Edward'sPOV
Carlisle was overjoyed with the news of my engagement to Isabella. To my utter dismay and distress, he offered once again to change her. I would hear none of it. I refused to be so selfish, regardless of how moving his offer was, the sacrifice of his morals.

Three weeks later, we were married. It had been a small and quiet affair, though the entire town knew when it happened—Carlisle's position at the hospital allowed for little else in such a small town. Our honeymoon took place in a small cottage in the forests surrounding the town. I had been unsure if I could control myself enough to consummate our union, yet I had managed. She had bruising almost all over and it made me feel horrendous, yet I said nothing—how could I when she did not know what I was? After I had reconciled my conscience, our honeymoon had been pure bliss.

Until the unimaginable was brought to our attention. She had fallen pregnant with my... I wasn't sure what the swift-growing thing inside her was. She insisted it was my son, nothing other than an innocent baby. When we had informed Carlisle, he had hesitatingly suggested termination. I had never seen my wife so defensive, so I decided not to challenge her. We moved into the cottage in the woods, suspecting the only way she would survive was through transformation, though she did not know this. She became so weak and frail, starved of the nutrients she needed, nevertheless the foetus continued to grow. I had not hunted in near to three weeks, the last time being the night before our wedding, yet her blood held no appeal to me anymore nor did the need for blood at all. Her survival was all that mattered to me in this moment.
She knew I could read minds, all but hers, so she learned nothing new when another voice became clear in my head. "Hmm?" I asked her quizzically from where I laid beside her in our marriage bed.
"What?" she asked, her voice was papery and hoarse; her throat must be dry and sore.
My black eyes bore into her brown ones curiously, beseechingly almost. "What did you just say?"
"Nothing." Her confusion was apparent on her face as her love.
"Then... what were you thinking about?"
She blushed a beautiful shade of rose. "Our wedding night..." she admitted sheepishly.
Warm, the voice repeated lazily.
I stared at my wife's grossly distended stomach in wonder. "Is that you, baby?" I whispered against my wife's bump.
Pretty... the voice purred. Pretty voice.
"You can hear him?" Isabella asked in shock, her hands covering mine where I had found his head and buttocks.
Ohh... Mommy! Pretty voice. Love Mommy.
I nodded, an enormous smile playing on my lips. "Seems so. He absolutely adores you." I listened to my child's response to my voice. "Me too, it seems. He loves me—he knows who his mommy and daddy are."
After the next kick he felt bad about hurting Isabella. Then he whinged about my wife's body being too small. He was uncomfortable. I decided it was time to ask Carlisle what we could do now—it seemed my baby was developed enough to survive in the real world.
"There's no time to waste, Carlisle," I insisted in a voice too low for my wife to hear. "He's ready now."
Carlisle turned thoughtful. Then he looked to me in a way that warned me to stay calm, in control of myself.
"Edward, I am going to require a significant amount of your aid to remove... him. That means exposure to her blood and a major amount of it. Can you manage it without hunting first?"
I frowned. "What question is that, Carlisle! I must so I will—they mean everything to me." I meant it. I was young yet for a vampire, I knew, though my control was impressive by Carlisle's reckoning.
"Very well then, son. I will prepare whilst you persuade your wife it is time."
I smiled, truly and sincerely grateful for Carlisle's unending patience with me and tolerance of my outbursts. "Thank you, Carlisle."
He nodded with a sincere if solemn smile. "You're welcome, Edward. You deserve the happiness she brings you."
And so, we parted for the time being. I returned to my wife's side, more than prepared to meet my child and save the only woman I will ever love. To my intense surprise and relief, Isabella unhesitatingly agreed.
I carried her from our bedroom to Carlisle's transformed study room.
I held my wife's hand as Carlisle injected her with morphine to numb her. Once he knew it had spread enough, he opened her stomach.
Edward, he called in my head when he could not easily release my baby, the embryonic sac seems to be made of vampire skin-like substance... only you can release the... child. Do you have the control?
I took a deep breath and quickly assessed myself. I nodded. "For him, yes," I whispered so fast and quietly my wife would not hear.
