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chapter seventeen / season one episode four.
A BABY WAS JUST AS CELEBRATORY AS A WEDDING. Or, so Olivia assumed. She'd only ever attended two weddings (Ada's, and the recently married John and Esme) and she'd never seen a baby be born before. It was something she'd been very lucky to avoid every-time that John had a baby.
And he had a lot of babies.
Luckily, Olivia's age had always played a major factor into whether she got to witness the births. She'd only been four when Finn had decided to grace everyone with his presence. John had been the one who had the job of keeping Olivia sat still on his lap, on the sofa, as she cried hearing her Ma's hysterical crying up the stairs.
Olivia deemed it appropriate that Finn had reduced their Ma to such tears. (Everyone told her that she had done the same to their Ma during her birth, she just chose to neglect that fact.)
The little four year old couldn't tell you how long it had lasted but within hours she had a new baby brother, that she didn't particularly like, and just wanted to go to bed. And Olivia hadn't even been the one birthing.
Martha, John's first wife, had many babies. All of them born in Watery Lane. Thankfully, Olivia was smart. So, when her first niece and nephew were born only years apart and Olivia realized the crocodile tears and the fear for the woman clutching at her stomach gained her a free ticket out of watching the birth and instead wetting the baby's head with her brothers, did she use it to her advantage. Olivia proceeded to use those tears and the fear in her eyes for the next few births of Martha.
The family had slowed down in recent years. There hadn't been a new birth for a short while so Olivia hadn't had to pull out her tears, and her fear.
That wasn't the case now. Ada was giving birth, her sister was the one clutching at her stomach and gripping on tightly to the edge of her settee with a grip stronger than any man Olivia had ever seen.
Ada was giving birth. Ada. Her sister. Holy shit. How did people celebrate when it was truly so frightening? A human... a little thing... a baby was going to just... be pushed out of Ada in the coming hours.
Olivia shivered. She was sure Ada was going to be a good Ma, and she hoped the birth went well but the whole process truly freaked Olivia out. And she sure hoped that the baby didn't have a massive head, that would hurt.
But, lucky Olivia wouldn't have to see the birth because it was just the unspoken law that Olivia didn't have to oversee any birth ever. And she'd be back later when Ma and baby were both happy, clean and cooing softly at one another.
