#Stop Polio

[familythings]

UPDATE: Polio Vaccination campaign in Gaza

In one of our previous articles we shared the disturbing news that Gaza was added to the list of countries with active poliomyelitis cases. Today we would like to share with you the good news that the vaccination campaign in Gaza is now happening and some new developments about it. Eco-friendly HODDIE BATH TOWEL for babies. Super soft, warm and super absorbent. Click on the photo to buy this…

[motherofplatypus]

[Original video. Downloaded for easier access.]

[cavalierzee]

IDF Kills Own Citizens Again!

Just as they killed Israelis on Oct. 7th during the implementation of the HANNIBAL DIRECTIVE, then falsely blamed HAMAS for the deaths.

[bauliya]

i'm sorry I am a dumb dumb but it just occurred to me logan loves shiv the most because of rose. his daughter, his only daughter.

[david-watts]

getting through how ridiculously unwell I feel by pretending to be a poor victorian poet dying in the broad street cholera outbreak

[bakrishna]

[capybaracorn]

Absence of ceasefire hurting fight against polio in Gaza, WHO says

Warning, some viewers may find the images in this report upsetting.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is working on a campaign against polio in Gaza after the virus was detected there, but the continuing war presents multiple hurdles to the effort. While no clinical cases have been diagnosed so far, polio was detected in sewage in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis areas, WHO polio specialist Hamid Jafari said in a news conference on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said they will send more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza, AFP news agency reported. There have been growing concerns about the spread of diseases in Gaza due to the humanitarian crisis, lack of medical supplies and destruction of water sanitation plants by Israel. Al Jazeera’s Michael Appel reports.

[dr-whoopsie-daisy]

Reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

"By the end of 1951 the world was in the midst of the biggest polio epidemic in history. Schools closed, parents panicked, and the public grew desperate for a vaccine." Pg 151 (e-book)

I find it strange that covid-19 was compared to the Spanish flu of 1918 but no one ever mentioned the polio breakouts.

I imagine this passage was experienced differently when it was written in 2010 versus post-2020.

[girlinafairytale]

-michael rosen

i have a question. what are fuck are we waiting for? are we waiting for the situation in gaza to get worse? are we waiting till another palestinian dies a horrific death? are we waiting for another massacre? what will it take for us to fucking do something!?

i cannot explain how dire the situation in gaza is. no food, no clean water, flimsy tents, worsening weather, skyrocketing prices, polio infected sewage, rampant disease, increased bombing, death everywhere.

there is a massacre every single fucking day. the occupation commits crimes more heinous than before. the death toll is just heart breaking. children are being robbed of their childhood and families are being ripped apart.

life has been violently disrupted for palestinians. they've been forced to plead to strangers on the internet for help. help in saving the lives of their family and children, all traumatized by the genocide.

this is your chance to do some good. to stop being a fucking bystander. help my friend @alaa-992. she just wants to help her family. she has two little kids aged four and six. you can get a chance to win some cool things by donating to her. check @les-mis-for-palestine for more details.

donate here || verification || raffle for alaa

[resourcesmasterposts]

Verified Ways to Donate to Gaza Directly

(updated Sep 2024)

Donate to a Palestinian family directly:

GazaFunds.com - Spotlights 1 stagnant/struggling GFM each time you visit the page. Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical treatment or basic necessities. Site run by Palestinians, all campaigns verified.

(*If you can't decide who/where to donate, simply go to GazaFunds.com. They take the decision out of your hands.)

Masterlist of 200+ verified Palestinian families' GFMs: Operation Olive Branch

eSIMs: (*urgent!)

Guide to buy + send eSIMs to Gaza

Crips for eSims for Gaza: Donate any amount to this team of volunteers who pool funds to buy + maintain eSIMs for Gaza regularly (see their financial accountability document).

