AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, for one thing, I realize this chapter is kind of long…I guess a lot more happened in the first day than I thought. But anyway, this is what's called an out-take. I wrote one for this story's predecessor (where Sirius helps build Phoebe's crib). This one is about a New Age birthing class, and if you're sensitive when it comes to those kinds of topics, you might want to skip this chapter (the empathy birth is on Sunday, and this chapter is about Saturday's class). We've got the breathing, the pushing, and some rather awkward conversation between the parents near the end. So proceed with caution! And if you like reading about this stuff (there are some sweet moments too), enjoy!

P.S. If you're wondering, yes, I did hold an ice cube in my hand, until I couldn't take it anymore, for research purposes. When I describe it, that is what it really feels like, at least to me (although keep in mind I have an extremely low pain tolerance).

…

"Now, remember, darling," said Gwen strictly. "No matter what they tell you, do NOT use any pain medication when giving birth."

"But Mum!" Barbara protested. "What if it hurts?"

"Then it hurts," Gwen replied. "Women are capable of powering through it. Giving birth is a privilege and a joy."

"Oh, come on, it is not," Barbara snapped. "Besides, pain meds are the mother's decision, not yours. Who are you to judge?"

"So that's how you talk to your mother, young lady?"

"If I may say," Sirius interrupted, since he saw Barbara was bristling, "I know you have Barbara's best interests at heart, and Phoebe's, but Barbara's an adult now, and—"

"And still my child!" Gwen said fiercely, and Barbara groaned.

Sirius deeply wished they had been able to get to the children's hospital another way, but he could never drive, and Barbara was too pregnant, and Regulus couldn't drive them because he was in America on business, so Gwen, Sirius's future mother-in-law, had offered to drive them in her wood-paneled station wagon. Barbara said they would take the bus, but that was when Gwen started in on her "guilt" thing, and they had to take the ride.

"Mum, I'm not a child," said Barbara. "I'm having a child."

"And I don't know why you and Sirius decided to do such a thing if you don't even know anything about birth, or your own body."

Sirius looked at Barbara in confusion (Phoebe wasn't planned) and Barbara put a finger to her lips.

"We just knew we were ready for a baby, Mum," she said with a straight face. Sirius would have laughed if the stakes weren't so high. There was never a time when he felt ready to be a father.

Gwendolyn spent the rest of the car ride lecturing Barbara on things they were probably going to learn in the class anyway. First, she started in on the breathing exercises. Barbara looked embarrassed beyond belief when her mother tried to teach her about breathing deeply. Then, she started talking (in painstaking detail) about the Female Reproductive System, which was too much for Barbara.

"Stop it, Mum, just stop it!" she cried, her hand on Sirius's shoulder. "I'm sure Siri doesn't want to hear about this."

"Nonsense, darling, he knows you were built in this lovely way."

Barbara let out a moan similar to that of which she might emit during labor.

"So, um, how much longer?" said Sirius.

"Just a couple of minutes, dear," Gwen said fondly, turning around in the seat to look at him. "It was so nice of you to come along to Barbara's childbirth class. So many people dismiss this as 'New Age', but I'm telling you—"

"That's because it IS New Age!" Barbara interrupted. "Women have been having babies for thousands of years! Why do we suddenly need classes on it?"

"Many of those women died, Barbara," Gwen reminded her in a sharp voice. "Or in modern times, women want to do natural childbirth, but since they aren't educated and equipped to deal with the pain, they end up getting epidurals, and since they can't feel anything, they don't know when to push."

"But…y'know, doesn't the doctor tell you when to push?" said Sirius hesitantly, remembering the episodes of "Love and Lust" he had watched ironically with Harry and Hermione.

"He shouldn't," Gwen told him. "Trying to stop pushing is like trying to hold in a sneeze. You don't need a doctor to tell you when to do it."

To Barbara and Sirius's relief, Gwen pulled the car to a stop in front of a large children's hospital. They trampled each other to get out of the car; Sirius grabbed the pillows, because Barbara had forgotten about them. They didn't have a yoga mat, but they were hoping the hospital would have one. Either that, or Barbara would have to lay on the floor.

"Oh, that was a close one," Barbara breathed, once the station wagon had driven away. "I'm sorry about that, Siri. My mother is a little overbearing. Ever since I fell pregnant, she's been lecturing me nonstop."

"Did you really tell her Pheebs was planned?" Sirius was fighting back a grin.

"She would've gone into conniptions if she knew the truth." Barbara shrugged. "It's kind of my fault, anyway. The Rhythm Method usually works, but I got the calendar messed up."

