Page 23 of The Bear, the Eagle, and their Wombat Omega (Omegas of Animals: SD #14)

Arkyn

Steve lay curled in the nest, the two large, brown, cube-shaped eggs sitting in the folds of a small blanket before him.

Bruno and I knelt by the edge of the nest. None of us moved. We were all fixated on the eggs.

Movement had begun that morning. The babies were on their way.

“The other little one is moving a lot in my pouch,” Steve announced. “I think he’s ready to come out.”

“We’re going to have three little ones very soon,” Bruno said.

We were ready. Bruno and I had stacked supplies right next to the nest. Baby blankets. Towels. Infant-sized diapers. Washcloths and a bucket of clean, boiled water.

Steve wanted to nurse them all, but the midwife said it was difficult with three, so we had bottles of formula in the fridge ready to warm up. We were three fathers ready to feed three hungry babies.

The nursery was all set, too. But we weren’t going to want to be apart from them for a while, so we’d bought three bassinets and set them up in the bedroom. They had fresh bedding and were all ready for little sleepy bodies to nap in.

The square eggs jiggled more often now. Every time it happened, one of us would say, “Did you see that?”

By the afternoon, pip holes began to appear.

As if sensing its siblings, the baby in Steve’s pouch grew restless.

“He’s kicking. He wants free.” Steve put his hand on his abdomen. “I can feel the bottom seal starting to part.”

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“Should I get a towel ready?” Bruno asked.

“Yes, please.” Steve sat up, pulling off his shirt and unzipping his pants. The pouch was definitely loose-looking. The midwife had told us it was part of his anatomy and would recede once the baby didn’t want to be inside anymore.

Bruno grabbed a towel and held it end to end in both hands.

As I watched, Steve pressed a little on his pouch. It opened at the bottom. There was no blood, nothing awful. Then little legs appeared. The baby came out feet first, and Bruno caught him, wrapping him in the towel.

The baby began to squall as Bruno took a washcloth and wiped him down.

He was a beautiful little boy and, when he was all cleaned up, Bruno wrapped him in a blanket and handed him to Steve.

“Ah, baby, you’re so sweet.” Steve’s voice shook. He kissed him on the forehead. “Look at you. How perfect you are.” He held the baby up a couple of inches. “See? These are your daddies. All of us. You have three.”

“Hi.” I reached out and brushed my fingertip across the baby’s smooth cheek.

The baby quieted and began looking around the room.

While Steve took care of him, Bruno and I continued to watch the eggs.

I still couldn’t quite get used to the fact that wombats sometimes laid eggs, especially with cross-species births.

In the wild, non-shifter wombats always birthed their young live.

But not in our endlessly magical shifter world.

As the eggs continued to hatch over the next few hours, Bruno and I took turns keeping us stocked on food and drinks. None of us were leaving the nest until it was all done. But we all still needed food and water.

Finally, one of the eggs made a loud cracking sound.

I saw a beak. The shell came apart, and a baby eaglet covered in snow-white feathers poked its head out.

Just as she closed her eyes to rest, she shifted, and a baby girl with eggshell still stuck to her skin lay before us.

She was mesmerizing, too beautiful for words.

She was my little eagle shifter, and now she was here.

Bruno washed her gently then wrapped her up. Her brother lay sleeping in the nest, having worn himself out as he’d struggled to learn to suckle at Steve’s breast. Now Steve had his arms free to take the little girl and begin again.

He was tired. I could see that. But he was so happy. He kept smiling at us. He let us each hold her. We were enchanted.

The last egg finally hatched at about midnight. We had been dozing off and on, but luckily I was wide awake when the egg split, and I yelled, waking my two mates so they wouldn’t miss it.

A baby wombat, cuter than any baby animal had a right to be, emerged. He gave us a big yawn before shifting into our last triplet, a boy.

Now we had one of each. A bear. An eagle. A wombat. Each of us had contributed to this little family. How did we get so lucky?

We all were exhausted, including the babies. Each of us took one in our arms and headed to the bedroom. After we made sure each baby was fed what they wanted, we diapered them and put them to bed.

We didn’t trust ourselves to wake up if the babies needed us, so we drew up a schedule. I took first watch. I made a fresh pot of coffee then sat and watched the babies in the bassinets having their first baby dreams.

I also watched over my sleeping mates, glad they could both finally get some rest.

Over the past weeks, we’d discussed names. But nothing stuck with us. This evening, off and on, we discussed names again. But there was no resolution. We didn’t argue. It was mainly that we all felt the right name would come at the right time.

And over the next few days, that’s just what happened.

The bear shifter baby was the first to lift his arms to be picked up from his bassinet.

He grew strong fast and began to wave them at us.

Bruno always baby-talked to him. “You’re just a bear, right?

Just a baby bear.” Over time, it sounded like he was saying, “Jesse Bear,” and our first son was named Jesse.

The eagle shifter did a lot of soft cooing. I would lean over her bassinet and try to mimic her. The first time she smiled at me, I blurted, “Cutie pie. Cutie girl.” Within hours, she officially became Katie.

The last hatchling, the wombat, was the smallest. Wanting him to catch up in size to the others, Steve put him on a more aggressive feeding schedule. Whenever he nursed him, he’d constantly talk to him. After a while, he started calling him Hangry Hungry Henry. And that was how Henry came to be.

Jesse. Katie. Henry.

Now our family was complete.