Vampyre Pregnancy

## Pregnancy

Pregnancies in the Vampyre world are a topic of controversy and often heated debate, as it is difficult to navigate the circumstances surrounding its complex processes and uncertainties. For that reason, most female Vampyres are on high-dose birth control implants to mitigate the potential for accidental pregnancy until a conscious decision is made to remove the implant and move forward with attempts at conception. While it is not difficult for Vampyres to get pregnant, long-term cycles of birth control hormones can alter a woman's menstrual cycle and create unpredictable ovulation schedules. In Aerael and Vanaheim, women who wished to get pregnant would consult with a physician first, who would administer a drug protocol to aid in conception and begin a biweekly monitoring program to screen for positive results.

### Gestation

These results were often extremely difficult to navigate, as male embryos nearly always inherited the Vampyre virus and were born Vampyres, while female embryos has much more hardship in the womb. As males carry the XY sex chromosomes (as opposed to the female XX pair), the Y chromosome acted as a 'signal' to the Vampyre Virus that encouraged rapid growth and development. The cause of this is undetermined, as the process occurs too rapidly to be studied in any detail. Female embryos do not carry the Y chromosome, and were instead seemingly 'scrutinized' by the virus as potentially cancerous growth, occasionally being destroyed at approximately three weeks of gestation (prior to any significant development). Some surviving female embryos avoided inheriting Vampyrism, instead being subjected to the same rapid growth as a male fetus, but being human at birth. The outcome of either result often rested within the mother's genetic factors, allowing (roughly half of the time) the virus to aid in growing the fetus without actually infecting it, and the other half being born as a female Vampyre. The differences between sexes in utero and their gestational development are remarkable, but unfortunately were only studied in the brief opportunities that presented to medical OBGYN surveillance teams.

### Birth

The birthing process is one that can easily be fatal if left untreated, and "natural" births in the Vampyre realm do not exist under any circumstances, as they could lead to the deaths of both the mother and the child. Once the virus begins the advanced gestational development, mothers typically have between 6 and 12 hours to start effective treatment before suffering permanent or fatal effects. The virus detects, between 3 and 6 weeks of pregnancy, that the in-utero mass is an offspring of its host, and in a hailstorm of survival instinct, harvests genetic and organic material from the mother in order to bring the pregnancy to term. This can last from 3 to 7 days, which is often an excruciating process for the mother far beyond human pregnancy. If supplemented with significant IV nutrients, blood transfusions, and fluids, the survival rate of mothers rested at 90% within staffed clinics and roughly 3% in underprepared circumstances.

### New Families

"Startup allowances" were common in Aerael and Vanaheim, with a portion of Krystal's vast fortune dedicated toward helping new families afford the raising of a rapidly-growing Vampyre child. As most of them outgrew their clothes in a matter of weeks, affording new clothing along with a substantial amount of food, sleeping arrangements (crib and beds of increasing sizes) made for raising a Vampyre child to be approximately 2.5 times less expensive than a human child, but at the expense of significantly more time and energy. Hand-me-down marketplaces and thrift shops were a thriving business in the residential areas of Aerael and Vanaheim, and were a cornerstone in families helping one another as lightly-used clothing and pieces of furniture, along with spare diapers, baby formula, and more were given freely or at the cost of small favors to support one another.

## Notable Births

***Spoilers for Sorrow and Desolation are contained in the following paragraph:***

Kara's birth process in *Sorrow* was significantly different than that of a normal Vampyre pregnancy, as evidenced by the massive differences in gestational period and use of effective birth control, and baffled Alice along with the colleagues that assisted her with researching it after the fact. Amy's birth was likely different due to the experiments performed on Jalix during *Sorrow*, not revealed until *Desolation,* that mutated his viral strain with the Seraphim mutation (the mutation that allowed Amy to inherit the Virtuoso mutation and therefore be capable of possessing "powers").

This additional development made the demands on Kara's body nearly impossible to handle, and it is with an extraordinary likelihood that she would have died even if cared for within a fully staffed and prepared hospital. Researchers studying the reported effects of Amy's birth described it as "mind-shatteringly painful" and was repeatedly stated that the pain alone would have killed a lesser person before Amy was delivered. Kara likely only survived because of her previous experience in birthing the twins Anna and Ava (Violet and Raven), an exceptional rarity in Vampyre pregnancies. Only six known cases of twins have ever been reported by Alice and her team of OBGYN professionals, and only one case of triplets has ever survived to term.