Food:

Cruelty-Free Meals for North Gaza: 4 Palestinian friends on the ground in Gaza distributing vegan-friendly meals & water to displaced families in North Gaza. Proof of their work found on their GFM page. (gfm)

We Feed Gaza: Palestinian volunteers in the heart of Gaza distributing food & water to 344+ families. Details & proof in their gfm. Vetted & promoted by LetsTalkPalestine on IG. (gfm)

Other reliable campaigns by Palestinian volunteers on the ground in Gaza distributing food & necessities to displaced families: Care for Gaza, Direct Aid for Gaza

Water: (*urgent and crucial)

Gaza Municipality: The Municipality of Gaza needs funds to rebuild the water pipes in Gaza City to restore access to clean drinking water & waste management. Crucial in combating the spread of infectious diseases e.g. polio.

Help provide tents:

The Sameer Project: Provides tents & transport for families in Rafah who urgently need to evacuate. Has a team on the ground in Gaza who successfully supplied tents to 1% of the displaced refugees in Rafah. Run by Palestinians. (paypal, venmo) (chuffed)

@helpgazachildren: Funds go directly to Hussam, a Palestinian in Rafah who hosts a refugee camp. Funds will cover the cost of tents & transport fuel. Managed by a Palestinian @fairuzfan. (gfm)

Medical Aid:

Gaza Wound Care: Palestinian doctors in central Gaza treating injured/sick children & mothers in neglected displacement camps far from hospitals. Severe shortage of medicines, equipment, & medical supplies. Raising funds to treat diseases in refugee camps. (gfm) (paypal) (gogetfunding)

international charities: Palestine Red Crescent Society, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, Medical Aid for Palestinians

How to help if you can't donate:

Share + amplify Palestinian fundraisers in your irl + online circles

Organize or help to run an online/irl event to raise funds for Palestine

Boycott

Get involved with a protest/strike/direct action in your area

Contact your reps

Educate yourself + others, irl + online

Daily clicks on Arab.org

(Longer masterpost of all ways you can help)

These links focus on Palestinian-run grassroots initiatives that will reach Gazans on the ground, so all of these except eSIMs, PCRF, MAP, OOB are by Palestinians. Donating to international organizations is currently not ideal, as aid is still being stopped at the border. Please focus on Palestinian-run initiatives on the ground in Gaza instead.

Remember, small donations always add up. Any amount counts, even $1!

If you are unable to donate yourself, you can even adopt a fundraiser campaign to regularly boost and make materials promoting it online, or print posters and flyers about Palestinian fundraisers to encourage others to donate.

Poster/graphic about gazafunds.com

Flyers about eSIMs

Flyers about GazaFamilyFunds

[gotinterest]

ALHAW FAMILY UPDATE

The fundraiser currently sits at €33,119/€90,000. They still have about 2/3rds of the way to go!

Eman took her kids to get their first round of vaccines for polio. She says that the bombings haven't really stopped despite the supposed "humanitarian pauses" put in place to allow the vaccination campaign to run.

Living is expensive for them. Please donate and share. They are depending on your support to survive!

[buttercuparry]

I am very worried that Siraj ( @siraj2024 ) may not be able to get to 30k CAD by the end of this week 

We have got only 2 days left now!!

Siraj, who is both a journalist and writer, never imagined a time in which he would be forced to plead for monetary help from strangers on the internet. This genocide, now in its 10th month, has devastated his life and forced him to turn to us, and to you. His house, which was a dream come true for his family, has been bombed by the IDF, forcing Siraj to bear witness to a decade of hard work crumbling to the ground. All this injustice comes at the hands of the illegal settler state of “Israel” and its Imperial sponsor, the USA.

Because of the manufactured famine and violence by the occupation , everyday has been a nightmare for Siraj. Food is hard to come by and what little there is- it is extremely costly. There is also no clean drinking water in Gaza Strip either and this is all the more alarming, since recently there has been discovery of  polio virus in the free flowing sewage water putting all unvaccinated children at risk of an epidemic, with gaza's medical infrastructure almost completely destroyed

The settler colony is not only bombing and administrating deadly ground invasions but, it has also created such conditions that children who by some luck  have escaped being in the line of fire,  now have every possibility of contracting deadly illnesses!