"Well, it worked out," said Sirius, putting his arm around her. She was six inches shorter than he was in flats, although she usually looked a little taller, since high heels were her favorite kind of shoes.

"I didn't tell Mum about how I'll get to take a potion, of course," said Barbara, looking up at Sirius. "Birth must have always been so easy for witches. I'm jealous."

"Don't be," said Sirius. "After all, the Childbearing Draught wasn't invented until 1971. Before that, it was just as hard—maybe even worse, because a witch wouldn't have access to pain medication. We didn't really know about that."

"There's a lot you didn't know about," said Barbara. "But what happened? Was everything okay?"

"Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't." Sirius shook his head. "But nobody knows for sure how many children the purebloods had, because there were a lot of illegitimate children going around. It was frowned upon to shag a Muggle, but a lot did anyway—don't ask me why, considering they thought of Muggles as subhuman. My mother didn't even think they were the same species."

"So what did they do?" asked Barbara, her hazel eyes wide.

"Well, it didn't have a lot of consequences, did it?" said Sirius with a sigh. "If you were a wizard, and a Muggle got pregnant by you, all you'd need is a Memory Charm. You'd give her a false memory of shagging a random guy in a pub. Then you could leave her and nobody would be any the wiser."

"Oh my God!" Barbara looked aghast. "Who would do that to a pregnant woman?"

"An awful, lazy, good-for-nothing piece of shit, that's who," Sirius said harshly. "I think this child-support thing you Muggles have is a good idea. It's better than in our world, where a man's moral compass is often the only difference between a family with a father or without. Who knows how many Muggle-born kids are actually half-bloods with wizard fathers they never knew?"

"That's simply horrible," said Barbara.

"Beyond horrible," Sirius agreed. "But it happens."

They had to stop talking then, because that was when they entered the hospital. It was much more cheerful than the one Sirius had been admitted to when he had a heart attack earlier this summer. There were pictures on the walls depicting the letters of the alphabet and a word that started with that letter (N had a picture of noodles, for example). There were no dying or injured people being rushed past on stretchers. They walked to the elevators.

"Hmm," said Barbara, reading the sign above the elevator. "The Maternity Ward is on Floor 3."

So they got onto the elevator, which was already crowded, and the fact that Barbara was nearly on her ninth month of pregnancy didn't help. She took up a lot of room. However, thin Sirius could fit in.

The maternity ward ended up being the busiest one of all. You couldn't hear your nearest friend speaking over the cries of all the brand-new babies, and there were a ton of pregnant women being wheeled along the corridors, moaning in pain. Often, the panic-stricken fathers were not far behind them. Barbara had a map, luckily, and she used it to get to the room where they would have the birthing class. There were already a whole bunch of expecting couples there (and some single pregnant women), chatting amongst each other. One man passed by with his wife, obviously deep in labor, and cried, "Blimey, that's a long line!"

The doors were soon opened and they were greeted by a woman in scrubs who looked to be around the same age as Dr. Grant, Harry's pediatrician. She had olive-toned skin and tightly curled black hair. Her dark eyes were warm.

"My name is Sara McKellen, and I'm a certified labor and delivery nurse, plus a mother of six," she said. "But you can call me Nurse Sara. I will be your teacher for this enlightening class. Over the next couple days I hope we will all become great friends. Now, come into the room, don't be shy…I've got some yoga mats for those of you who forgot…and then we can all get to know each other."

Sirius grabbed a purple yoga mat and sat on it. Barbara sat in front of him, leaning back onto his lap, and he put his arms around her. He loved it when she did this.

There were about twenty couples in the class, and they all introduced themselves. When it was her turn, Barbara introduced herself and Sirius both.

"My name's Barbara Raffelovich," she announced. "This is my baby daddy, Sirius Black."

"I'm also her fiancé," Sirius pointed out. Barbara flicked him in the head playfully; everyone laughed. When the class was finished introducing themselves, Nurse Sara smiled again and began speaking.

"Some of you might remember Health class from school," she said. "But just as a little refresher, we're going to learn some more about our reproductive systems—specifically, what happens during birth exactly. Lots of new parents are confused by this, which can make labor seem scary. But I think you'll find that the more you know, the less nervous you'll be on your big day.

"The median time taken up during a first birth is about eleven hours, which means that half of expectant mothers took longer than eleven hours and the other half took less," Nurse Sara continued. "For second-time mothers and on, it's six hours. Your labor might be as short as four hours, or as long as thirty. Every labor, just like every pregnancy, is different. Just like how all of you have experienced a varying degree of physical symptoms, you will also all have different birth experiences. All will be special in its own way, though.

"Now," the teacher finished, "we're going to watch a couple of videos. This first video is just a little refresher on the female reproductive system, which of course is all too important when it comes to these things."

