant family memory of that day and back to the present, where I still have a gigantic pile of laundry to do, and so I carry my burden into the kitchen.

I'm pleased to see no dirty dishes or cutlery left out, although I can also see that the dishwasher isn't full yet. It's just a little further, and I haul the laundry basket around the edge of the kitchen table to the opposite end, pushing the door to the laundry room open with my foot.

The laundry room is practically a closet, just big enough to house a gigantic washing machine and an equally large dryer side by side against the far wall with enough space left over to allow a group of people to squeeze in together like sardines.

I place the laundry basket on the floor at the opposite end of the room and stretch my aching back. I can rest for a little bit before actually loading the laundry into the washing machine, not to mention that I'll have to separate my bras and other delicate items into their own wash cycle, in addition to separating the whites from the colored clothes, but all of that can wait.

As I'm resting, the laundry room door opens gently, and my husband appears carrying another laundry basket full of kids' clothes under the crook of one arm. It's not as heavy as the one that I had to carry all the way from the master bedroom, but the fact that he can carry the load with one arm makes me think that maybe doing the laundry should be his job, not mine.

"All the dirty clothes are here now," he says as he sets the basket down in the corner.

Instead of leaving, however, he shuts the door and moves the kids' laundry basket with his foot until it's blocking the door. I'm about to ask why he's blockading the entrance when I notice that he no longer has his pajamas on under his robe.

"Um, what are you doing?"

"I'm creating some privacy for us," he answers matter-of-factly, "the girls are watching their cartoon, and the episodes play in a loop, so we can keep them busy all morning if we want."

"OK, well, I still have to do the laundry, so..."

As I'm talking, he takes hold of one side of the big laundry basket and abruptly tips the whole thing onto the floor. I almost gasp in shock, still failing to catch onto whatever he has planned, but he silences me with a finger pressed gently to my lips.

"I'm gonna fuck you, sweetheart," he informs me with a confident growl while using his free hand to loosen the cord of his robe, "right here, right now, but not on the freezing-cold tiles."

I almost laugh at how brazen he's being, but this assertive upending of our daily domestic grind already has me excited. He kicks the pile of clothes across the floor, spreading them out into a rough bed, then pulls the cord of his robe away and lets the garment fall to the floor.

My husband refuses to let fatherhood undermine his physique, and the results of his hard work in the gym still make me wet. He pulls me into an embrace with his strong arms, his powerful chest pressing against my breasts and making me feel small and protected. His cock is already hard, extending to nearly seven inches and poking against my stomach.

Without warning, he reaches down and hooks his hands behind my knees, hoisting me up into the air. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on tight as he lowers me carefully to the floor, setting me down on top of the makeshift bed of dirty clothes strewn across the floor.

He kisses me again, his lips hungrily caressing and smothering mine while his tongue invades my mouth and slides between my teeth. His hands are already all over my chest, and I help him remove my T-shirt and let my breasts hang free. After three pregnancies, I feel lucky they've remained so firm, even though I no longer look like the sylph I was a decade ago.

I'm not quite as conscientious about keeping lean and fit as my husband but I work out enough on the spin bike to keep the love handles to a minimum. He seems to still like my body, judging by the way he's running his hands all over me and grinding against me, and the feeling of being so desired by my husband turns me one more than any foreplay ever could.

My sweatpants come off next, and the knot of the cord has already come so loose I'm surprised I didn't have a wardrobe malfunction on my way down the stairs. My husband discards them along with the rest of the clothes, leaving us both naked in the laundry room.

He kisses my neck and then moves down to my chest, his mouth lingering on my nipples while he kneads each of them gently. He likes to do that, and even though it's not my favorite part of our foreplay, it really turns him on. Besides, the tingling in my breasts is starting to ripple down through the rest of my body, causing an outbreak of goosebumps in tandem with the cool air.

Before long, his kissing moves from my breasts to my mostly smooth belly, lingering on my jeweled navel piercing which I insist on keeping even as a mom-of-three in her thirties. He uses his tongue to toy with the piece of jewelry before giving my navel a smothering kiss and then moving down towards the real prize.