Siraj's little son is seriously ill !!

It is something Siraj has worried about for some time now, with all the illnesses the children of gaza are being exposed to today and none of the medical resources left to help. You cannot afford to get sick in gaza anymore, just as you cannot afford to get injured. This is his worst fear come to life. 

This places Siraj’s son in a deeply vulnerable situation.For the past two days Siraj has been unable to come online properly to campaign - he can’t spare time for the campaign because he must care for his child, and in these two days where Siraj has been stretched thin between obligations, and time was taken from his pleas for help, his campaign stagnated.

If you truly believe in the Palestinian cause, if you truly want them to have a life of dignity then please do not turn away the moment they stop to take a breath.  

Siraj wants to rebuild his home to escape the tent life which is proving difficult for his children! He wants to remain in Gaza. He cannot bear to think that his wife Halima has no privacy, that she has to endure even this amidst trying to survive a genocide. Does he really  have to travel 3 km everyday, no matter what to post his daily updates, for you to keep  caring? Does he have to showcase pictures of his sick children to the world to garner your sympathy? Does he have to expose his family to the racist dehumanization faced by Palestinians in real life and on this site, when he already bears the burnt of harassment from Zionists who hate him for daring to  expose the occupation in all its brutality? If it is not so then please boost and donate!

We only have 2 days to reach 30k !!

Currently at $26930 CAD. Only $40 CAD donated in the last hour. Do not fail Siraj now!

(Vetting at number 219 on Hussein and Nabulsi's list )

[kick-a-long]

Stuff like this is why I get so pissed off at accusations of genocide and apartheid.

Why would a genocidal country pause a war to vaccinate at least 90% of Gaza kids against polio as soon as the first case of a two year old paralyzed by type 2 poliovirus is confirmed? If they wanted gazans wiped off the earth they would keep the war going and vaccinate Israeli kids and citizens. If they wanted them dead they would never vaccinate “the enemy.” Russia wouldn’t do that.

I see you dickheads in the comments, “it’s for optics! Plus they must be worried about Jews getting it from them! That’s the only reason they want to vaccinate anyone. Plus vaccines are poison even checked by the WHO! They probably have autism in them!”

If it’s an apartheid why would Palestinians have access to the same places and bodies of water as Israelis? And if they don’t why would Israel vaccinate. The Regan administration didn’t respond to the HIV outbreak in the 80s because they hated gays and drug users and wanted them sick, spreading it, and most importantly dead. During peace time to their own citizens.

All Israel would have to do is ignore the outbreak.

Vaccines work. Polio is one of the most devastating diseases a kid can get. There’s no medication that can stop the damage once you get the virus. Lil kids die from diarrhea, are paralyzed for life and if they’re immune system doesn’t stop the paralysis at their legs it climbs up their bodies and once it hits their diaphragm (the muscle that lets you breath right under your rip cage) kids as young as a few months old to their teens will die from lack of air. Both are the absolute worst and most painful ways a person can die. Waking nightmare delusions from dehydration and low oxygen on top of the physical pain.

Nazis infected Jews with this shit intentionally to study how polio affects children. Israel is stopping in the middle of a war to end the polio outbreak when they are still trying to rescue kids so young they have spent the majority of their lives on earth in Hamas captivity. And after only one kid was confirmed with polio type 2, the one that causes paralysis.

How can it be a genocide or an apartheid when they are literally helping safeguard Palestines next generation of kids?

[woso-dreamzzz]

Shots

Hardersson x Baby!Reader

Part of The Big Adventures Universe

Summary: Magda cries

You lift your arms up and Pernille swings you up into your car seat, buckling you in. You wiggle happily and Pernille pulls a silly face at you to get you laughing.

At a few months past one years old, you've been successfully booked in for your polio shot.

You've been fairly good all morning and get into the car happily.

Pernille turns around to get the other child in as well.

"Magda," She says," Get in the car."