Carlisle showed me what he believed I needed to do. For my baby, I would do anything. You need to hurry, son, or her heart will give out before you can start the transformation.
As it was, Isabella was fighting for consciousness. So, I hurried. I submerged my head into my wife's abdomen and womb. The unmistakable sound of nails scratching down a chalkboard filled the room as my teeth pierced the embryonic sac encasing my baby and my hands tore it apart to free my little one.
A daughter! I had a daughter I discovered when I went to cut the umbilical cord. "Hello Princess." If I could cry, tears would be streaming down my face as my heart and being swelled with love for this precious baby.
"Pass... her!" demanded her mother. I gently placed my daughter in her loving mother's arms. It was then we learned her appetite. She bit Isabella while Carlisle was busy removing the placenta and afterbirth... waste. I snatched her back while Isabella's heart struggled not to give up.
"No biting Mommy, Renesmee," I chided.
"I'll take her and clean her for you, Edward—you have to start the change."
"Take her from the room while I do this, please." I reluctantly released Renesmee into her grandfather's arms and collected the syringe of my venom I had filled earlier in the day. "I'm so sorry, my love, but I have to do this to save you," I murmured in my wife's ear before piercing her heart and injecting it with my venom. Mine! She would be MY creation. "I am so sorry, Isabella, love," I repeated as I endlessly bit into every pulse point I knew, licking the wound closed with a hint of the venom I let flood into her bloodstream. The next part was the most risky on my part. The surgical wound. I had navigated through my wife's blood while gaining access to where Renesmee awaited her release into the world, but closing it up required swallowing an impressive volume of her blood whilst also draining venom into her that would knit the tendons, muscles and flesh back together as quickly as possible. But I managed it. Without my beloved's heart failing. I will never know how I had the control that stopped me draining her dry.
Carlisle returned with a clean Renesmee and passed her to me, as bloody as I and my clothes were.
"She's been impatient—I fed her; she seemed to accept lion blood, as difficult as she was in the beginning to convince," he chuckled. He was besotted with her after just a short time.
I smiled and accepted my baby girl back into my arms. "Hello, love." I kissed her forehead. "She runs at a very high temperature," I worried while moving around the room, attempting to clean; my daughter in one arm, washcloth in the other.
"Yes, she does. I suspect it's to protect herself from the coolness of her parents' skin."
I smiled at my now sleeping daughter before frowning in her mother's direction. My wife lay far too still for the agony she was enduring that was the fire of the venom changing her into a vampire. "Did I do it right, Carlisle? She has to be far too still..." I heard the plea and agony in my voice. I could not lose my angel. I could not raise our princess without Isabella.
"Listen... her heartbeat is strong. You can smell the venom spreading."
I nodded, making the same observations. "But why is she so still?"
"I suspect the morphine." He came to my side and took over cleaning. "Go choose some clothes for her. I'll clean the room then you can wash your wife. I'm proud of you, Edward. You have family all your own—treasure it." There was absolutely no envy in his thoughts; he truly was happy for me.
I grinned while studying my gorgeous daughter. "Always—I wouldn't have this opportunity without you, Carlisle; thank you."
He placed a hand on my shoulder. "You're welcome, son. Congratulations on Renesmee—she's perfect."
I nodded. "She absolutely is." I traced her face delicately; identical to Bella's except for my nose and eye shape. Her hair was identical to mine in color, but it had Isabella's curls.