I used to shave completely bald down there, but then one day my husband remarked that he'd quite like to see some "texture" on my crotch. In exchange for his promise not to grow a beard, I took his suggestion and let my pubic hair grow until I could trim it into a neat black triangle. He loves my handiwork, and I've kept it that way ever since.

He rubs his cheeks against my carefully curated fuzz before sliding further down until his nose is brushing up against my clitoris. I open my thighs a little wider for him and arch my chest up towards the ceiling as I feel his lips touch my labia, the sensation of his wet tongue sliding over my slit sending another ripple of pleasure through my body.

He hooks his hands behind my splayed thighs as he buries his face in my pussy, smothering it with his mouth as he licks and sucks greedily at my womanhood. All three of our children came out of that same opening, and the sudden awkward thought almost makes me laugh. I suppress the laugh so as not to break his concentration, and instead sink my fingers into his hair, dragging them through his locks like plows running through a golden field.

At this rate, he's going to make me cum before he can even get inside me, and I'm all for it.

Sure enough, a sharp moan suddenly escapes my lips as a burst of pleasure erupts in my groin, making me squirt a little onto his face. I clamp my free hand over my mouth, fearful of alerting our children, but he keeps going down on me regardless. My labia are engorged with arousal, and as he slides his tongue across my clit, I need something more substantial inside of me.

Sensing that I'm ready, my dear husband rises until he's in a kneeling position and readies his weapon for battle. I gaze thirstily at his thick cock and spread my legs even wider to accept it as he lines the tip of his spear up with the wet gates of my womanhood before pushing inside.

He's been inside me thousands of times before, and it still feels just as good as the first time he fucked me. I can barely suppress the moan of pleasure that huffs from my lungs by gritting my teeth as I feel his length penetrate me to the hilt, his girth stretching my walls and filling me up so snugly it's as if my pussy was made for him and him alone.

He starts thrusting almost immediately, perhaps eager to enjoy our coupling, perhaps anxious to finish before our kids come looking for mommy and daddy. The weight of his muscular body on top of mine is bearable, and I savor the feeling of his hairy chest sliding across mine. He's allowing my body to support his weight and resting his head next to my ear, so I can hear him breathing heavily as he exerts himself to fuck me.

His strokes settle into a steady rhythm while staying forceful, like a battering ram of masculine flesh knocking against the sacred gates of my womb. Not literally, of course, actually getting poked in the cervix would be kind of painful, but I still like the image, almost as much as I like reaching down to squeeze his gorgeous ass as it rises and falls between my open thighs.

It's been a while since he last propositioned me anywhere other than the bedroom, and although the comfort of our own bed and the warmth of the covers and sheets as we make love definitely has its own appeal, it's about time he had his way with me in a more exotic location. He must have been thinking the same thing, and I absolutely love him for it.

Unfortunately, this definitely needs to be a quickie, and as if sensing my thoughts or having the same thoughts of his own, my husband quickens the pace of his strokes, thrusting harder and more aggressively into me. I struggle to suppress my moans of pleasure while holding on tight to my dear husband's taut ass as his cock pistons back and forth inside me.

Soon enough, his heavy breathing turns into audible grunting as he approaches climax. My grip on his ass tightens as I instinctively resolve not to let him pull out at the last moment, or at all, and when his pleasure boils over, he groans loudly into my ear and releases himself into me.

The sensation of his hot cum spurting into my vagina turns my legs to jelly, and I hold him in place while he fills me up, shooting jets of liquid love inside me. As his ejaculations subside, I drag my nails up his flanks while he recovers his breath, enjoying his wife's touch on his bare skin while the last dribbles of cum leave his cock.

"That was... amazing..." the words leave my mouth in a breathy sigh.

"I'm glad you enjoyed that as much as I did."

He raises his head and smiles at me before planting a loving kiss on my lips. The kiss turns into another tongue kiss, and I embrace him again, holding his head close as the bliss of our kissing threatens to morph into an early second round of sex.

