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When a pregnant cat is ready to give birth, she seeks out a quiet and dark and enclosed place, like a hollow log or the very back of a storage closet, so she can do her painful and vulnerable business alone.
Despite a lifetime of teasing, Maomao is not a cat, but she too wishes she could kick everyone out of the room and go huddle under the table all by herself while she births this baby. Alas, she has family and friends who insist she do this the human way, and will not leave her alone until the child is coaxed out of her.
“I can’t do this,” she says into the stool she's clinging to while kneeling on the floor. There’s an edge to her usual near-monotone voice. It’s impossible to remain calm when her insides are contracting, squeezing, evacuating something far too big for such a narrow exit. Maomao doesn't know what possessed her to think she could grow a full baby in a body as small as hers, and then somehow get it out of her later. It's not like poison, where she knows how to treat it or counteract it. Her body is doing things she can't control now. She wonders if she will die today. She wonders if she should have made Jinshi into a real eunuch when she had the chance.
“I can’t do this,” she says again. She lifts up her head to look at Luomen. “Can you cut it out? I need it out of me now.” This time it comes out as a moan, which is embarrassing, but better than screaming. The last thing she needs is for the men outside to hear her in pain, because if they did, there is no way that Lahan could keep Lakan and Jinshi from teaming up and doing something incredibly stupid.
Luomen shakes his head. “There's no need for that. You're ready to push now." Maomao growls in response, but she can't argue with the only doctor in the kingdom who has done that surgery successfully.
"Yao? En'en? Help me get her in position.” Yao and En'en drag Maomao from the stool and guide her to something more akin to a squat. They wrap the straps hanging from the ceiling around her hands and wrists to give her some leverage. Chue puts down all the flags and doodads she’s been waving around in an attempt to distract Maomao from the pain and retreats to the corner. Maomao understands why Yao and En'en are here — they have midwifed several children in the rear palace by now, including the Crown Prince's younger brother. Chue, on the other hand…well, Chue's given birth before?
Luomen takes the stool Maomao has relinquished and sits facing her as he starts to coach. “I want you to breathe in, and then hold it. When I say push, count to ten, and then exhale.” He had told her ahead of time so she wouldn’t forget: the pain usually makes women want to scream, but holding her breath will direct all that energy to pushing, so it’s better to stay silent. “Breathe.” She gulps in the air, clamps her mouth shut. “Push.” Maomao’s eyes stay open as she bears down; she sees Chue in the background holding up her good hand, doing a silent countdown with her fingers. Ten, nine, eight, seven…
Finally Maomao exhales, and has the briefest of reprieves before the pain comes back and she has to push all over again. And again. And again. Maomao tries to catch her breath in between, but it's hard to get enough air. Didn't you want to know what this felt like? Well. She'll never need to wonder what this is like again.
“Almost. Here,” Yao takes Maomao’s hand and sticks it between her legs. She feels something sticky and hairy — oh. Crowning now.
“One more. You can do this.” Another wave, another gulp of air held inside, another count to 3 - 2 - 1 and then —
Relief, and a loud wail that is not hers.
Before she knows what's happening, she's lying on the mat and there's a baby on her bared stomach, purple-red and covered in white crud, dark down all over its body.
The baby looks right at her, its face scrunched up like it is very, very angry at her for being pushed out here in the air and bright light of day, and not in the warm and dark and safe place it's only known. It lets out another cry right in her direction.
"A girl," Luomen says. Chue whoops in the back. Yao already has a warm and wet cloth to clean the baby and the blood off of Maomao. There are more contractions, but they are mere aftershocks after the big quake.
Maomao stares at her daughter. Her daughter stares back at her, and wails in protest as Luomen cuts the cord, but doesn't look away from her mother.
Maomao feels another cramp, and the placenta sliding out of her. "I need that!" she says, forfeiting the staring contest to point. Luomen gives her a look that is both placid and condescending as he places the bloody organ in a bowl on the other side. He washes his hands and returns with a needle and thread.
"Only a few stitches," he says. Maomao barely feels the sting of the needle going through her perineum. Luomen has the calm smile of a Buddha. If he feels at all awkward about stitching his adoptive daughter's privates, he does not show it. When he's done, and washes his hands again, he briefly takes Maomao's hand and squeezes it before placing it gently on the baby's back.
"You did well, Maomao. I'm very proud of you." Maomao starts blinking rapidly; she can feel embarrassing tears in her eyes. She has never once doubted Luomen's affection, but praise from him is rare and therefore well-earned. And there is, finally, a look of pride underneath his frustratingly humble and self-effacing demeanor. That is not usual, but he deserves it. He's lived a long life — so long that Maomao worried that with all of the waiting necessary to safely carry this pregnancy without starting an international incident, Luomen might not live long enough to see this birth. But he has, and now he has accomplished the rare feat of delivering three generations of the Imperial Family.
And while this baby is technically Luomen's great-grand niece, she's also his first grandchild, too. As much as she is Lakan's, or the Emperor's, even if the Emperor will officially acknowledge her as his niece.
Lakan will certainly celebrate this birth as publicly and obnoxiously as possible, but Luomen, like Maomao, is happy to simply know, and Maomao knows too, and that feels right and good. Just as the post-labor euphoria feels good. Just as the little being on her body feels good.
Getting the baby to latch onto a breast is harder than it looks. The baby’s mouth is small and hard and not sure what to do with itself. Maomao’s always been small-chested; maybe when it swells up a bit more, it’ll be easier.
“Gotta just shove it in there,” Chue says, grabbing one breast and trying to force the nipple into the baby's mouth.
"Have you even done this before?" Maomao asks testily, swatting Chue's hand away.