Renesmee didn't leave my embrace as I found her mother some clean clothes. Once Carlisle had cleaned and Lysol'd his study-come-makeshift-hospital-room, I cleaned and dressed my wife; again, Renesmee didn't leave my embrace the entire time. Feeding her was going to be a challenge, that was certain, but I would ensure my daughter was well nourished—over my pile of ashes would she starve. I held Isabella's hand while Renesmee slept; I told my wife all about our baby and what I was seeing in her dreams, I told her how thankful I was for our family, I told her how sorry I was for damning her and making her go through a burning worse than the pits of Hell just so Renesmee had a mother and I had my wife, I told her all about the undead life she would lead once she awoke for the last time. When Renesmee awoke, she wanted Mommy. So I let her see Isabella and told her about how Mommy was going to be different when she woke up, how she wouldn't be soft or warm, how she wouldn't have a heartbeat, how she would feel like Daddy, look like Daddy, and sound like Daddy. Daddy... Even with her in my arms it was such a bewildering new reality. I was a father and the little girl in my arms was my princess to love and protect and look after. I had a daughter. Thanks to Isabella, I had a family. I had everything I had previously believed had been ripped from me. Of course, I told Renesmee how special she was to me, how much of a surprise and how unique and bewildering yet perfect she was to me while I fed her—Carlisle had hunted when he heard her waking up and filled a metal baby bottle. Where he got a metal baby bottle from, I didn't bother to find out, though my nose told me it was elk blood being served for breakfast—Renesmee didn't care much for it though her need for it overrode her other senses... just like a vampire, though she had many human qualities I cherished and was eternally thankful for. All I cared about was keeping my vigil over my wife while I bonded with my daughter. I appreciated Carlisle's help, truly I did, but right now, it was a minuscule factor in my present reality. I was responsible for a newborn half-vampire, half-human, and very soon also a newborn vampire also known as my wife and my mate, my daughter's mother and my lover.
Once Renesmee had all but inhaled her breakfast, I moved around the small room and began to satiate her curiosity about the world around her. I did not escape having to read to her. But she did not care for the books of Carlisle's, instead she relished Isabella's small library of books from Isabella's childhood and literary classics both Isabella's father and myself had gifted my wife. I completed reading one book from Isabella's childhood to Renesmee and she was hungry for the next. I had started reading to my daughter mid-morning, and I was not allowed to stop until she had gone to sleep that evening. Carlisle had ensured she fed every three hours after he took her measurements; in his mind I caught that he was ensuring the elk blood he had saved wasn't wasted; we were extremely fortunate for the cool winter weather that provided us with the easy storage of blood for the day. Perhaps if her rapid growth continued we would be going on family hunts before winter ended. The thought made me uneasy so I cast it aside—at this rate, Renesmee would be an adult at five and dead at fifteen. I did not want to think about it; it was heartbreaking to think she grew at the rate of a week a day.
The next morning, my baby awoke wanting to see her mother again. I read to her all day, finishing off reading all of Isabella's children's books. Today's blood for her was buck. Again, she did not care much for the smell or the flavour, but her instincts told her to devour it all the same. That night, she had been asleep in my arms for all of two hours when Carlisle told me that Isabella's heart was beating its last beats—time to hand Renesmee over so she wasn't in the potential fall-out zone of her newborn vampire mother. As necessary as it was, having her leave my arms for the length of time that would be required was agonizing.

I held my breath in anticipation while my wife's heart stuttered to a stop and her eyes opened. She flipped off the cot and crouched in front of me.
I stayed silent while the disorientation righted itself. Then she recognized me, smiled, and pulled me to her into an embrace.
"Uh... ow! You're a lot stronger than I am, love."
"Oops!" She loosened her hold but didn't let me go. Her bright, blood red eyes burned with emotion as she stared into my black orbs. Her expression turned sheepish—I was unaware a newborn vampire could look so... human and vulnerable. But of course my wife mastered it—she had always done things the opposite way around and I was pleasantly surprised to feel glad that trait had not been lost in her transformation. "I love you," she murmured before crashing her lips to mine. Never before had I allowed her tongue in my mouth, but I drowned in ecstasy as I gave her permission now to play and explore with her enhanced senses.
Edward Cullen! She's a newborn—go hunt before you two scar poor Renesmee. Renesmee was still sound asleep though his true argument remained valid.
I groaned before disentangling from Isabella. "I love you, Mrs Cullen, but I think you need to hunt." I didn't think she couldn't wait but I encouraged the idea for the sake of our baby's safety.
My wife's hand flew to her throat. She looked at me in distress as she fought her newborn instincts.