It doesn't come to that, though. He gently breaks off the kiss and withdraws his penis from me, rolling to the side until he's lying next to me atop the spread-out pile of dirty laundry. I can feel his semen starting to dribble out of me already, leaking from my slit and running over my crack onto the clothes where it's going to leave a very obvious stain.

"I think I'm leaking cum all over your dress shirt," I remark with a satisfied grin.

"Feel free to use it to clean up, it's going in the wash anyway." My husband holds his erection in one hand and gives it a few idle tugs. "I'll need to clean up as well."

"I can help you with that."

I roll towards him and slide downwards until my head is level with his waist. Then I reach over and take a hold of his penis, making him relinquish his grip, and then lean over and plant my lips on the head. I taste the salty drop of cum dribbling from the tip of his cock and enclose his whole glans between my lips, trying to get as much of his shaft into my mouth as possible.

It's a lazy effort, more about cleaning him up and teasing him some more than actually trying to get him off a second time, but it does the trick. I withdraw my cock from his mouth and take a breath before sliding back upwards and laying my head on his shoulder.

"Are we trying for another one?" I ask suddenly.

The question isn't entirely a bolt from the blue, but it does shift his mood abruptly. He suddenly looks alarmed by the thought, even though we've been dancing around the issue for a while. If he's going to spring surprise sex on me during laundry duty, it may as well be brought up now.

"I mean officially. We've done almost nothing serious to avoid it except with me tracking my cycles, and we both know that's not gonna work forever."

"That's because..." he trails off before finishing.

"Listen, you hate condoms and I sure as shit am never going back on hormonal birth control again," I remind him emphatically, "and since neither one of us is comfortable with anything surgical or permanent, either we get serious about contraception or accept that a fourth baby is bound to arrive sooner or later."

He's silent for the longest time, either because he's thinking or because he has no answer.

"Maybe we should try for a fourth one," he responds at length, "I always feel outnumbered by four women in this house, so it'd be nice to have a boy."

"And if we have another girl?"

"Well, then I'll have to keep knocking you up again and again until a boy comes along."

"Oh, you pig," I say with a laugh and playfully thump his arm, "but I guess I can accept that if you agree to take over laundry duty from me."

"But you already do such a good job of it," he counters, standing up and looking for his robe.

"That basket feels like it weighs a ton when it's fully loaded," I argue, retrieving my sweatpants and T-shirt, "anything involving heavy lifting should be a man's job, and since carrying all that dirty laundry involves serious heavy lifting, that means it should be your job."

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it," my husband replies as he finds his robe and puts it back on, "but for now, we need to shower and put some actual clothes on."

"I already showered this morning," I point out, picking up the clothes on the floor and loading them into the washing machine, "and you made me filthy again."

"Shall I wait for you so we can shower together?"

"No, that's OK," I assure him, kneeling in front of the washing machine, "and besides, one of us needs to be around in case the girls need something."

"Fair enough." He tightens the cord on his robe and is about to leave when he pauses in front of the door and turns back to me. "You're leaking, by the way."

I follow his finger to the wet patch in the crotch of my sweatpants, but when I look up again, he's gone, quietly shutting the laundry room door behind him. I definitely can't be seen around the house with a visible wet patch, which means I may have to join him in the shower after all.

***

Our three daughters all share one big bedroom, with the older two sleeping in a bunk bed and our youngest in the smallest bed in the opposite corner. It's my turn to read them their bedtime stories tonight, and once I've finished, I kiss all three of them good night.

I kneel down by the side of my youngest daughter's bed and brush a lock of her chestnut hair away from her face, a perfect interracial mix of my husband's European ancestry and my own combination of Chinese and Japanese heritage. Her eyes are closed in sleep, her chest moving softly as she breathes, and I plant a loving kiss on her forehead before standing up carefully.

She won't be the youngest in the family for long.

I close the door behind me as quietly as I can, caressing my second-trimester belly, and walk back down the hallway towards the master bedroom. The light is still on, and I return to find my husband in bed waiting for me, checking his phone by the light of the bedside lamp.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, putting his phone away.