Barbara didn't seem too excited about this. Two-thirds of the video's run time was spent talking about things like not only anatomy, but hormones too and a lot about a woman's "cycle." Then they showed a medical illustration of fertile seeds being planted in a tender garden. Or at least that was how most of the adults put it in the early sixties when Sirius was young, and if you thought babies grew on trees as a result, that was your problem.

"Woooow," said one of the expectant fathers, who looked like he was about sixteen.

"So that's the miracle of the female body," said Nurse Sara, after the video had finished. "Remember, ladies, you are wonderfully made."

"Are guys wonderfully made, too?" said the sixteen-year-old, his hand shooting up into the air. The mother of his baby, who was also young, perhaps about a year or so younger than he was, rolled her eyes.

"Well, yes, I suppose so," said Nurse Sara, "Everyone is wonderfully made, in a way. But women are the ones who can actually grow and birth the babies." She turned back to the TV. "Now, this next video is different."

"Is it the Miracle of Life video?" asked one of the mothers.

"No, we're watching that later," Nurse Sara replied. "This video is just a scientific video about the signals our brains send us to let us know our babies are ready to come out. And the baby comes out when the woman's body is ready."

The video wasn't graphic, like everyone was expecting it to be. It was simply an illustration of the inside of the mother, including an animation of everything that happens in the onset of labor—from the water breaking to dilation to pushing to birth…all in about two and a half minutes. Again, it wasn't a graphic video, but to Sirius it looked extremely painful. Of course, he knew that if he could take on the pain for Barbara, he would, but he was also secretly glad, in a way, that it wasn't possible. Besides, he reminded himself, she wouldn't be in pain anyway.

"I-I don't know if I can do this, Siri," Barbara whispered, her cheeks flushed.

"You won't have to, remember?" Sirius whispered, grasping her hand. Looking around, he saw that he wasn't the only father trying to comfort a panic-stricken mother-to-be. "We've got the M word on our side."

"I think there should be a spell to make the wizard have the baby," Barbara whispered back.

"Now, students, I realize that video was quite cold and medical," Nurse Sara said with a small smile. "So next I've got something you might enjoy more. Before you decide to take an extremely long bathroom break—no, it's not graphic."

The first part of the video was actually surprising, because it didn't involve the birth at all. At first, everyone seemed a little bit dubious about it, but at only about a minute in, there were cemeteries that were livelier than the couples in that room. There was no speech in the video, just orchestral music. The mother had clearly just finished performing the sex act in the beginning of the video, but everyone gasped when they saw the Egg, just waiting to "hatch."

It went quickly after that. They watched the entire process of the child growing from a tiny bubble-type thing to a fully-grown baby. By the time they reached the part of the video where the baby's heart started beating (only eight weeks), Sirius heard a sort of squeaking sound coming from Barbara, and he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. He remembered suddenly she'd had her miscarriage shortly after her last baby's heart started beating, and hugged her closer to him.

The baby didn't really look like a baby. It looked more like a mutant alien thing. But it was still something they had made together, and that was what mattered. That thing had been inside Barbara months and months ago. How big was it now? They'd have to see…

And slowly that mutant alien creature turned into a baby. First it was a weird-looking one, then a normal-looking little baby who was starting to move around. In the later months, the baby moved its mouth, tugged at the umbilical cord, sucked its thumb and moved around like crazy. It was, of course, just a coincidence, but that was when Sirius (who had his arms wrapped around Barbara) felt his own little daughter kick. Barbara looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks; of course, she had felt it, too.

Just then, it was the strangest feeling. It was nothing Sirius had ever felt before. But at that moment, the only thing on his mind was to keep Barbara safe, to lash out at anything that could hurt her; the mother's instinct may have been to nurture, but the father's was to protect. Sirius buried his nose in Barbara's hair for a moment (it always smelled so good, even if she hadn't washed it) and planted a kiss there. It wouldn't be possible for him to let go of her, he knew…It was clear to him that whatever was happening on the screen was definitely happening inside Barbara too. How could it not be a miracle, that she could do something like that, and was already doing it? Not only that she could do it, but that her body was built to do it? Nothing was more miraculous than that. "Female Body Inspector" had been incredibly disrespectful, Sirius realized, because now he knew that the female body was much more amazing than his own.

They watched the baby flip itself expertly around, then push its head into the opening of the cervix, like it had in the previous video. They showed the water breaking, then a skeleton of the baby's mother as the baby got pushed out. And then, in the very last few seconds, to everyone's shock, the video showed a real baby, one that was born. Gloved hands carefully set the new baby in its mother's arms, the mother who had grown it for nine months.