"Nope! I handed mine off to Maamei right away, and she handed him off to a wet nurse." Chue says. "Why would I bother when there's a big and juicy breast out there just waiting for him?"
The latch hurts when it happens. At least the baby seems to be sucking. Or maybe gnawing. Maomao can't tell.
"Just say the word, and I can find a good wet nurse for you," Chue continues. "And another nurse too. You've already done your part. We can't all be the motherly type."
"I'm not handing her over," Maomao says. She is not the least bit maternal; her own mother made sure of that. She's spent so much of her life trying to avoid pregnancy; at first, because of what getting pregnant did to her mother, and then knowing that bearing Jinshi's child would lead to a civil war. Even when the situation finally resolved and she got pregnant, she was at first more pleased to have proof that her contraceptives were effective all along, since she got knocked up as soon as she stopped. And then she spent months carefully observing and experiencing all of it — the nausea, the tender breasts, the feeling of something alive moving inside her growing belly, the inexplicable libido right before she went into labor. She was too focused on the present to think much about what would happen when the child arrived.
Now that she's out here, though, Maomao doesn't worry. Her new daughter feels like the beginning of a big project, sort of an experiment: what will become of this child, if she is raised by a mother and a father who can provide both love and care for her, even when she is still small and helpless?
"Don't worry," Maomao says to the baby making its best effort to get some fluids out of her chest, "I vow I will never cut off any of your fingers. Unless it's to save your life."
A loud cheer filters in from outside. At some point Luomen must have left the room to go share the news to the men waiting. The door starts to open, and Yao wedges her body in the gap.
"You can't come in! No men except for the father! I mean, the baby's father!" Chue quickly covers Maomao with blanket up to her chest, but Luomen says something outside to quiet down the freak strategist, and Yao contracts her body just enough for Jinshi to slip through the space without touching her or giving Lakan an opening to follow. Yao slams the door behind him and bolts it. Jinshi runs to the bed and takes Maomao's hand as if he was the one fully depleted of energy right now.
“You’re well?” Jinshi looks around at the bloody heap of linens piled up for washing, then back at her face, seeking a nod before he dares look at the squirming creature on her chest. When he does, though, his eyes widen in wonder.
“It’s a girl,” Maomao says, wincing as she tries to get the baby to switch to the other breast.
“She’s beautiful,” Jinshi says, stroking the babies' face. Maomao thinks the baby looks more like a middle-aged man with a receding hairline than a lovely little girl. But that's temporary, and Maomao understands that any person with normal emotions might feel happy to see their own child for the first time. Maomao is quite pleased that he is pleased. He's always been good for getting her whatever expensive ingredients she needs for her concoctions, but this one required an especially rare one that no one else could provide. He gets first rights to the results.
Not like a baby is medicine, of course. Or a poison. But she's been quite the project. Their project.
"What should we name her?" Jinshi asks.
"Isn’t there a protocol for that?"
"We're no longer bound by Imperial law, so no. We can name her as we please.”
Maomao looks at the baby and thinks. She does the thing where she thinks so loud she speaks it:
"Shisui."
Jinshi’s eyes went wide momentarily, and Maomao, for a moment, regrets her choice. Shisui may have once been her dearest friend, and few people could connect that name to the Shi clan rebellion years ago, but Jinshi was one of those people. And Maomao would have to present this baby to Ah Duo eventually, and when she did, Suirei would certainly be there, and what would she think of it?
But Jinshi nods his head, even as his hand briefly touches the scar on his cheek. He shrugs in feigned nonchalance. “It’s a good name,” he says.
“It is a good name.” Maomao closes her eyes and thinks of a woman in two messy purple buns laughing as she chased after insects in the palace garden. Soaking in the baths after their side hustles. The way she smiled when she tasted the ice cream Maomao had made for her, even if she didn't know it at the time. After all these years, Maomao still has a tiny hope that someday Shisui will return in some clever disguise; she would find it hilarious that someone named a child after her.
Maomao thinks that it will add a new hypothesis to the project: what if this child not only grows up with two parents who are present and love her, but who let her grow up as the girl she chooses to be, not a girl whose tragic fate was written before she was born? No matter how strange that girl might be?
Another commotion breaks her out of her thoughts, as En'en comes through the door with a steaming pot in her hands, Yao somehow letting her through without burning herself or Lakan following her.
"It's ready!" En'en opens the lid and Maomao smells ginger and sesame oil and rice wine and something else she hasn't before.
Her exhausted eyes light up and she grins with all of her teeth. This is what Maomao's been looking forward to for the past nine months.
"I know you'd prefer it raw, but it's better for you this way," En'en says as she strains the placenta over the soup and cuts a slice into small bites. Chue shakes her head. Yao pretends to ignore it while wrapping Baby Shisui in a blanket and giving her to Jinshi.
"What is that?" Jinshi asks, narrowing his eyes.
"The placenta!" Maomao is no longer exhausted; she's downright gleeful. "Eating it after a delivery helps replenish everything lost while giving birth. Would you like to try some?" She holds out a piece with her chopsticks. Jinshi shakes his head, eyes still narrowed.
"Fine by me." Maomao wouldn't have offered it to him if she believed he'd actually eat it. She crams the piece into her own mouth, but once it's in, she slows down to savor it. Consuming one's own organs is not an everyday experience. She won't get a chance like this again unless she has another baby, and she's not sure even she is willing to go that far.
The texture is similar to a very large sweetbread, perhaps a bit more tender; En'en's never cooked one before, but she did it perfectly. There's a metallic tang from any residual blood; otherwise it tastes like the choicest, tenderest cut of rare beef.
...oh no. Maybe she will have to do all this again.
"How is it?" En'en asks, perched on the side of the bed.
"It's the best thing I've ever had," Maomao says, and devours the whole dish.