I take off my robe and hang it up, leaving only my loose pajama pants and a pajama top with the bottom three buttons undone to let my belly breathe, exposing my navel piercing. The metal barbell is no longer comfortable to wear, so I've swapped it out for a flexible plastic one.

"Like a fertility goddess," I purr, climbing into bed and sliding over towards him, "every time I look at them, I can't help but think about how I grew all three of them inside me and pushed them out into the world, and now I'm doing it all over again."

He wraps his arm around me as I snuggle up to him, resting my head on his shoulder with my pregnant belly brushing up against his flank. I can already feel the mood starting to grow, so I undo the remaining buttons on my pajama top and set my heavy breasts free.

He leans over and gives me a kiss. The kiss continues with his lips sliding softly across mine, and I try to pull him closer to bring my tongue to bear, mindful of my bump separating us. The hair on his muscular chest tickles and scratches my sensitive nipples while my pregnant belly brushes against his hard stomach, but then he breaks off the kiss and stalls our foreplay.

"I think your belly might get in the way if we do it in missionary," he explains, placing a hand on my hip, "I don't wanna disturb the baby."

"The baby's too young to know or care," I respond, suppressing my annoyance, "and I'm not wearing myself out by getting on top, so you're just gonna have to take me from behind."

Without waiting for a reply, I pull my pajama pants down and pull the covers away, then turn onto all fours and present my ass to my husband. He's a bit slow to respond at first -- he'd better not be looking for an excuse to refuse sex tonight -- but eventually he unbuttons his own pajama pants and gets up onto his knees, positioning himself behind me.

"Come on, daddy," I beg him, pressing my face against the bedsheets, "you have no idea how unbearably horny I am at this stage. Just fuck me already."

My husband answers by rubbing the tip of his cock against my swollen labia, tapping it a few times on the entrance before sliding it into me. I groan with satisfaction as I feel his length slip inside me, his girth pushing out my vaginal walls as he penetrates my pregnant pussy.

He grips my hips and sinks his fingers into the flesh of my ass and begins thrusting into me. I scrunch the sheets up in my fingers, savoring the sensation of his hips slapping against my ass with each stroke. He's still being pretty gentle, but it's late and we both need to get some sleep after this, so it's fine if he doesn't go all out tonight.

I reach underneath myself, stroking my pregnant belly before reaching down even further and locating my clitoris with my fingers. I love giving myself a reach-around in this position, and it isn't long before I start to feel the pressure in my crotch from the growing pleasure.

My husband is still thrusting away. His rhythm is more dutiful and steady, fulfilling a necessary marital task to keep his pregnant wife happy, and that's fine by me, even though I know for a fact that he loves me being pregnant with his child.

A little moan escapes my lips as the pleasure grows in my pussy. I can hear my own wetness as his cock slides back and forth against my lubricated walls, my juices creating a squelching noise as my dear husband plumbs the depths of his pregnant wife's vagina.

Another moan makes it out of my mouth as I come close to cumming from teasing my clitoris. It's too much to expect that I'll have a full-blown orgasm, but the pleasure of being taken from behind is enough for me tonight, and sure enough, my husband pushes his hips against my ass and groans as he unloads inside me.

I do have a little orgasm as the sensation of his semen spurting into my pregnant pussy mingles with the pleasure of touching myself, and I bite the sheets and moan into the fabric in an effort to keep the noise to a minimum. My husband holds himself inside me, breathing deeply from the effort, playfully squeezing and rubbing my ass cheeks while I push my rear back at him.

When he's recovered, he withdraws his cock from inside me, and flops back down on the pillow while I turn onto my side again and snuggle back up to him. He pulls the sheets back over us and reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp, plunging the bedroom into cozy darkness.

***

It's just after nine o'clock at night when we say our goodbyes to our hosts and the other guests and depart the party. We take our sweet time with the five-minute stroll down the street to our house, our path lit by bright streetlamps looming over the sidewalk. Clouds of insects drawn to their white-hot light cause countless tiny shadows to dance across the pavement.

