Enter Renee Stevens. She read the story first and told me I couldn't delete it. *cries* Then we went to work. This story went through several beta processes. Cannd stepped up and offered some invaluable advice and input as well. Finally, Picked at the Peak posted on GA as a Premium Content story... and now, finally, is an eBook! I made a new cover for it as well.
I really hope that you like the story too! If you purchase a copy, please consider leaving me a review, EVEN if you don't like it. I value all input, but if you hate on it, at least tell me why, lol!
Synopsis:
Aislin was surrounded by his extensive, but close-knit, family his whole life. He was the younger brother or the cousin they needed to protect and the kid’s favorite uncle, but he was never just Aislin. His overbearing family rarely listened to him, so sure they knew best. His adult years had all been about proving that the accident that damaged his leg as a teenager didn’t limit him.
He started a microbrewery business, bought a winery and
decided to have... a baby.
The news shocked his family and friends, but he was
determined to be a single parent. Not that Aislin wouldn’t love to have a
partner, but dating never really worked out for him. It didn’t matter if he was
gay, or single, or had a handicap. He was more than prepared.
He was not
expecting the drastic change the next nine months would wreak on his life. Excerpt:
"How exactly does a gay man get pregnant?" Conn asked as the room fell silent.
Teague
smirked. "Yeah, was it the old-fashioned way, insert slot A into slot B?
Who’s the baby daddy? Are you going to start showing soon?" His wife
smacked him on the arm. "Ow."
"Don't
be vulgar." Karen sat on the arm of his chair. She gave him a warning
look. "Let Aislin talk."Aislin sighed. "I am not pregnant, you idiots." He glared at his cousin and his brother. "A woman is having the baby, not me." Teague’s raised eyebrow and open mouth made him hold up his hand. “And no, I didn’t get her pregnant the old-fashioned way either.”
"A
woman?" His cousin Nora was sitting next to him. She'd just finished
feeding her daughter Anna and was trying to burp the fussy baby. She frowned at
him. "Is she someone we know?"
"No,
she's not a friend of mine or anything. Here, let me." He took the
squirming infant and set her against his shoulder. He gave her a few strong
pats on her back and then ran his fingers up her spine. Her little back arched,
and she burped. He rubbed her silky hair, kissing the side of her head before
handing her back to her mom.
"Thanks.
You've always been good with the kids," Nora said. “How exactly is a woman
having a baby for you? Why haven’t we heard anything about this before?"
Aislin
looked around the living room. His entire family had come together in his house
for Thanksgiving, and as big as it was, the living room was still packed with
his family including all his aunts, uncles, and cousins. The older kids were
all running around upstairs except for his brother's twin toddlers who were
sitting in a playpen in the corner and the baby in Nora’s arms.
His little
announcement had stopped everyone's conversations, and they were all staring at
him. Most of the guys had taken up the chairs and seats near the TV to watch
football, and the women were discussing their game plan to hit the early Black
Friday sales. His father had muted the TV as soon as Aislin dropped his little
conversation bomb though, and they had all turned to stare at him.
Aislin
scanned the faces nearest to him, his brother and cousins. "Look, between
the eight of you there are twenty two kids under the age of fifteen in this
house. I love each and every one of them, and it’s great being Uncle Aislin,
but I've always wanted to be a dad. It felt like now was the right time."
He hesitated
to look at his mom. A lot of Aislin’s fear of telling his family hinged on how
his mother would react. Would she think he was doing the wrong thing to have a
baby? His dad might have been the one to lay down the law when he and Teague
had gotten in trouble while growing up, but they'd both would’ve preferred
facing his wrath than their mother's disappointment. Sorcha Kavanagh could be a
very scary woman.
Another of
his cousins moved over and sat down on the couch on the other side of him and
patted his knee. "Well, I'm happy for you," Carlyn said.
He winced
and pulled away. After most of the family dinners the women would surround him
on the couch. He got to play with the babies, whom he enjoyed, but sometimes
they forgot how sensitive his bad leg was. He pulled his forearm crutch up and
leaned it against the couch next to his thigh to create a barrier.
"Thanks."
He finally glanced at his mother but her face was still a blank canvas, her
emotions hidden as she listened to him answer all the questions coming his way.
He bit his lip. When was she going to say something?
Roisin
cleared her throat. "Not that we aren't all happy for you, but what
exactly brought this desire on to have kids now?" His aunt was sitting
next to his mother on a love seat in the corner by the playpen where they could
coo over the twins.
Aislin
looked at baby Anna, her body seemingly boneless now that she was sated, as she
snuggled innocently in Nora’s arms. He reached out to touch one finger to her
petal soft cheek. "Well, Nora and Luke had just had Anna. I was visiting
them in the hospital, and I kept thinking that I wanted that.”
