Chapter 92: RL01-Navy, Day 260

Rebecca and Dawn were both nervous, but neither was as nervous as Slave. According to the usual schedule, it was a bit more than a month until Slave's official due date, but it looked like she was going to deliver today. In fact, it looked like she was going to deliver the first children on Mars, if only by a day or so.

Rebecca had been feeling guilty about pushing a third child into Slave's womb almost since she did it, despite Slave's assurances that she enjoyed the thought of carrying triplets, including two children for Rebecca's husband Tom. Now that it looked like the babies would be a month premature, she felt even more guilty. And when she saw the size of the maternity team that showed up to help with the delivery, she just about died.

"Hello, Rebecca," said Beverly Epsilon Miller, the OB-GYN who'd taken charge of the childbirth technology project started by the Chi Miller family, and had been doing Rebecca, Dawn, Slave, and Stacy's prenatal care, along with her own and that of her fellow wives. Rank hath its privileges, and Rebecca was a member of the Educational Council.

"Let me introduce my colleagues," she continued, "I think you know Dr. Priya Tau Miller, but this is Terri Foxtrot Miller, registered pediatric nurse, Tanya Becker, Leslie Pi Miller, Camille Gamma Miller, and Connie Fontaine. Tanya, Leslie, Camille, and Connie are here to help out a bit, and to learn how to handle the new technology, so that they can mid-wife their house-mates and fellow wives."

Rebecca smiled at Connie, who was a junior wife of one of her fellow Council members, and at Priya, who she knew well from her work with Steve Tau in setting up the council. She greeted the others warmly as well. Now that something was finally happening, Rebecca felt quite a bit calmer. The old stereotypes of the nervous father from the 50's still applied to a nervous slave owner when her beloved slave was about to give birth. It didn't help when the slave owner was carrying twins herself, and had a pregnant wife as well.

"The expectant mother in question is right this way," she told her guests, "along with my wife and the father of two of the babies."

Rebecca led the medical team into the new bedroom that had been added to her and Dawn's suite. It was soundproofed, and included a set of cribs for the children due today, and their semi-siblings due in a month. A normal adult bed would be added once the birth was complete; at the moment, that space was occupied by a delivery bed.

Slave was lying in the delivery bed, with Dawn sitting beside her, holding her hand as another contraction hit. Slave was nude, her normal thong absent, and without the support bra she'd been wearing since her milk started to come in.

Tom was hovering nearby, with nothing much to do, but wanting to be present at the birth of his first two children. He had two more on the way, one by his slave Stacy, and one by Rebecca, and he was very glad that the alien technology promised to pick up a lot of the load of parenting, because the nine adults were going to be very busy taking care of ten babies (Rebecca's two, Slave's three, Maribeth's two, and one each for Stacy, Tabitha, and Dawn), especially given Rebecca's Council duties.

Connie's eyebrows raised as she saw Slave, and raised further as Rebecca introduced them to her and vice versa. Beverly noticed, and said, "Slave is more than slightly submissive, and has been having some issues with her bodily appearance during her pregnancy, so her mistresses have been maintaining her nudity whenever possible, to reassure her that they still desire to use her."

At Connie's nodded acceptance, Beverly continued with her examination, then brought the students over one at a time, spreading Slave's thighs and pointing out the progress she was making towards the births, describing dilation and effacement, and how to measure each. Slave whimpered at the exposure, but the discomfort from her contractions kept the humiliation involved from getting her excited.

"It's good that Slave is the first woman to deliver," Beverly told her students, "because I couldn't possibly be this graphic and blatant about showing you all this with a non-submissive. The embarrassment would be too great. Generally speaking, you just need to know the high points of all this. The room monitors have been programmed with all of the details of a normal birth progression, the signs of and treatment for the less critical difficulties that can arise, and the signs that will require human intervention to decide the proper treatment.

"Fortunately, there are no issues to deal with today, other than the normal consequences of multiple birth, in this case somewhat low birth weight, and an early but not quite premature birth. The monitors can do very detailed scans at this point without risk, so we know that the babies are all well positioned, with no problems with their umbilical cords being badly placed, or placentas in an incorrect position. Lung function looks like it will be normal, so we won't need any of the premature-birth protocols involving the umbilical cords."

Rebecca relaxed slightly at Beverly's tone and her words; apparently neither Slave nor the babies would pay any price for her impulsive decision that Slave needed her sister in addition to the two babies she bore for Tom.