"I'll show you what you need to do, love." I pulled her hand from her throat and led her from the cottage in the opposite direction from where Carlisle nursed Renesmee and out the back door.
After Isabella had her fill of mountain lion, elk, and our lovemaking, it was time for her to meet Renesmee. I hoped our daughter had inherited enough of my vampire scent that her mother would not perceive her as prey. I halted us outside the cottage once we had returned, and encouraged her to listen to our daughter's unique heartbeat.
"How are you coping with her heartbeat, my love?"
She smiled and my breath caught as always. "Wonderfully; it is the most precious sound in my world now, and I would do anything to ensure its continued presence." She inhaled deeply. "It's beautiful—just as you described."
"And her scent?"
Now she laughed. The sound made me tingly all over it was that gorgeous. "Nothing in the world could ever compare—the perfect balance of us both. I could not hurt her; it would destroy me, and my instinct is to protect and love her, not kill her—her blood does not allure me, if you would phrase it that way."
I grinned. "Brace yourself to fall in love with a little angel, my love."
She nodded. We slowly moved through the cottage from the back door to the front room. We paused again in the entryway and watched as Carlisle sat in the lounge chair before the fire with our baby still peacefully asleep in his arms. For the first time since her conception, Carlisle was at peace with his granddaughter's existence; he'd loved her since her delivery, but he had not reconciled that she had not intentionally harmed my wife. Now he had watched her sleep in fascination and wonderment for the five hours we had been away.
So precious... so innocent... so beautiful, he repeated over and again in his mind as he grasped the reality of her presence and importance in his life.
Isabella spied her sleeping baby from over Carlisle's shoulder. "She's grown..." I think I detected fear in her statement.
I nodded. "She grows the equivalent of a week a day," I commiserated. "It is still too soon to know if she will slow down."
My wife's bright red eyes turned to me, pleading. "I want to hold her—I need to hold her in my arms."
Be wary, Edward. I will step into my study, but you must remain beside her the entire time. Carlisle had heard our conversation we held before entering, therefore he knew she had impeccable control for a vampire mere hours old—he believed she was behaving as if she were two or three decades old. Renesmee was warily released into her mother's arms after we replaced him in the lounge chair before the fire.
"She's so beautiful," Isabella murmured lovingly.
"Yes, yes she is." We sat in silence until Renesmee woke, simply watching our daughter grow in her mother's arms. "Morning Renesmee," I smiled when she wondered where Daddy was. "Is it breakfast time, little love?"
Isabella's red eyes flicked between us, attempting to grasp the concept of Renesmee's mental capacity. "She really does understand?"
I nodded. "Yes." I sighed. "Do you think you can handle it if I feed her?"
My wife pursed her lips, calculating and unsure.
"She essentially inhales it. You can hold your breath long enough for her to finish."
Isabella nodded. "Okay then. But, Edward, she stays in my arms—she keeps me calm; I will be able to handle it if she is in my embrace."
Her determination reassured me and Carlisle hurried into the room with Renesmee's warm... lion blood for breakfast. To my amusement, Isabella scrunched her face up in disgust and distaste.
"It stinks when it is that heated."
I laughed and brought Renesmee's cup to our daughter's lips and she held it for herself, agreeing with her mother that it was horrid-smelling—she preferred it fresh when she'd gone hunting with Grandfather Carlisle.
Immediately after Renesmee had finished her breakfast, Isabella and I discovered she possessed a gift. Renesmee placed her hand on her mother's cheek and showed Isabella all her adventures of the first few days of her life, how much she had missed her mother.