When Nurse Sara stopped the tape and turned on the lights, nobody spoke. Barbara wasn't the only one crying, certainly. There had been all these changes happening in Sirius, pretty much all emotional with a few hormonal ones. But that all paled in comparison to what was happening to Barbara. She was completely full of physical symptoms and emotional overhauls and hormonal changes, and he could see why.

"Gentlemen, let me tell you, you're not as wonderfully made as you think," Sirius croaked, his voice cracking with emotion. "Compared to what your baby's mother is doing…you are forever painfully inadequate. Make sure you appreciate her."

Nurse Sara was beaming. The fathers all hugged the mothers. Barbara hugged Sirius especially tight, mumbling words he couldn't really understand.

"Oh, I know, honey, I know," he said softly, his hands stroking her arms, her back, her hair and of course her pregnant belly, causing his own eyes to burn with tears. Sirius knew he would live and die for Phoebe; he wanted to care for her and give her things. If someone tried to hurt her, they would be in for a world of Pain and Suffering. Most importantly, he knew Barbara felt the same way. He couldn't comprehend Jackson's way of thinking when he had abandoned Barbara and his own child four years ago. Or maybe that was the thing…Jackson wasn't thinking. He didn't know what he was missing.

"It really is touching," said Nurse Sara. "I have the best job in the world."

"Thanks for—thanks for showing us that," said the teenage mother-to-be, wiping her eyes. "I didn't know all that stuff."

"Neither did I," added the father.

"Well, I'm glad to see you know now," Nurse Sara replied. "However, now is the time you all may have been dreading. It's time to put these ideas in action. For educational purposes, a woman from Yorkshire has volunteered to be filmed during childbirth. Those of you with weaker constitutions may want to leave the room."

Still under the spell of the previous video, it seemed most of the room had a "how-bad-can-it-be?" sort of vibe. Nobody left except the sixteen-year-old and his girlfriend (they both looked kind of sick), and a few other fathers. Barbara leaned back in between Sirius's legs, against his chest, and they both put their hands on her belly, so they would catch it if Phoebe kicked. Barbara was generally fine with people touching her belly, since she wasn't insecure about it (except the protruding belly button, which she thought was a bit weird), but as Phoebe's father, Sirius got special rights.

In the first part of the video the mother didn't look too concerned—her husband looked more nervous than she did. But as labor progressed, she became more distressed. And most likely she'd forgotten she was being taped, because she stopped talking to the camera; instead she was just shrieking at the top of her lungs. Several of the students were covering their mouths in shock. Nurse Sara paused the birth video at this point.

"Right now, this brave woman is going through the worst part of labor, which is commonly known as transition," she told them. "She will soon reach the second stage of the four stages of labor, which begins with the first urge to push and ends with the birth of her baby. Let's continue, shall we?"

Sirius found himself wondering what the next two stages of labor were if the baby was born by the time the second stage was over, but he figured they would find that out later, and he was distracted by the video anyway, as that was when things got a little more graphic. Pushing took the mother about thirty minutes until the doctors finally noticed the baby's head, and everyone got excited…except the mother, who screamed like someone was using the Cruciatus Curse on her.

"IT BURNS!" she screamed. "CAN'T ANYBODY DO ANYTHING TO STOP THIS?!"

Everyone else was telling the mother she was doing a good job, and Sirius supposed she was, but it was slow going. Barbara nudged Sirius's arm.

"That looks like it hurts," she said.

"It won't," Sirius told her.

"GOTTA GET IT OUT!" the mother was heard grunting. "HOLY SHIT, THAT HURTS!"

"Oy vey," said Barbara. "I didn't know such a small woman could make such deep grunting noises."

"Well, now she sounds like she's crying," said Sirius.

"Maybe it's because that kid's head is so big."

"Ooh! Ooh!" cried the mother. She was working on pushing while a doctor's hands held onto what was visible of her baby's head. "Harder, harder…baby's coming, baby's coming…"

The students remaining in the room swiveled their heads simultaneously to the screen as the mother's shrieks escalated to screaming that would likely rival her child's, at a pitch Sirius thought he could only hear when he was a dog. Meanwhile, her husband was fanning her with one hand, holding her hand with the other. Sirius felt bad for all the mothers who didn't have the fathers to support them, but then he heard himself gasp as finally the baby's head was out. Then the mother didn't sound so pained anymore as her baby slid out in only two more pushes.