Beverly looked down at Slave, and said, "You need to tough out a few more minutes of contractions while I prepare the spinal block, then we'll be able to dial down the pain while we wait for things to progress enough to take the next step. It won't be long now, though, before you'll be able to hold your babies in your arms."

Slave smiled, then grimaced as the next contraction hit. Beverly patted her shoulder, then moved to the nearby replicator and explained to the watching students how to acquire the necessary components of a birthing kit. Beverly pulled a smallish package out of the replicator, then a series of larger bundles, naming each as she pulled it out.

"This is the spinal block I promised our patient. We don't have a good name for this one; we call it the expediter for lack of a better term. It 'eases the way' for the baby, dilating the birth canal for the birth, then extracting the afterbirth and restoring the birth canal afterwards. No tearing, no stitching to repair a tear or episiotomy, and no need for the honeymoon stitch to tighten things up after the baby stretches the mother open. That last is less important for a lesbian, but matters for heterosexual and bisexual women. The last three packages are the neonatal care units, one for each baby. They look like simple blankets and diapers but appearances are misleading, in this case deliberately so."

Once everything was out of the replicator, Beverly had started moving towards Slave with the spinal block, and she interrupted her description of the tools to show how to apply the block, smoothing it over Slave's spine and holding it in place while it settled in. Once it had done so, Slave's body tensed with a contraction, but without the gasp of pain that the earlier ones had provoked.

"Once it doesn't hurt any more," Beverly continued with her lecture, "We get much less clenching of the opening, and we'll start progressing towards delivery much faster. The block also introduces medications that relax the cervix and birth canal, but don't inhibit contraction of the uterine musculature. At this point, we wait a bit, until the process has progressed naturally. If we were in a hurry, we could apply the expediter, but there's no rush in this case, and a natural progression will reduce the need for artificial measures later."

A smile on her face, Beverly concluded, "So, with the mother in much less discomfort, we wait."

Taking advantage of the lull in the educational process, Rebecca introduced Dawn and Tom to Connie, saying, "I'm sorry I didn't introduce you earlier; I've been a bit distracted, as you can imagine. How are things progressing at home? Still the odd woman out, or have you integrated better into the village?"

Connie smiled, "Still the odd woman out, I'm afraid. My fellow wives have gotten used to me, though, so I'm settled in nicely now. The only time they chase me out is if I get the urge for some crawdad jambalaya; it's weird enough to them that I have to eat by myself. We agree on everything else though, except for the hot sauce I sometimes add to things. That doesn't look weird, so I can eat with them as long as I dose my plate and not the bowl."

Rebecca explained to Dawn and Slave that she'd first met Connie when she and Steve Tau had been recruiting Educational Council members. Connie had been the 'token' Westerner in a family of African villagers, none of whom was prepared to wake up in a Western-style hotel room. She'd managed to educate everyone without patronizing them, so they'd been more than willing to include her in the group marriage that developed.

Rebecca and Steve had both been startled when they arrived in the M'Botan household, though, because Connie and her family had decided to remodel their quarters in a very dramatic fashion. Instead of the transport room opening into an atrium, it opened into a very realistic simulation of the African plains, appearing to be an oddly-sized hut. Across a small stream was what looked like a Hollywood imitation of an African village, with one largish building and nine smaller ones, built out of what looked like local materials, and a white clapboard house, looking right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Steve and Rebecca had been warmly welcomed in M'Botan's house, finding an interesting combination of traditional and Western furnishings and decor. M'Botan had been stunned at the notion of helping control the education of humanity. Prime's report of his humility and intelligence had been Steve's primary motivation for recruiting M'Botan, so they were prepared when their target tried to evade.

Despite Steve's attempts, though, M'Botan almost slipped through his fingers, until Rebecca's side conversation with Connie and M'Botan's senior wife Mina borne fruit as they came in on Steve's side of the argument. Connie was all in favor of a non-Western viewpoint on the educational process, while Mina saw a way to ensure that the traditions she had grown up in were respected in the new society.

At that point, M'Botan had surrendered with grace, and become the 'African' representative to the council. He'd had a considerable amount of catch-up to do, compared to the Western-educated representatives, but he and the Asian and Aboriginal traditionalists had provided valuable insights, not just into their cultures but into the unconscious assumptions of the Westerners.