WHO: Abby and Leo Moore WHEN: Night of February 7, 2020 WHERE: Their home SUMMARY: Abby gets news from her sisters about their pregnancies and starts to put things together. WARNINGS: None Â
A little time had passed between Abby finding out about her sisters and their news and her dwelling just long enough to consider. In her defense, Rowan had been a bit more fussy than usual and that was more than a little distracting. In fact, as she watched her daughter finally, finally give into sleep in her crib for what would hopefully be a few hours of quiet before she or Hollis decided it was time to eat again, the twins had been enough of a distraction in the last week or so that it made sense for her to have not considered something was going on until just now.
When Abby had found out she was pregnant with the twins, it had been pretty obvious. The fatigue and morning sickness had been undeniable. Now, though, being tired was just a regular part of her life as she and Leo juggled twins and got used to parenthood. They had found a flow, just as Abby had known they would -- even if she did have more than a few moments of panic in those early days of only a couple months ago. But even the flow called for interrupted sleep schedules, leaving her more tired than she was used to.
And while Abby hadn't been experiencing any morning sickness like she had before, something still felt different. She didn't know how to describe it, but there was something. It felt absurd to think that that something could be her being pregnant, but once the thought came to mind, she couldn't dismiss it.
Luckily, she still had some pregnancy tests tucked away from when she and Leo had begun trying a year ago, the result of which being the twins. Even as Abby sat in the bathroom, waiting for the minutes to pass by and the test to develop, the louder part of her was sure that it was nothing. She was overthinking things, maybe even inexplicably feeling a little left out at the thought of her sisters getting to go through pregnancy together. There was no way that she and Leo could be expecting again. They'd just had the twins, after all.
She watched as the test finished its work, showing her the result. Immediately, unable to help herself, Abby let out a quiet laugh.
A moment later and Abby was navigating through the house in search of her husband. She left the test behind on the counter, waiting for any double checking that might need to be done later. "Leo?" she called, trying to narrow down where he would be, but keeping her voice low enough to not disturb any sleeping babies.
Leo, as it turned out, had fallen asleep at the dining room table where he’d set up his laptop to work on staging the newest play he was directing at the theater. There was not a single thing he would have changed about the past couple months of his and Abby’s lives but having been warned about the challenges of new parenthood, he had been utterly unprepared for how exhausted they’d both be. He tried his best to juggle his job with being as involved as he possibly could be with all of the demands of their infants, but it wasn’t entirely uncommon these days that he could be found exactly like this.
At Abby’s voice, he started, sitting up abruptly and swatting away a piece of paper that had stuck to his face.
“I’m up! I’m up,” he called back, pushing back the chair to stand up as he took a step toward where he thought he’d heard his wife’s voice coming from. There were no babies crying at the moment and he was pretty sure it wasn’t time for either of them to be fed, so it took him a moment to comprehend that she might be looking for him for reasons completely unrelated to Rowan and Hollis.
Pulling his hands down over his tired face, he took another step forward and, though keeping his voice low so as not to wake their children, called out, “I’m in the dining room!”
Having been already making her way in that direction, it only took Abby a moment to find her way into the dining room. She smiled as she surveyed the scene before her -- her husband, the work he had been doing. As always, a warm appreciation blossomed within her. Leo seemed to always do that to her, even when she was sitting on some very big news.
"They're both asleep," she said by way of greetings, stepping in to let her arms slip around Leo. "I don't know how long that's going to last, though, so I am here to deliver some news." Abby raised a playful eyebrow. "Are you ready?"
Leo’s arms automatically wrapped around his wife’s shoulders and he shook his head. “Not yet. Hold on.” He dipped his chin and placed a kiss against her lips, reveling in the fact that he could still do that so many years after that first night they had met. Even when they were sleep-deprived and in some part covered with varying amounts of spit up and baby powder, he was utterly and forever in awe of her.
“Okay, now I’m ready,” he added, a slow, sleepy smile spreading across his face.
"Except now I'm not ready," Abby teased in response, leaning up to bring him back in for another kiss as her arms looped around him. This was entirely the reason they were in this predicament, she knew; they had been quick to take advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves to spend time together -- perhaps a bit quicker than they ought to have, all things considered.
Not that there was much to do about it now, of course.
Abby let the kiss linger just a moment, before backing away and giving Leo a slow smile of her own. She cleared her throat and made an attempt at serious, despite that smile. "Okay, I have two bits of news. Tessa and Dottie are both pregnant."
It was entirely too easy for Leo to let himself be distracted by her and he couldn’t even feel bad about it considering he’d been the one to start it. But he was quickly distracted from that, too, at Abby’s news. “Whoa, really?” His eyebrows arched in surprise. “That’s kind of incredible, right?” And then he laughed. “It’s honestly too bad we didn’t hold off a little while longer, then your parents could have lost their minds over all three of you being pregnant at the same time. That would have been ridiculous, but kind of awesome.”