In less than a second, the sound of a mother's screams morphed into clapping and the woman's sigh of relief. They handed her the new baby and for a moment, the students seemed to forget what she had gone through to get it. The mother was crying in disbelief, cradling the tiny thing now placed lovingly in her arms. Her husband gave her a kiss on the cheek, then she tilted her head up and kissed him on the lips. The mother was crying, kissing her baby over and over again. Nurse Sara called everyone who skipped the video to come back in.

"I can't believe this is really happening," the mother on-screen said softly. "It was so worth it."

Barbara's hand was over her mouth and she was stroking her chin. Not many people knew this, but that was what she did when she was trying not to cry. Sirius pulled her back again and let her lean her head on his chest, running his fingers through her hair. It had gotten oilier, but thicker, too. Sirius remembered the day they'd met—one year ago at her job at Bunsen and Barnes—and quite frankly, he just hit on her because she was hot and since he'd been sexually deprived in prison, he would have flirted with anything that moved. He hadn't been expecting to start anything serious. But how hot had Barbara been? Just regular hot? He hadn't even realized it, but Barbara had transformed from a hot girl to a beautiful woman before his very eyes. Not just a secretary who he was shagging meaninglessly, but a fiancée who had his baby inside her. How great was that?

Well, it hadn't been entirely great. In early January 1992, Sirius had received a letter from Barbara's godmother saying she was pregnant, which had scared him more than anything in the world. Not just because he wasn't prepared to be a father, but because Barbara's godmother said she was very sick and the baby's life could be in danger because Barbara couldn't keep her food down. Sirius hadn't been planning to have a baby, it was true, but it was still his child, after all…so he'd done what he could to help. He had to give up every ounce of dignity he had and ask Snape for a potion to cure Barbara's sickness. Snape had refused at first and called Barbara a "playmate," but after enough pleading, Sirius had the potion, which made the rest of the first trimester much easier…physically, that is.

Sirius and Barbara had both been worried beyond belief that Barbara would miscarry again. Barbara was paranoid Sirius would leave her, like Jackson. Everyone thought, for a time, that Sirius was going to leave Barbara. Things had gotten better once the first trimester was over and the risk of miscarriage decreased. But Sirius didn't stop worrying that he'd be a bad father, despite Harry being convinced that he'd be the best one. Harry didn't know, though…Sirius thought he could barely take care of himself, much less a baby. Worry, worry, worry, and he'd turned to heavy drinking, as he knew he shouldn't.

But finally she'd learned he was a wizard, and she came to Hogwarts, and they named the baby, and things started getting better. And now Sirius truly felt much more prepared. Maybe these past eight months had changed Barbara significantly, but they had changed him, too, and he thought it was for the better. It had certainly changed Barbara for the better, in his opinion. Now there was just something about her, something that drew him to her, that wasn't there before. He couldn't explain it. But something made him want to hold her in his arms, run his fingers through her hair, run his hands over her hips, over pleasant curves that weren't there before, kiss her lips, and…oh, damn. Think of Mother, think of Mother…But—

"Siri?" said Barbara, turning around and grinning. "You got a problem?"

"I let my thoughts of you get carried away," Sirius replied, and she let out a snort of laughter. The two of them were interrupted, though, by Nurse Sara talking again.

"You're all likely wondering something," she said. "Are there any ways you can make labor less painful? Of course, there are things such as epidurals and even laughing gas, the kind you get at the dentist. But if you choose not to go that route, or if it isn't an option, one popular strategy is to focus on your breathing."

"Here we go," Barbara muttered. Sirius squeezed her shoulder.

"You generally breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, slowly and calmly," said Nurse Sara. "Let's do it together, shall we? Dads too!"

Nurse Sara took a deep breath in through her nose, arms spread wide, eyes closed, looking almost like a prophetess on a hilltop; then she breathed out through her mouth. The mothers (and some of the fathers) followed along.

"Good job!" Nurse Sara told them encouragingly. "Another technique we can try is called 'patterned breathing.' The idea is that you can distract yourself from the pain of contractions by focusing on the breathing task itself. These need to be learned, and practiced, so it's a good thing we get to learn them in class today."

"What's patterned breathing like?" asked one of the fathers, waving his hand all around in the air. "I've never heard of it."

"One of the most widely-used strategies is pant-pant-blow," Nurse Sara replied. "Let's pretend we've just entered a contraction. Your breathing should sound like this, and occur roughly at one breath per second. But adjust it to your liking, of course."

Nurse Sara breathed sharply in and out, sounding kind of like "hee-hee-hoo." Soon everybody was following along with her. Barbara had her eyes closed and was lying down, like all the other mothers in the class. When they were done, Sirius was thinking of the Childbearing Draught, and why it had been invented, so he raised his hand.

"This seems pretty simple now," he said, "but what about when you're actually in the midst of labor? Wouldn't it be hard to remember all this?"

