The pain was indescribable. There was no word for how bad this pain was. The nurse kept telling me to breathe through it and not hold my breath. I didn't want to yell at her, but seriously, had she ever done this? You try breathing through this. Is it too late to request a C-section? I didn't want to do this anymore. I was tired and worn out. Marcus wiped my face off with a washcloth. He had been doing that almost the entire time we had been in here. I swallowed, but my mouth was too dry. I probably had a second or two to talk before another strong contraction would hit. "Water."

A nurse grabbed a cup of ice chips and put a few on my lips. It sucked that I couldn't drink any water. I was so thirsty, I was so tired, oh no not again! I tried to do the quick breathing but it was so hard and the pain was so bad. I squeezed the edges of the bed so hard that I swear I was bending metal. Thank God, I hadn't taken up Marcus when he wanted me to squeeze his hand. If I did, we would have Marcus in a cast with a broken hand. God, will this ever be done?

I didn't even pay attention to what was going on anymore. It was just continual pain. Somebody shook me on my left side. "Push!"

I pushed. I felt an overwhelming urge to push. I didn't know if anything was happening. I was in so much pain. I hadn't wanted to do an epidural for fear of making the labor longer or affecting the baby in some way. Right now, I thought I had been pretty fucking stupid. Getting a C-section without any anesthesia had to hurt less than this.

I think I had pushed for five minutes when finally it felt like the baby came out. I heard a baby crying. Oh thank God. I started crying, I was so damn relieved. Marcus leaned over, wiping my face, kissing my cheek.

"You were amazing. You did a terrific job. There's no way I could've done that. You are such a wonderful omega. I'm so proud to have you as my husband."

That was nice. I didn't care. I was in a haze, I was so exhausted. Was our baby ok? I felt more ice chips on my lips.

I started shaking. I couldn't stop shaking. Was there something wrong? Was I dying? I'd heard of omega's dying after they had given birth. Was that what was happening now? Thankfully Marcus asked what I had been thinking. "He's shaking! What's wrong? Why is he shaking?"

A nurse came over to the bed. "That's the body's response to the extreme stress and adrenaline. It's completely normal. Some people do it and some people don't. Would you like to hold your boy?"

Oh thank God. I wasn't dying and the baby was normal. If the baby hadn't been normal they would've told me, right? I rolled my head to look at Marcus. He was staring at the nurse, white as a sheet. "Sit down on the chair and I'll hand you your son."

I was shaking too much to hold anything, plus I was just so weak. Marcus sat down and looked at me. I gave him a little smile. He got his arms ready and the nurse placed our son in his arms. From what I could see, our baby was absolutely perfect. From this angle, I could only see his cheeks and nose.

I looked at Marcus and saw tears running down his face. Just seeing Marcus holding our son, knowing how much Marcus had wanted a child but had never allowed himself to even consider it, moved me more than words. I was in awe of this moment for Marcus.

A nurse put more blankets on me while I was still waiting for the placenta to pass. Finally, I stopped shaking. I actually got not only water to drink, but juice too! Never had orange juice tasted so damn good.

I was finally feeling good enough to hold our baby. The nurse took the baby from Marcus and placed him in my arms. The little bitty fingers with the long fingernails, the cute little hat, the little bitty nose.

I couldn't believe that had come out of me. The fact that I had grown that myself inside my body was amazing. It just blew my mind. What a complete and utter miracle. Soon I had tears running down my face too.

I felt Marcus's hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see tears still running down his face. He couldn't even talk. He pointed to his face and then motioned out towards the door. "No, don't go. You don't have to hide how you're feeling. Don't hide this moment from us. Stay here, be with me- we're a family."

Marcus nodded and sat back down on the chair. He rested his hand on my leg while I held our baby. For such a tiny thing he was pretty heavy. I could not get over those tiny little bitty hands. I folded the little hand covers back up so that he wouldn't accidentally scratch his face with his nails.

Marcus and I had decided that we wanted a nice strong name no matter whether the baby was a boy or a girl. I didn't want to know what gender the baby was and neither did Marcus. We were going to love that child no matter what gender it was.

