take me to church (emily prentiss)

4. thirteen

AN: hi guys! happy monday!

welcome to the christmas chapter yayyy, we're slowly making progress through s4 thank god🥲

only a few little TWs today:
mentions of drug addictions
mentions of drug use during pregnancy
fetal drug addictions
incest jokes

i hope you guys enjoy!! <333

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"throw your arms around the world at Christmas time." - do they know it's christmas?, band aid

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Henry's birth brought about a lot of things for Liv's family.

For one, there was a baby in the house now, and it wasn't as hard as Liv had thought it would be. Their routine fell together quite well, and Henry was the quietest and most content baby Liv had ever seen.

For two, it was beautiful and so healing to watch how much love the family had for Henry. He brought out a new level of softness in everyone, Emily and Ziggy included.

For three, it brought about the baby conversation for Liv and Emily again.

Liv had talked about it in therapy, and so had Emily. They had concerns, but they were more geared towards the medical side of the process than the actual issues they'd once argued over.

When they looked at it, they could essentially water the recessive genes down. This baby, genetically, would be at a lot lower risk of any genetic issues than Ziggy. They could control the donor and ensure the gene pool was as good as possible.

Before they got to that point, though, they first needed to check Liv was still fertile and was considered healthy to have a baby. She already knew they'd be considered a geriatric pregnancy due to Liv's age being over thirty five, but she also knew she was in peak health in every other aspect of her life.

So, Liv called in a favour with Cece, and that's how she and Emily found themselves sitting in Cece's office waiting for the results of the fertility tests she'd taken earlier that afternoon.

"So," Cece said, looking away from her laptop. "Good news, bad news. Which first?"

"Bad," Liv and Emily said instantly.

"You're anaemic," Cece said. "Bad doctor."

Liv rolled her eyes.

"Sorry," Liv said. "I ran out of my iron tablets, like, last month and forgot to grab more."

"Well, buy some on your way home," Cece said. "Other than that, you're as healthy as a horse. Extremely fertile, too. Everything looks to be in perfect working condition. My only concern will be how you manage yourself during any future pregnancy, but that's a precaution we have to take when you have a baby over thirty five."

"So, we can have a baby?" Emily said.

"You can," Cece said. "And we're here to talk about options moving forward, if you're both ready to hear some. You might've discussed it yourselves and have an opinion already."

"Well, if it's a donor situation, it'll just be IUI, won't it?" Liv said.

"It will be," Cece confirmed. "We won't have to remove your eggs and fertilise them in a lab. The insemination process will be quite simple. We find the best day in your ovulation cycle, we bring you in for the process, we pump you full of sperm and we wait a few weeks to see if it takes."