Her girlfriend stands by the closed passenger door, arms crossed over her chest. "No."

"Magda," Pernille says again," The car. Get in it."

"You can't make me."

"Then don't come." Pernille doesn't really have time for this so walks around to the driver's side. "You can have lunch ready for when we come home."

"No, wait! I'll come!"

Magda finally slides into the seat, buckling herself in and still stubbornly crossing her arms over her chest.

"Stop with the pout," Pernille says," She's going to get her shot. End of discussion."

"It's going to hurt her!" Magda insists," Why isn't there a spray we can give her? Why haven't they invented that yet?!"

"Because the injection remains the best way," Pernille replies," You can wait outside if seeing her cry really bothers you."

"No!"

Magda paces like a lion as you sit on Pernille's lap while the doctor readies your polio shot.

"It'll be quick," The doctor assures her," She won't even notice it."

You don't, not at first anyway.

Pernille clicks her fingers in the opposite direction to your shot and you tilt your head to follow the sound.

You don't see the needle go in and you don't react at all until Magda bursts into tears. You watch Magda cry and that immediately triggers your own crying.

"Magda," Pernille hisses as she bounces you," Why are you crying?"

"She's crying," Magda blubbers," She's hurt!"

"She's crying because you're crying."

"We're both crying," Magda agrees," Can-Can we cry together?" She holds her arms out for you and Pernille transfers you into them.

You're both sobbing by the time you get into the car and Magda insists on sitting in the back with you while Pernille drives.

Your own tears have petered off by the time you've gotten home though Magda still has a few spilling down her cheeks.

It's a little funny, Pernille thinks, that Magda burst into sympathetic tears thinking you would have already been sobbing which only triggered a wave of your own sympathetic tears straight back at her.

"Feeling better now?" Pernille coos at you as she picks you up out of your seat.

"She seems a bit feverish," Magda says, bottom lip being worried by her teeth," We should take her back. To check her out."

"The doctor told us this might happen," Pernille replies, unlocking the house with you on her hip easily," Which you would know if you'd listened when the doctor told us."

"Are you sure? What if she breaks out in hives?"

"Then we'll take her back but this is normal Magda. She's a little hot but that's fine. Anything else?"

Magda winces. "Her plaster's coming off."

"We've got puppy plasters in the bathroom cabinet. Why don't you grab one and we'll put it on her."

Magda all but runs upstairs to the medicine cabinet and Pernille shakes her head fondly after her.

She bounces you. "Your Morsa is such a worrywart sometimes. Honestly, crying because you got your shot. She's so silly."

You giggle a little bit. "Morsa silly."

"That's right, she is."

Magda comes slipping into the room, sliding along the floor in just her socks and nearly colliding with the tv. "I've got the puppy plasters! Do you want to choose which one you want?"

You lean forward in Pernille's arms as Magda shows you all the options, pointing towards the cartoon version of a spitz style puppy.

"Good choice!"

Magda unwraps it before sticking it straight onto where you've had your shot.

"Look at that, so pretty!"

You giggle again, poking your new plaster and Magda winces.

"Princesse!" She scolds," That will hurt you!"

"She's fine, Magda," Pernille says," She's forgotten it's even happened."

Magda frowns. "But how? It's traumatising!"

"Maybe to you but she doesn't care about much outside of cuddles and food. She's fine."

[thedailydescent]

Every day I come onto this site and try to think of a better, more convincing method of trying to get people to donate to stagnating fundraisers.

I am very disappointed that Hashim & Laila's, Mohammed Eid Matar's, and Yahya's fundraisers have barely budged over the past week, despite the regular updates they and the people promoting them have been giving.