"I still think it's weird to have a Halloween party in early October."

"And I'm still glad the party happened now rather than later," I answer, walking ponderously arm-in-arm with my husband while holding my swollen belly with my free hand, "because the baby will arrive before Halloween does, and then I wouldn't be able to wear this costume."

We must make for an incredibly strange sight to anyone looking out their windows: a tall blond man wearing a vaguely military-looking uniform escorting a heavily pregnant Asian woman dressed from head-to-toe in a handmaid's outfit.

My gown and robe are blood red with the hem reaching down to my ankles, and I even have a full-sized white bonnet just like the ones in the show, although I ended up taking it off when we got to the party after realizing just how impractical it is wearing something that blocks my peripheral vision. Apart from that, being close to nine months pregnant makes the outfit perfect.

"Maybe I should've gone around the party introducing myself as 'Of White Stud'."

"Is that my name now?" my husband asks with a laugh, "'White Stud'?"

"Yes, Commander White Stud and his fertile Asian handmaid Of White Stud."

"That show got kind of weird in the later seasons."

"Because powerful men ritually raping and impregnating their fertile sex slaves for religious reasons while their wives watch wasn't weird enough?"

"Actually, the whole premise of the show made no sense now that you mention it, but at least it gave you a great idea for a Halloween costume."

I'm about to respond when I notice a ticklish wet sensation around my nipples.

"Oh, dammit," I utter with a groan, "I think I'm leaking again."

"I don't see anything," my husband observes.

"I'm wearing a padded bra, so that should catch the leakage," I explain, resisting the temptation to rub or scratch, "it's just uncomfortable, but I'll have to clean up once we get back home."

As I say those words, we reach our own driveway and make the final trek up to the front door.

"Did you pay the babysitter?" I ask my husband as he searches for the housekeys.

"I paid upfront through the agency," he assures me, "it's all taken care of."

"You're so dependable," I say with a smile, planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Would you trust me to father four kids if I weren't?"

"No woman in her right mind would," I reply with a laugh.

***

My in-laws live a lot closer to us than my own parents, and so they're the ones who come over to babysit the girls in preparation for the birth. I would have loved to have all my children with me to welcome their newest sibling into the world, but my husband overruled me. Bringing the whole family along to the hospital really isn't feasible when you have to balance taking care of a laboring wife and keeping three young girls preoccupied during an all-night event.

Since he's in charge of the logistics, I agreed to the plan.

We've already eaten dinner and my husband is putting our children to bed when the first gurgle makes itself felt deep in my gut. I almost want to think it's something I ate, but I'm fully nine months along and ready to pop, so I know instantly that the time has come.

I calmly undress and take a late-night shower, methodically shaving my armpits and bikini line. When my gut reminds me that the baby is on its way, I have to pause and lean forward against the shower wall, focusing on deep, slow breathing until the pain passes. Once I've finished, I exit the shower dripping wet and grab the nearest towel from the rack.

Another, stronger contraction occurs, and I plant my hands on the rim of the sink and breathe and moan until it subsides. I'm drying myself off when my husband returns, looking puzzled by the fact that I'm having a shower so late at night.

"It's time."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure." My tone is a little sharper than I intended, but he gets the message.

While I finish drying myself and putting on some sweatpants and a T-shirt, my husband makes sure everything is packed for the hospital before informing his parents that their daughter-in-law is in labor. As I waddle down the carpeted steps, guided by the steady hand of my mother-in-law, my husband carries the overnight bag out to the car while my father-in-law waits by the front door. I exchange hugs and farewells with both of them before waddling out to the car.

As soon as I'm in the car, another powerful contraction hits me as I fumble with my seatbelt, and I have to breathe and moan for a moment before putting my seatbelt on. Once everything is ready, my husband starts the ignition and pulls out of the driveway onto the street, and I close my eyes and try to ignore the motion of the car as it threatens to upset my delicate insides.