The desire
had been so strong he’d had to leave and find a quiet place to think. The
hospital atrium had a small fountain he’d sat at many times before while
waiting for a niece or nephew to make their way into the world. He’d sat there
for an hour before a dad had walked over with a little boy and coaxed him to
throw in a coin. He wished, in a sweet voice, for his new baby brother to be
born that week while a very pregnant, and exhausted looking, mom stood waiting
for them. He’d known right then, as he watched the man pick up and laugh with
his son, that he wasn’t willing to wait anymore. Aislin sighed. “I wanted a
baby of my own. I wanted to be able to take home a beautiful miracle and be a
daddy. So I decided to look into my options."
His dad
cleared his throat. "So what exactly did you mean when you said that
you're having a baby? Are you adopting this woman’s child?"
"No."
He looked over at his dad who sat with his arms crossed over his chest. "I
found a surrogate. She is actually having my baby. I didn't really expect it
all to happen so fast. She got pregnant on our first try. We found out three
weeks ago that it worked."
His fingers
pinched the crease on his dress pants. It was all still so surreal. He’d
expected the process to take longer even though he'd been planning every step
along the way. He’d learned that his baby would come at its own pace,
regardless of his own expectations. "So, according to the doctor, sometime
late next July or early August, my son or daughter will be born."
"Why
didn't you tell us?" Aislin wasn't fooled by the soft tone in his mother's
voice. He sucked in a quick breath and let it out with a heavy sigh.
"I
don't know, Mom. I wasn't sure of how it would all work, and by the time I'd
talked to a lawyer, found a surrogate, and we started the whole process I
couldn't help but feel like it was sort of private. How was I supposed to tell
you that I was going to a clinic to have my sperm inserted into a strange woman
so we could hopefully make a baby?" A blush washed over him and he felt
his face heat just saying that.
Teague
snickered, and Karen smacked him.
“Intrauterine
insemination isn’t any more successful than the average traditional attempts to
make a baby. I thought I had a few months to figure out how to tell you. I
just,” he shrugged one shoulder, “I wanted to do that part on my own.”
A look of
hurt crossed over her face.
With his large
family, privacy was in short supply. After his accident when he was sixteen
most of his family members tended to be a little smothering in their desire to
make sure he was okay. Their behavior made him fight for his independence even
more after he recovered and eventually led to him moving farther away from the
family than anyone else.
He had to hope
his mother would understand. If he could only explain the way he felt, the
anxiety and fear the IUI wouldn’t work, or his worry that somehow his
disability would prevent him from becoming a dad. "I didn't do it to hurt
anyone. I only waited three weeks to tell the family that the baby was actually
a reality until now because I wanted to have everyone all together for Thanksgiving.
Sometimes I can't really believe that it's actually happening still and,"
he hesitated, "I wasn't sure how everyone would react."
His mother
spoke carefully, "Did you think that we wouldn't welcome your child just
as much as your brother's and your cousins’ babies?"
Aislin
blinked. "No, of course not!" The thought had never crossed his mind.
He knew that his parents wouldn't treat any child he had differently from their
other grand kids, and neither would anyone else in the family. "I don't know
if I could explain why I wanted to do this on my own. I only had enough money
for two tries with a surrogate, but I didn't expect it to really happen the
first time. I didn't want to get everyone's hopes up if it didn't work, maybe,
but I didn't mean to hurt anyone. When it did, I wanted to wait to make sure
nothing went wrong."
Teague
cleared his throat. "How are you going to do everything on your own? Kids
aren't exactly easy to take care of." He glanced at Aislin's crutch.
That argument
Aislin was prepared for. "I managed to keep Tasha and Sammy overnight
didn't I? We were perfectly fine on our own. I'm pretty sure I can handle one
baby."
"You
did," said Teague's wife Karen. "But there is a big difference from
babysitting to having a baby dependent on you twenty-four hours a day."
"And
each of you made that leap with help from the family," Aislin pointed out,
"and so will I. Look, I know better than any of you what my limitations
are. I would never have considered having a baby if I didn't think I could take
care of him or her. Yes, I have a bad leg, and I need a crutch to walk.” He
didn’t mention the pain he lived with or how much he could ache at the end of
the day. Pain was a fact of life for him and wasn’t going to change, but he
wasn’t going to let that reality dictate his life.
“I’m not
really fast. I have a bad leg and use a crutch but I still have a free arm.
Besides, they have those little baby hammock things. I'm sure I can use one of
those if I need to carry more stuff than I can handle, or I’ll make extra
trips.” Aislin’s throat burned as he tried to explain to them how he was
feeling. “I'm already half in love with the baby just knowing that he or she is
a reality, and it’s only been a few weeks. In nine months they’ll be in my
arms, and I'd really like to know that my family is happy for me."
He looked at
his parents, holding his breath. His father had uncrossed his arms, and his
mother was wiping a tear off her cheek.They had to know how important this was to him.
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