Mohammed (@mohammedmatat) desperately needs a new tent for his family for the upcoming winter. We have already heard stories about heavy rain this week, which the average tent provides little protection for. Farah (@/farahmoo2), for example, has told us that her family's tent got flooded this week, and needed to be rebuilt. A tent in Gaza costs anywhere between $200-$1000 depending on the quality (not including bedding or a toilet), and building one isn't that much cheaper than a ready-made one. I was hoping to get Mohammed's fundraiser to at least the 2k mark by the end of the week, yet we're still at €1,350. Mohammed is only 23, and has two young siblings to take care of, who not only have been injured over the past year, are now, if they do not get access to safe shelter by the time the winter chill sets in, at risk of getting sick. (don't forget that there has been an outbreak of polio in Gaza as well, and they've only recently started the first rounds of vaccinations for children under 10).

Hashim & Laila (@hashimsafadi) are also at an abysmally low amount, still at €1,362 despite the fundraiser being up since Apr 23. Without jobs, how can two people live off of €1,362 for five months? How can you live off of that, put up with being displaced several times, living constantly under threat of being killed in unsafe areas? Being exposed to massive heat waves, suffering "contamination, intestinal infections, skin rashes, jaundice, and infections of the joints, bones, and teeth"? You can't.

Hashim & Laila will also be needing a safe and sanitary environment to live in for the upcoming winter! Please help them out.

And finally, Yahya Bkheet. Yahya has been tirelessly working to get his family, including three children under 10, out of Gaza. They were given until Aug 23 to raise €30k so they could all evacuate together, yet they didn't even make it to the 5k mark. That hasn't stopped Yahya from continuing to try. He has posted an update today of his situation: his mother needs treatment for her heart disease and diabetes, they need at least $200 to fix up the tent for the upcoming winter, his child Anas has contracted a skin disease from the polluted water, and his other child Mira has the flu and needs money for medicine.

They have only raised €5 today! They deserve better than this. Please help this family out.

Living conditions will not be the only thing for these three families to worry about for the upcoming winter. There's also the question of food. A few days ago, it was reported that Israel’s siege now blocks 83% of food aid reaching Gaza. That means 83% of required food aid will not make it into Gaza, up from the 34% that did not make it in 2023. That means the average Gazan eating two meals day will now drop to just one meal every other day. This makes the recent post @/omgthatdress made yesterday telling everyone to report people who send fundraiser asks, and just donate to aid organizations instead, that much more harmful. Guys, there's hardly any aid coming in! From July-September 2024, fresh meat prices have increased by 366%, and fresh fruit 228%. Please give Gazans a chance and donate to vetted fundraisers if you can, so they can at least buy their own groceries. When the cold weather sets in, people naturally become hungrier. Children cannot survive off of one meal every other day. A couple, whose dream is to go back to school and start a family of their own, cannot survive off of one meal every other day.

In other news, there has also been an update from the Mona Abu Hamda Team, who run a mutual aid fund which provides essential supplies such as blankets, food, flour, charcoal for cooking, sanitary products, and financial aid for necessities such as baby milk. There has apparently been a decrease in donations, and they are currently sitting at €75,639 of their €100,000 target. Please also consider donating to them to help Gazans out this winter.

Tagging for further reach (sorry if I've already tagged you today. I am a tiny blog and my posts only get traction if I tag):

@neptunerings @victoriawhimsey @captainsaltymuyfancy @maester-cressen @buttercuparry

@lesbianmaxevans @ana-bananya @magnus-rhymes-with-swagness @just-browsings-world

@danlous @underthejollyroger @lesbianboyfriend @weirdmarioenemies @teabisexual

@robotpussy @khanger @brutaliakhoa @cluelessbot @appsa

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

The Coconut (The Surprise, Part 21)

Emily Prentiss x fem!reader Warnings: mentions of sex (but no smut), general pregnancy anxiety, explicit language (let me know if I've missed anything!) Word count: 1.7k

Summary: Your nesting instinct is kicking in hard and causing you some anxiety. But Emily is here to help make it better.

Week 31: The Coconut

You froze on your laddered perch in the nursery, dripping handled squeegee pressed against the chalkboard wall that the BAU had painted a few weeks ago, as you heard Emily knock on the open door.

“Uh… what’s going on in here?” she said, looking at you with equal parts concern and amusement.

