#stillbirth

With my most recent pregnancy in 2020, I started receiving formula samples in the mail from Similac and Enfamil in my first trimester. My email was quickly passed between pregnancy and baby specific companies and my inbox became flooded with emails advertising countless products and services.

I was harassed by 2 cord blood storage companies after briefly browsing one of their websites. After my baby was diagnosed as terminal, I had a phone conversation with a rep who tried to convince me multiple times to store her cord blood for my future babies.

After Sam was born/died, within a week of my delivery I received a congratulations letter and offer from Gerber Life Insurance in the mail, also without my consent. I continued receiving formula coupons despite reporting her death to the companies multiple times, and even now I receive toddler formula coupons from time to time.

Amazon has tracked my purchases to the point that they know I (should) have a 19 month old and will advertise me toddler and baby things for girls, despite never having linked an AGAB to my Amazon account.

(this is ACTUALLY a hypothetical question, i have no plans to write a fic involving this lol)

Does this happen in the books and I just haven't read that far?

Would they be a pregnant vampire forever? Would the fetus be expelled like all the other human bodily fluids? If the fetus was far enough along to survive outside the womb, would it be a human or a vampire? Or would the fetus just always be stillborn? Or would the turning just not work and both the fetus and pregnant person would die?

Let it Once be Me

The Prophecy // Taylor Swift

...fuck

@kingdonmacrofic

warnings: frank's parental issues, mentions of fertility issues and stillbirth, cant think of anything else

-----

There were four seats at this table. Four corners. And four reasons for their awkward silence. Each person waiting for someone else to speak first. 

The first and most important thing was this: Becca King was face blind. If she wasn’t, maybe things would have gone differently. 

The second contributing factor was Becca’s refusal to tell Mel about Adam or show her him until Mel had a partner of her own. She had good intentions, for all that it hurt Mel– she didn’t want to rub Mel’s face in it.

The third reason was the 4 months Frank hid his divorce. He couldn’t handle coming back as the divorced loser addict, he needed time to be comfortable being vulnerable with the people who ignored him for the worst ten months of his life. He had also needed time to be comfortable before being vulnerable with Mel, scared of what their friendship could be without the barriers of his marriage. Would she pull back? Be less vulnerable with him? (He hadn’t dared to hope that it would bring them closer together.)

All that together, when Mel and Frank finally sorted things out, after a month of dating Becca was ready to introduce Adam and Mel. Frank would be there for moral support. Even if he wasn’t gone on Mel, even if he wasn’t already sure she was the love of his life, if they were just friends, he’d still want to be there. 

Adam was less a person and more an idea to her, a microcosm of her difficulties balancing being Becca’s caretaker and her sister, her fear of being alone, a manifestation of the wound of discovering her sister lied to her for 6 months. 

Frank had never pried about Adam with Becca, only having one conversation with her about it, talking to her about how if she was unsure, if she felt unsafe, he’d have her back. She’d smiled at him, patted his hand and asked when he’d finally kiss Mel. 

The fourth reason was this– Frank Langdon was a lonely kid. An only child, he’d begged for a sibling, never to be obliged. It was only later, when he had had kids of his own, when he’d gone through med school, that he could contextualize the expression his parents wore whenever he asked. The same face he wore having to deliver news to the bereaved. Fertility issues, he assumed. Stillbirth, he’d found out, after his divorce, after rehab, after a screaming fight with them on the other side of the end table that had claimed his back, his pride and his career. He was supposed to be a twin. 

- - - 

Looking back, Frank regretted not asking for a picture. It was uncanny. Like looking into a mirror, but one that was ambulatory, animate. There were differences, sure, but they were the exceptions that proved the rule. Adam had longer hair– shoulder length, like he’d had it in undergrad; he had a goatee; he looked about an inch and a half taller and 20 pounds lighter. Otherwise, it was like looking at his doppelgänger. 

“Mel, are you seeing this?”

“Yes, Frank,” she whispered back. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

“I’m just as surprised as you.”

30. What are their most healthy and most unhealthy coping mechanisms? - honestly, while Ovinus would strenuously disagree with me here, i think that his fixation on learning magic in order to prove that the accident that killed his parents couldn't have been an accident is pretty healthy. something deeply traumatic happened to him, so he decided to learn as much about the mechanisms and circumstances of that event as possible in order to better understand it, and while it would be a hilarious lie to say he's 'over' it or 'moved on,' i do think that actually did really help with his general sense of like, terror and heplessness in the world.

so in a broader sense, he's very driven to learn about and make sense of things, and he's definitely a Plans kind of guy. if something happens, he wants to figure out a Plan and a way to Fix It. i think this is generally pretty healthy, although sometimes you can't always plan or fix your way out of things.

his utter refusal to show vulnerability or let on that he has feelings or that they can be hurt is an unhealthy one. so is the way he redirects any negative feelings he has into anger. his sense of superiority is for SURE a coping mechanism for how often he gets treated like he's barely sentient or like his life is an unimaginable tragedy, and it's not healthy either.