I was secretly glad that our baby was a boy though, because I liked the boy name best. Alexander Julian Sutton.

Marcus

I had only just met my son Alexander and I loved him ferociously already. I had no idea that I would feel this way. I think I walked around in a daze those first few days, overwhelmed with the idea that I had a child. I was a father, there were somebody that shared my DNA. Of course, after that amazing newness wore off, I wandered around in a daze because of lack of sleep.

I took two weeks paternity leave from the firm. I wanted to stay home with Alexander and Ryan, and help Ryan out. My mom had offered to move into one of the spare bedrooms to help us out, but I told her we'd have no problems on our own.

I called her the third day and begged her to come over. I had no shame. Ryan and I were able to get some sleep and he was able to recover more. I didn't know how people did this without a relative staying to help them out, and I sure as hell didn't know how single parents did it.

Ryan wanted to show our baby off to everyone, but I didn't want to expose him to germs. We compromised. After the first baby wellness checkup, if everything was okay, then we would start showing off Alexander. Of course we went straight from that first appointment to the law firm.

Thank God we had waited because I would've freaked out if we had shown up earlier. Alexander was getting passed around, and everybody was holding him, smelling his head, playing with his hands. I was going to have to sanitize his hands and his head when we got out to the car.

"You're looking a little white around the eyes, honey." I didn't take my eyes off Alexander.

"They're breathing on him. They're touching his hands. He's going to get sick. He's going to get some horrible disease-"

Ryan put his hand on my arm and squeezed.

"Marcus calm down. He's gonna be fine. His immune system has had time to build up and this is normal. This is what people do, they bring their babies out. I mean we couldn't keep him at home in a bubble his whole life right?"

Actually, I thought keeping the kid inside was a great idea. No bullying at school, no chance of getting kidnapped- but I knew I was being absolutely ridiculous. God, how the hell did parents deal with this? I was afraid of everything now. I looked at the world completely different, not as a single guy, or a newly married man with his hot husband, but a parent of a new baby and all the dangers present in the world. How the hell did any parent get any sleep?

Ryan wasn't the only one to comment on how freaked out I looked. Eric teased me like crazy, but I didn't care. I kept watching Alexander to make sure he didn't get dropped or held too tightly. Finally, Ryan decided it was time for us to go. I got us out of there as soon as possible. I was going to take him back to the penthouse, then go back to work.

"You know honey, your fear for Alexander is just a little out of control."

I frowned and looked over at Ryan.

"He's going to get sick. Something could happen to him." I knew I sounded a little crazy, but seriously all these were things that could go wrong.

"Marcus. Seriously you didn't take your eyes off Alexander for a second and I thought you were going to strangle Shelley when she sniffed his head. I think you need to talk to somebody, because this is way beyond normal anxiety and concern."

I narrowed my eyes at Ryan. Part of me wanted to lash out at him that he wasn't as concerned for our child as I was. Part of me also knew that was absolutely unreasonable and ridiculous.

I sat back in my seat, but with my arm still over the car seat. I stared out the other window, thinking. Did I know any other alphas that had kids? Did they go crazy like this too? The only reason I hadn't been able to wipe Alexander's head and hands with sanitizer is because Ryan told me it contained alcohol and did I really want to give our child alcohol poisoning?

Maybe I was going a little overboard. I hadn't been to the gym in well over a month because I was so exhausted from being up late so that Ryan could get some sleep. I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since before Alexander had been born. Ryan always got enough sleep, my mother and I made sure of that.

Hell, maybe that was part of the problem. I needed to start getting a good night's sleep and exercising again. It had always been my outlet for stress. Plus, not being able to have sex with Ryan was also lending to my stress. I turned back to Ryan. "Okay, I think I have been going a little overboard."

Ryan patted my arm.

The next morning I got up early, went down to the gym, and started running again. I was surprised at how much fitness I had lost in such a short period of time. It felt good to exercise, to feel those muscles burn, and of course it did wonders for my stress level. I did a quick ten minutes in the Jacuzzi, took a shower, kissed Ryan goodbye, and went to work. This new routine could work.