"Let's see, then," said Nurse Sara kindly. "What's the worst pain you've ever been in?"

"Easy," Sirius replied. "Back when I was about sixteen, I took a bad one in the balls from a bat."

Every male in the room winced, and Nurse Sara said, "You mean a baseball bat?"

It had actually been a Beater bat, but Sirius couldn't say that here, of course. He knew baseball was a kind of Muggle sport, and he figured a baseball bat must be pretty much the same thing as a Beater bat, so he said, "Yes."

"How did that happen?!" Barbara cried.

"My best friend used to play on a...on a school baseball team when we were younger," said Sirius. "I was always the announcer. After the game, he and I were talking and joking around, but then some idiot with a bat wasn't paying attention to his surroundings and hit me by mistake."

"And you still managed to have a baby?" the sixteen-year-old bleated. His face was the color of oatmeal.

"Well, testicular trauma doesn't necessarily render you sterile, dear," Nurse Sara replied. "Anyway, Mr. Black, how did you deal with it?"

"I fell to the ground, threw up and possibly cried a little," Sirius replied. "My stomach hurt a lot. I didn't black out, but I wished I had."

"It's too bad he didn't know about patterned breathing, then," said Barbara, the corners of her mouth twitching.

"Not just patterned breathing," Sirius said. "Any breathing at all. I couldn't walk or even stand. Luckily for me, my friend found a carton of ice cream and told me to put it between my legs—that made it a lot better."

Sirius remembered that. It was a good thing James came up with that idea, and of course they were lucky to have the Invisibility Cloak, because otherwise he might not have been able to steal any ice cream from the kitchens. They'd been slightly delayed, however, by James asking Sirius what flavor he wanted, until Sirius pointed out that it didn't matter, because it wasn't as if he was going to be eating it. He still remembered James running as fast as he could towards the castle, still in his Quidditch uniform, just doing his best to help a friend in very terrible, excruciating pain.

"Well, I'm glad things got better," said Nurse Sara, "and I'm certainly glad it didn't negatively affect your fertility. But to answer your question…that's why I brought these."

Nurse Sara pulled out a bag of freezing cold ice cubes and dispersed them amongst her students, mothers and fathers alike. The idea was that they had to use their breathing techniques to power through the uncomfortable ice.

"Blimey, that's cold," said Sirius as an ice cube was dropped into his hand.

"Use the breathing techniques we've just discussed to distract yourself from the pain of the ice cube's cold," Nurse Sara explained. She was walking around the room, helping anyone who was having trouble. Sirius was trying to use Patterned Breathing to help himself endure the ice cube's cold. It sounded easy, but it actually wasn't. The cold started to burn, and even though Sirius and Barbara tried to imitate Nurse Sara's breathing, it was getting harder to endure. Sirius sometimes found himself breathing through in through his mouth by accident, or out through his nose. He tried to focus on breathing, but it wasn't much different than just sitting there thinking about the ice cube. It didn't really help, to be honest, and he knew it definitely wouldn't help if you got whacked in your manly regions by a bat.

Finally, Nurse Sara told them they could put the ice cubes down. Sirius wiped his hand on his jeans; it felt hot and tingling.

"There are more ways to manage pain, like movement and massage," said Nurse Sara, collecting all the ice cubes and putting them back into the bag. "There are lots of benefits of massage."

"Like how it can get you nooky?" suggested the sixteen-year-old.

"I doubt your girlfriend is going to want to have sex with you while she's in labor," Nurse Sara pointed out, but the girlfriend shrugged.

"You never know," she said. "I might want to. I'm feeling pretty horny these days."

"It's because of your pregnancy hormones," Nurse Sara explained matter-of-factly. "This can mean a heightened sex drive for some women."

"What about me, Nurse Sara?" said her boyfriend. "I'm always feeling really horny, too, and I'm not pregnant."

"But you are going through puberty," Nurse Sara reminded him. "That would probably explain it."

"Oh…yeah," said the sixteen-year-old. His girlfriend rolled her eyes again.

"Now, if there are no more questions, we're going to get to the next part of the class, which is pushing," said Nurse Sara. "Everyone please stand on your knees or in a squat."

"I hate squats," Barbara whispered, so she kneeled. So did Sirius.

"Now, I want you all to pretend you're pushing a baby out," Nurse Sara announced. "And…go!"

It was more than a little awkward for a guy, but for the sake of being a good sport, and because a lot of the other fathers were too, Sirius joined in with the pushing. Nurse Sara hadn't told them which muscles to use (maybe she was testing them), so they had to guess. Quite frankly, though, it felt more like he was trying to push out an uncomfortably large and stubborn bowel movement than anything else, and it probably looked that way, too.