"About that." Abby hesitated, trying to decide how to break the second part of her news. They knew that they wanted to have more kids, but the thought was that they wouldn't start trying again until the twins were older. They were still babies. She also knew that Leo would be nothing but supportive, but this wasn't a planned pregnancy, like her previous one. It would still be a surprise.
"I took one of the pregnancy tests I still had lying around, just to check," she continued, tipping her head to the side as she surveyed Leo's face. "How would you like to be a dad again?"
“Oh.” It was the only word Leo could think of while his brain struggled to catch up with what exactly Abby was telling him. “You mean-- are we-- are you-- ?” He was a real wordsmith.
Abby pulled in her lower lip, biting it gently as she watched the journey Leo's expression took as what she had just said began to sink in. At his question, she just nodded for a beat before adding, "Uh huh." She swallowed hard before adding, dashing away any doubt or question, "I'm pregnant."
Leo lifted his hands and gently framed her face with them, leveling his gaze with hers. This was a lot. He hadn’t even really begun to process what this might mean for them, or how they were going to handle number three when they were already struggling with their two. But Leo was at least confident in the fact that he and Abby made a good team. There was nothing in this life, no matter how unexpected, that they couldn’t handle together.
“How are you feeling about this?” he asked, deciding that the most important thing right now was not the shellshock, but rather his wife who’d just been through nine months of pregnancy and delivery, and was inherently more exhausted than he was. He needed to make sure she was okay.
Abby considered his question. Not enough time had passed since she had walked from the bathroom after seeing the test result to enter the dining room for everything to truly sink in. This wasn't like the first time when they had found out she was pregnant; they had been planning then, actively trying to get pregnant. It hadn't taken very long, though, and perhaps that should have been an indication that they needed to actually be careful and take precautions if they were now actively trying to not get pregnant. Maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised, in the long run.
In the end, Abby decided to be honest with him. There was no option, really. The reason their relationship was as strong as it was and the reason it had lasted so long and had overcome years spent living on opposite coasts was because they were open and honest, no matter what.
"I'm a little terrified, to be honest," she said, her hands moving to circle around Leo's wrists. "I feel like I'm barely handling being a vaguely okay mother of the twins, so the idea of adding another to the bunch is just -- it's a lot. I've long since forgotten what being well-rested feels like. And being pregnant wasn't easy, so the idea of doing it again already isn't something I'm over the moon over, but..." A small smile formed on her lips, her fingers squeezing his wrists gently. "I've got you, yeah?"
Leo let out a small breath, at least glad to know that she felt comfortable being honest with him about how she was feeling and that they were on the same page in a lot of respects. He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss and let his forehead rest against hers. “You’ve always got me, Abby. And this won’t be easy, and I can’t promise we’re going to know how to juggle it the best way all the time, but I can promise that there’s no better team in any universe than the two of us, so I know we’ll figure it out together. If you want this, I want this,” he said. And then, with a soft laugh, he added, “And maybe once we’re through this one, we should consider how careful we want to be going forward.”
Abby had to laugh at that, matching his soft laugh with one of her own. She moved to let her arms circle around Leo, shaking her head slightly. "Spoiler alert, I'm going to err on the side of very." Though she knew that any children that they had together would be nothing but a blessing in their lives and she also knew that they had planned on having more kids eventually -- eventually was the keyword there. Maybe they would have another in the future, if they decided that would be a good idea. Abby would just advocate that the twins be at the very least able to speak and be out of diapers.
But, he was right. No matter what she and Leo decided, they were the best team in any universe. They would meet Baby #3 together, just as they had the surprise and challenge of finding out their first pregnancy was identical twins.
"I'll call and make an appointment in the morning," she said, leaning into Leo gently and breathing out a soft breath. "Do you want to come with to the appointment?"
Leo grinned. “I absolutely want to come to the appointment with you. I’m not about to let you meet Baby Moore 3.0 without me,” he teased.
Abby smiled, leaning in to steal a kiss from Leo -- and then one more, for good measure. There was temptation there to go in for a third, but she backed away instead, still smiling when she looked up at him. "I wouldn't dare," she teased in return, lifting one of her hands to cup his cheek. "But get ready for probably being lectured about not listening to doctor recommendations."
Leo stepped forward and went in for the third kiss himself, unable to help himself. He took a step back, though, and nodded with feigned solemnity. “You know, I think I can handle it. And, really, they can only expect so much from us, you know?”
Abby laughed -- then immediately caught herself, hoping that the sound wasn't loud enough to echo through the house and rouse their sleeping children. It had been known to happen in the past. When a second passed and she heard no sudden crying, she let her attention center back on Leo. "With a husband as handsome and wonderful as mine, they should probably have assumed this would happen from the start."
She took Leo's hand, lips brushing his knuckles before she continued, "I'm going to wait until tomorrow to tell my sisters. Do you have a lot of work left? Or can I talk you into some cuddling while the twins are actually asleep?"
Leo glanced back at his laptop and took a moment to step toward the dining room table to shut it. Looking back at his wife, he smiled and replied, “What work?”