I'm feeling kind of nauseous, but it's nothing I haven't felt before, and I know I can bear this. Even so, the journey to the hospital brings back all the pain and discomfort I endured to bring my daughters into the world. In fact, since none of my prenatal checks revealed any causes for concern, it also occurs to me that I could have gotten away with a home birth.

That would have been lovely. Maybe. I remember that my husband arranged a water birth for me in advance, which should be a lot nicer than a delivery bed, but it also makes me wonder if it wouldn't have been easier for me to give birth in the bathtub with the whole family around.

Yes, that would have been lovely. The familiar comfort of my own home with my husband on hand to support and encourage me through my fourth birth while our daughters witness their mother delivering their baby sibling coming into the world.

Actually, no, they're way too young to watch that sort of thing, but after giving birth it'd be nice if they got to meet the newest member of the family immediately instead of the morning when mommy gets back from the hospital.

Another contraction interrupts my contemplation of the benefits of a hypothetical home birth, and I gasp and moan while wondering how much time has passed since the previous one. My husband asks how I'm doing and I give him a blunt "I'm fine" in response.

That contraction was definitely stronger than the last one, and once it subsides, it occurs to me that it's probably better to deliver in the hospital just in case something does go wrong.

It also occurs to me that I'm wearing the same clothes I had on when my husband fucked me in the laundry room nine months earlier.

***

It's only a 45-minute drive to the hospital from our home, but I feel like we've been traveling all night when my husband finally pulls into an empty parking space and helps me out of the car. The process of him locking the car, escorting me into the hospital, checking in at the front desk, and me being carried in a wheelchair to the delivery room all passes in a blur.

Suddenly, I'm standing in front of a birthing tub that looks like a jacuzzi without the water jets, and my husband is helping me get undressed. I'm in active labor, and when another contraction erupts inside me, I have to lean forward against my husband and hyperventilate, willing the pain downwards until I recover enough to finish taking my clothes off.

My T-shirt comes off first. It barely covered my massively swollen belly anyway, and now my equally swollen breasts are bared to the entire room. There was no point putting on a bra before we left, since I'm going to be naked in the tub anyway, and I tug my sweatpants down past my hips along with my panties, letting them slide down my thighs and past my knees onto the floor.

I may have the grace and flexibility of a beached whale, but at least I can step out of my pants and underwear and lift a leg over the rim of the tub on my own. The weirdness of a bunch of strangers, even though they're all non-judgmental medical professionals, being able to see my trimmed bush never quite goes away, but the more the pain of labor intensifies, the less I care.

My husband supports me as I extend my other leg over the rim of the tub, then cautiously squat down in the warm water. The midwife is standing on the other side to assist me, and I try to get comfortable as my body is submerged up to my swollen stomach.

Just then, another contraction bubbles up in my belly, and I breathe, brace, and ride out the pain. I cry out as my body shakes uncontrollably, sending violent ripples across the water. I struggle with all my mental strength to resist the urge to bear down and push, mindful that I have to wait until my cervix is at least ten centimeters dilated before I can do that.

I struggle through the transition phase, the part where the baby squeezes through the cervix little by little. Occasionally, the midwife will ask to check how dilated I am, and I nod my consent and she sticks two gloved fingers into my vagina. Mercifully, those interventions are few and far between. I don't want to be touched or fingered any more than necessary.

The real sign that I'm fully dilated and ready to push is when the urge to bear down becomes so overwhelming that I question whether I have the strength to keep going. I must have said it aloud because I hear my husband's voice next to my ear assuring me that I can. His hand is in mine, and I squeeze it like a stress ball as the contractions become more powerful.

The baby is descending slowly but surely through my distended birth canal. Every time I feel another contraction boiling up in my belly, I go through the same process of breathing, bracing, and pushing. My moans are almost musical as I try to use them to channel the pain downwards into the act of pushing the baby out, but it only seems to be getting harder.

I've done this three times before, and I remember wondering how it could possibly be this hard, and yet I still managed to deliver successfully each time, and the knowledge that I can do this because I've done it before helps to keep me going. So does the fact that the man who knocked me up is kneeling by the side of the tub, holding my hand as I struggle to push our child out.