You’d noticed today that it was dusty. And every time you passed the room, you could see more chalk dust, as if it was taunting you. Accumulating on the surfaces, making sandy little dust clouds on the hardwoods, sifting its way into the baby’s lungs, causing something horrendous and scary and life-altering, like polio or meningitis.

“The chalk wall was a bad idea, Em,” you said, huffing as you lowered the squeegee into the mop bucket. Emily surged forward to hold your forearms as you stepped down from the ladder.

“Don’t love the idea of you on this thing…” she muttered, more to herself than to you, then shook her head and looked at you, planting a quick hello kiss on your cheek. “What’s wrong with the chalk wall? I thought you liked it?”

You crossed your arms and bit at your lip, worried. You were so worried these days.

“What if it gets in her lungs or something, and she gets sick? I just…” You started to tear up despite yourself, sniffling and wiping at your eyes. “I want her to be safe. I have to keep her safe.”

“Oh, honey,” Emily said, placing her hands on either side of your face. “He will be safe. He’ll be so safe. We baby-proofed the hell out of this place, you know that. Come here, sit down. You’re okay.”

You lowered yourself gently onto the top step of the ladder, placing your hands over your baby bump, and feeling scared. So scared. You felt scared all the time right now, couldn’t seem to ward it off, no matter how you tried to distract yourself. You took shaky breaths, trying to calm yourself down as Emily crouched next to you, rubbing your hand with her thumb, then kissing it.

“What’s going on, huh? Can you tell me?” she prompted.

“I’m scared,” you admitted, shuddering. “I’m scared something will happen to her before she’s born. I’m scared something will happen after. I’m really fucking scared of labor. I’m scared I’ll get hurt, so she’ll get hurt, and it’ll be my fault.”

“Okay, well, for starters, let’s not get on the ladder. That should help,” Emily observed, then quickly backtracked when you started crying harder.

“Honey, you’re not gonna hurt him,” she insisted, taking both your hands in hers and resting her chin on your baby bump as she knelt in front of you. “You are so good at taking care of people. You take care of me. He should be a piece of cake in comparison!”

You laughed, wiping snot from under your nose.

“And, baby, a little chalk isn’t going to hurt him. We want him to have fun, too, remember?”

“I know…” you choked out.

Emily watched you sniffle, your eyes puffy, looking terrified and bedraggled, and she wished she could take it from you. She wanted you to see yourself the way she saw you: strong and kind and caring and protective. She wanted you to know that it was not just your responsibility to keep the baby safe. It was hers, too, and it was a job she took very seriously–for both you and him.

“What if something terrible happens, Em?” you whispered. “During labor?”

She sighed and looked at you, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “Be honest. Did you watch more 16 & Pregnant?”

You looked down. “...No.”

“Y/N…” she chastised.

You sighed. “Yes.”

Emily kissed your forehead, then grabbed a piece of chalk and started doodling on the wall.

“Babe, you’ve got to stop watching that. It just makes you nervous. Also, you’re not sixteen.”

You watched as Emily drew on the wall–a lumpy oval with a few lines and a smiling face. Above it, she wrote Don’t worry, be happy!

“See?” she said, showing off her work. “Don’t worry, baby. It’s all gonna be okay.”

You squinted your eyes at the smiling lump. “What am I looking at?”

Emily’s face fell a bit. “It’s a fish! You know, like one of those that hangs on the wall and sings the song.”

You raised your eyebrows and smirked. “You sure? It looks like a puddle with eyes.”

She surged forward to tickle the spot just under your arms that always made you giggle, and you fought her half-heartedly as she planted fluttery kisses across your face.

“Alright, Picasso, let’s see you do any better,” she argued.

Over the course of the evening, you and Emily decorated the whole wall. You drew all the things you hoped the baby would love. Storybooks and lines of music, a little black cat and a very wobbly Eiffel tower. After a while, the pizza Emily ordered arrived, and you felt weepy all over again that she knew that a greasy slice of pepperoni goodness was just what you needed this evening. Emily always knew what you needed, sometimes even before you did. You didn’t even mind the chalk all over your clothes, all over the walls and the floor, in your hair. You wiped your hands off on paper towels, then sat cross-legged on the floor of the nursery, eating slices of pizza right out of the box.