Sirius chanced a glance at Barbara. She definitely looked constipated, only to more of an extreme. Her eyes were clenched tight, her teeth were bared, and her hands were in fists.

"Barbara, calm down," Sirius whispered. "It's just an exercise."

"Oh. Right." Barbara relaxed and laughed. They looked over at the sixteen-year-old and his girlfriend. They were both attempting to squat, until the baby's father, visibly straining, fell backwards onto the floor.

"Now, everyone, I can see the flaws," said Nurse Sara. "What muscles do you believe you used when you were pushing?"

"Pelvic floor," said Sirius. Due to the unfortunate side effects of his antidepressants, he was relatively familiar with the concept of pushing.

"Yes." Nurse Sara nodded. "And the pelvic floor muscles should be used when birthing. But often the abdominal muscles are overlooked. It's true the baby is going to come out no matter what, but if there was a more efficient way to do it, wouldn't you?"

All the mothers nodded in agreement, including Barbara. Nurse Sara told them to pay attention, then demonstrated a push of her own. It didn't look anything like the pushes the students were attempting. She didn't clench her teeth or screw up her eyes (although she did close them), and she put her hands on her thighs, spread open. When she was done with the practice push, she grunted, loosened her muscles, and opened her eyes.

"Good job!" said one of the mothers. "But how are we supposed to do that?"

"Don't worry," Nurse Sara replied. "I'll teach you. I know that when you 'push,' your first instinct is usually to use your pelvic floor. But try to focus on your abdominal muscles instead. Flex them first, and use them to do the pushing, with your pelvic floor for support. Relax your face muscles, because tensing them only wastes energy. Now I want you all to try it again…"

And they did. It was different than what they'd done before. Sirius could at least flex his abdominal muscles, and he did, trying to keep his face relaxed. He heard Barbara make a soft grunting noise when she finished doing her push.

"Sorry," she said. "Grunting is kind of involuntary."

"Did I hear someone mention grunting?" Nurse Sara had a grin on her face. "You're correct, Miss Raffelovich. Screaming during labor makes a woman tense. Did you notice the woman in the video? She was making deep sounds—guttural, you might say—and these help her along. Observe."

Nurse Sara did a push again, but this time she added grunting, which might have been more convincing if she had actually been in labor, because otherwise it just sounded kind of strange. It was even stranger when she told them to practice grunting.

Grunting was one thing if you did it at the end of your push involuntarily, but it wasn't easy to consciously do it. Barbara kept breaking into giggles, and Sirius thought the noises he was making qualified more as "straining" than "grunting." It seemed a little counterintuitive.

"Don't worry, class," Nurse Sara told them. "We'll have plenty more time to practice during the duration of our class—and that's a good thing, because tomorrow I have a surprise for a brave mother…or for a very brave father."

Once they were done pushing and grunting, class was over for the day. Nurse Sara told everyone they would be finishing the rest of the crash course tomorrow, and to get a good night's sleep. Then they had some time to socialize.

All the mothers seemed to gather together in one big pack; they laughed and chattered as they felt each other's bellies and compared sizes. Some of the fathers were talking amongst each other as well; Sirius was watching Barbara when he felt himself jabbed in the ribs by a man wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, khakis, big square glasses, a fedora, one gold earring and a sweaty man-bun. Sirius knew him to be called Anthony, from the introductions.

"Hey there," said Anthony. "What position did you use?"

"Excuse me?" Sirius said sharply.

"Y'know, what position did you use for getting your fiancée pregnant?" the man clarified. "Let me guess…doggy-style?"

"That, sir," Sirius told him, "is none of your business."

"But some positions make it easier!" Anthony insisted. "Would you like to hear about our experience?"

"No, I would not, and it doesn't matter, Anthony, because obviously everyone here succeeded in the end, didn't they?" Sirius gestured to the crowd of mothers-to-be. "Now, if you don't mind—"

"Ashley and I used a position that worked really well," the sixteen-year-old interrupted.

"Oh really," said Anthony in interest. "Which position did you use, Dylan?"

"She gave me a lot of head," Dylan replied, beaming at the very thought.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Sirius told him impatiently. "That's impossible."

"She swallows every time," Dylan said back, as if this settled the matter. "Besides, I can only last for about thirty seconds before I explode like a champagne bottle."

"Okay, for one thing, that was way more than I needed to know," Sirius snapped, wondering how (and why) you would share something like that with someone you didn't know from a hole in the ground. "And second, you can't have gotten her pregnant by oral, champagne bottle or no. It had to be when you two did it for real."