We don't speak in between the contractions. He knows that I don't want to hold a conversation while I'm naked and in so much pain, and apart from occasional words of encouragement, he wisely keeps silent throughout, mainly offering aid in the form of his hand, which I habitually squeeze like I'm trying to crush it in my grip.

I randomly think back to our friends' Halloween party that we attended only a week ago. My handmaid costume was easily the most elaborate outfit there, and now I think back to the show itself and the scenes of the handmaids delivering their babies.

There's no reason to think about that show. I'm not a sex slave. I'm a happy wife and mother who chose to have a big family, and even though having another baby is the last thing I want to contemplate right now, I can't guarantee I won't be right back here in the next few years.

Yet another contraction arrives, and my moaning turns to a pained squeal as the baby descends just a little further towards freedom. I can now feel that familiar stinging sensation around my perianal region, the part where the baby's head is stretching my labia as far as they physically can. This is the ring of fire that every birthing mother dreads, and the dull burning feeling in between the gut-squishing sensation of each contraction is an unwelcome, constant presence.

On the bright side, it also means that I'm in the home stretch of this ordeal.

I can hear one of the nurses talking, but I can't tell whether she's trying to encourage me or if she's speaking to the doctor as they prepare to catch my baby. Either way, another contraction bubbles up in my gut and once again, I breathe, brace, and push.

Little by little, I feel my baby's head squeeze out between my labia. The doctor's hands are in the water, carefully guiding the baby out of me as it slides slowly but surely into the water. The shoulders come next, and then suddenly the whole body is out of me.

A wave of physical relief washes over me as the pain and strain abruptly abates. Someone notes the time and then suddenly my baby is on my bare breast and I'm crying with joyful relief as my fourth child starts to cry on my chest. My husband leans in and I can see a tear in his eye too as we welcome our newborn into the world.

A quick check between the baby's legs reveals that we have our first son.

***

My infant son smacks his lips as I pull down the front of my shirt and expose my breast, then raise him up to my nipple and allow him to latch on. He suckles contentedly while I hold him, his big dark eyes focused solely on the source of nourishment.

I hear footsteps entering the living room and I look up to see his father walk in.

"Do you need me to get anything else from the store?"

"No thanks," I respond, then I look up at him, "come sit with me, the groceries can wait a bit."

My husband obliges and takes a seat next to me on the couch, wrapping his arm around me and leaning in to watch our son, who doesn't break his focus on my breast.

"I'm so glad we finally have a boy."

"Don't you love your daughters?" I ask him teasingly.

"Of course, but now I'm no longer the only man in the house."

Our son and I had stayed overnight at the hospital, and so my husband had slept on one of the benches in the hallway. Once we were all rested and the doctors informed me that I could be discharged, he had driven us home. The girls were woken up at seven in the morning to come downstairs and meet their new baby brother and get accustomed to being a family of six.

That was about a month ago, and we've hardly had a good night's sleep since then. Still, it was absolutely worth it, even as my body is still recovering from pregnancy. At least I was able to take that ugly plastic piercing out of my navel and put the metal barbell back in.

"Do you still feel sore?"

"Well, I didn't tear," I remind him, knowing what he's really asking, "but the doctor did say to wait for eight weeks, except you should remember that."

"I remember we only waited about six weeks last time," he points out.

"You're just conspiring to get me pregnant again, aren't you?"

"Maybe I just really want to make love to my beautiful wife again as soon as possible," he says, leaning in and planting a loving kiss on my lips.

Our baby son continues suckling with an uncomprehending look on his adorable face, oblivious to the conversation between the two grown-ups. He's already got some thin strands of hair on his head, although there isn't enough to see the chestnut-brown color combination just yet.

"And to think this all started in the laundry room," I comment absent-mindedly.

My husband looks at me in confusion.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten that time you had your way with me while I was doing laundry."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now," he answers as the details come back to him.

"I can hardly forget it."

THE END