You finished filling in all the blank spaces on the chalkboard wall, around a big, stick-figure drawing of you and Emily and a little ambiguous human. You’d bubble-lettered the words Welcome home, little love! above it, and Emily had colored it in, all rainbows and bright colors and polka dots. And when you stood back to admire your work–it really did look like a toddler had drawn it–you took Emily’s hand in yours and leaned against her shoulder. Yes, there was a lot to worry about bringing a new human into the world. Yes, you were, by nature, an anxious person. But Emily was your port in the storm. She was strong where you were weak and weak where you were strong. You fit together perfectly. And as the little one kicked against your stomach, you knew that there was a space, where you and Emily came together, that was just the right fit for this tiny human. There was no sense in worrying where she would fit in your life, in the world. She already had a space. In your heart, in your world, in your very bodies.

You and Emily sat under the window in the Bunting glider you’d repurposed from your grandma’s house. You’d opted for a glider instead of a rocker because you knew when Emily was here, she’d want to be with you and the baby always, especially when rocking or feeding, and on the glider, there was room for all of you. You cracked the window a bit, just enough to hear the birdsong but not enough to let in the heat. Your feet dangled over the armrest of the glider, the back of your head in Emily’s lap as she ran her fingers haphazardly through your hair, to the same rhythm that she pushed the glider back and forth, back and forth, with her feet.

“Do you remember the night we moved in together?” you asked her quietly, not wanting to disrupt the soft beauty of the moment.

She looked down at you and smiled, her eyes bright with memory. “I do.”

The fading evening sun shone perfectly through the nursery window, the little crystal Penelope had bought you refracting tiny rainbows all throughout the room. You laughed and talked about nothing and everything, and it really did remind you of when you and Emily moved in together–all hope and possibilities and excitement for what was to come. You’d sat on a floor, not so dissimilar to this one, and eaten pizza just like you had tonight, and she’d laid you down gently, so gently, on the newly-unfurled rug. She’d kissed you again and again and told you that she wanted to be near you always, forever. And your heart had surged because no one had ever wanted you like that before. No one had wanted you always. No one had wanted you near. But Emily did. And when she made love to you that same night on that same unfurled rug, you’d cried. Not because she hurt you, not because you were sad or forlorn or mourning the end of your single era, but because you were not used to being so fully, wholly wanted. Wanted not in part, not just sometimes, but for all of you.

“Are you sure about all this, Em?” you asked, gesturing to yourself, the baby, the room.

She chuckled. “Well, it’s a little late if I’m not, isn’t it?”

You smacked her lightly on the arm. “I’m serious.”

She bent over you, her hair falling in your face so that you wrinkled your nose. She placed a hand on either side of your head, just watching you for a moment, smoothing her thumbs over your eyebrows. “I’m sure, honey. I’ve never been so sure about anything.”

Maybe it was your face that gave you away, your face that revealed your inability to believe fully, even all these years later, even after all the daily reminders, big and small, of just how much Emily loved you, that she didn’t want out. Whatever it was, she could see it, and, like she always did, she put it to rest.

She squeezed your head lightly, as if to knock her love through your thick skull.

“I’ve been sure about you since the night we met. Get it through your head, dork. I’m not going anywhere. If I was, I’d certainly have left before now.”

You scoffed. “Ouch.”

She shrugged, grinning a little. “I’m just saying! I had plenty of outs. I didn’t take them. I didn’t want to.”

“You promise?” you asked, but at this point you were just fishing for affirmation. You knew Emily. You knew she meant what she said.

“Y/N,” she said, staring down at you so forcefully you couldn’t help but laugh. “I married you.”

“And don’t you forget it,” you said, grasping her hand and kissing the inside of her wrist.