"You're wrong," Dylan said stubbornly. "I know because we haven't done it for real yet. I've never actually seen her without her clothes on. I have imagined her in the shower a lot, though…"

Sirius and Anthony exchanged a sudden look of understanding. Somebody had been cheated on and lied to.

"Mate, a girl can't get pregnant that way," Sirius told Dylan, trying to sound gentler. "Think about it."

Dylan had probably been picturing Ashley in the shower again, but upon Sirius's words, his mind worked furiously to think about his theory on how she had fallen pregnant.

"You say you've only seen her naked in your mind," said Anthony. "But did you ever think…well, maybe some other guy has seen her naked for real?"

"What?" Dylan stared over at his girlfriend, looking horrified. "Ashley? You think she'd…?"

"Sorry, mate," said Sirius. "I don't know whose baby that is, but it isn't yours."

"I-I have to go to the bathroom!" Dylan cried, his voice cracking violently, and he ran out the door, his hands over his face.

"That stinks," said Anthony, shaking his head.

"I'll say," Sirius agreed, feeling sorry he had been short with Dylan.

"We've all been there, too," Anthony continued sympathetically.

"Cheated on?"

"No, the whole champagne bottle thing," said Anthony shrewdly. "I mean, when I was his age, even thirty seconds was really hard to—"

"I'm really starting to wonder about this conversation," Sirius interrupted, sticking his hands in the pockets of his motorcycle jacket. "That metaphor was kind of in bad taste, don't you think?"

"It wasn't a metaphor, it was a simile," Anthony corrected.

"Whatever," Sirius said impatiently, and that was when Barbara strolled by. Sirius had literally never been so happy to see her in his life.

"Hi, Siri," she said brightly. "Ready to g—"

"Yes!" Sirius seized her arm and walked as quickly away as he could without actually running. They got their pillows, put away the yoga mat, and decided to call a cab instead of Gwen. Anthony waved as they left. They didn't get to see Dylan again (he stayed in the hospital bathroom so long that Nurse Sara got worried and sent one of the staff in there to fetch him), but somehow Sirius didn't really care.

"Bye, everyone!" Barbara called over her shoulder to the mothers. "See you tomorrow!"

"Tell me, Barbara," said Sirius as they walked down the corridor to the elevator. "Am I the only one who knows TMI is a thing?"

"No," said Barbara. "Why?"

"Well, it turns out Dylan isn't a father, to begin with," said Sirius. "His girl was cheating on him."

"What?!" Barbara gasped. "How did you know? Did he tell you? Why did he go to class if it wasn't his and she cheated on him? Where was the real father?"

"Questions, questions," Sirius said. "That bloke in the khakis, Anthony, had the gall to ask me what position we used, if you can imagine, and I didn't answer, because I know what tact is, but of course Dylan decided to share with us all."

"And…?"

"And he thought he was the real father, but then he claimed she'd gotten pregnant just by going down on him," Sirius explained. "We told him that wasn't possible, but he said it must be possible, because that was the only thing they ever did…and then it kind of clicked, I guess. Bet he won't turn up with her tomorrow."

Barbara whistled. "Poor kid."

"Yeah, I know," said Sirius. "But what I'm wondering is, why did that conversation happen in the first place? Why do people think I want to hear about what positions they used or how long it takes them to get the job done? Since when was this normal?"

"You do realize what kind of class this is, don't you?" said Barbara with a snort of laughter. "It's super New Age, and that means you're going to run into a lot of New Age guys. Never cared for them, myself…"

"From what I've seen of New Age guys, I don't think I much care for them, either," Sirius agreed. They had reached the elevators now, and he pressed the button that would take them to the lobby. "What did the women talk about, dare I ask?"

"Oh, you do not want to know," said Barbara. "Let's just say they were things only a pregnant woman could understand."

"Try me, why don't you?" said Sirius with a grin. "It can't possibly be worse than what I had to listen to from Anthony and Dylan."

"Fine," Barbara replied. "There was this one woman, Melanie—she was having triplets, so she was the hugest one there—and someone mentioned leaking all the time, so Melanie described the panty liner as her 'new best friend.' I thought that was pretty funny, so I laughed, but then I peed too, of course…and then they laughed at me, but not in a mean way. Then this other woman called Christina told me to practice my Kegels, and I asked what those were, and apparently it's an exercise where you clench like you're holding back your pee."

"That sounds painful."

"It's not, though," said Barbara brightly. "I just did one right now."

"Great," said Sirius. "But you don't need to let me know about every single one, okay?"

"No problem," Barbara replied. "Because I've finally found an exercise I can do while sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating ice cream."

TO BE CONTINUED…