After two weeks of ensuring Isabella's control—and observing a slight deceleration in Renesmee's growth rate pattern—we swiftly moved halfway across the country to Ashton, Wisconsin. We resided in the outskirts of town for twenty-four hours before Carlisle began his first shift at the hospital, only to bring home the woman he recognised as Esme Platt, a patient he had treated ten years prior for a broken leg at the age of sixteen in Columbus, Ohio. She was dying—no, she was burning, changing, transforming—in his arms. She was suffering the agony of losing her two day old son, the pain of the self-inflicted injuries from her now-failed suicide attempt, and the hellish fires of the venom. She was writhing and screaming once placed on the bed Isabella and I used for indulging in our marital privileges. Her pain became mine and only Isabella's arms could numb me. For three days, Esme burned as the rest of us had. But when she opened her eyes and awoke for the final time, the love that immediately bloomed between Carlisle and herself made me feel nauseated. Her red eyes met his gold and there was nothing there but love. Love, this was her immortal gift, unhesitatingly shared when she set eyes on my family when Isabella, Renesmee, and I joined her first hunt at Carlisle's request. I became her immortal son, Isabella became her immortal daughter, and my little Renesmee became her most precious granddaughter. Her motherly instincts awoke in her the need to protect Renesmee—even from the danger she instinctively knew to be herself—and she believed she had the potential to resist Renesmee's heartbeat and blood; Renesmee smelled too close to a vampire, for one fact, and Renesmee's very own mother appeared as new to this life as Carlisle had explained both women were, for another and more important fact.
My wife and I attempted our best to entertain and distract our new mother when Carlisle went to work. Renesmee was the one companion she enjoyed most; the child was growing before her eyes and Esme empathised deeply with my wife and even myself—we had obviously had as many newborn hours with our daughter as she had been given with her mortal son. She understood Renesmee was a baby to treasure; the little one was twenty-one days into her life yet had the outward appearance of a four month old and the intellect of a four year old, all of which changed each minute. But talk with Isabella and myself, and books, music, and playtime with Renesmee Elizabeth Carlie Cullen was not enough to drive away her thirst when it returned with a vengeance thirty-six hours after her first hunt. Carlisle was a half-minute from stepping in the door when the lingering scent of human blood on his collar sent Esme into a frenzy, the frenzy of a newborn. She left the outline of her body in our front door as she followed the scent to town—from her jumbled thoughts, all I could gather was that she recognised the scent as a person from her human life she was on bad terms with to the extreme.
"Chase her, Carlisle! I've my wife and child to worry over."
Isabella was trembling at my side whilst Renesmee was wearing the sadistic, satisfied grin of the hunter. I too was struggling with the scent, more from knowing the painful memories it elicited in my very new mother than from the pain of the perpetual thirst for blood—no human blood would appeal to me as Isabella's had. Knowing Renesmee's thoughts, it took less time to calm her—she was still readily obedient, which was to my great advantage. It took little more than the additional hum of her lullaby to send her to sleep. My wife required a different approach to settle her struggles... the approach only her husband could take.
Carlisle soon returned with a guilt-ridden Esme. The next requirement of us was to move again—Carlisle afforded me the option to take Isabella and Renesmee elsewhere whilst he secluded Esme away. But I could not, in good conscience, accept the offer silently provided to me. I understood it would be no easy task to house two newborn vampires and a newborn, swiftly-growing hybrid child, but one newborn vampire was my wife—my creation, thus, my responsibility—and the other was my new mother whom I loved dearly and my telepathy had provided me with insight into her human life that endeared me to her further and placed upon me a moral obligation to ensure her well-being. And so, we moved once more, as was inevitable after Carlisle's impulsive choice was made like the already love-struck fool he was. We fled to the outskirts of Vancouver.

Here was where Esme truly regained her teacher persona. Isabella and I loved watching Esme teach Renesmee, learning many new facts and entertaining trivial tidbits herself. We adored the smiles our daughter formed on her face when she connected with her grandmother. It was three months after our arrival when Esme discovered a new passion. She had always fancied herself as a homemaker, but only now with her unparalleled strength did she imagine physically creating such a home. It was on a family hunt that took us almost to the next town where she found a rundown, nearly century-old building by a lake; it had potential as a summer house, at minimum... or a sanctuary for my little family—it would simultaneously keep us close to her and Carlisle and yet give their own growing relationship some space. For her and Carlisle, I would encourage her endeavour. For the following months leading up to little Renesmee's first birthday—though my baby took on the appearance of a four year old and intellect of a nine year old upon the first anniversary of her birth—Esme work tirelessly and incessantly on the restoration of the lake home for her immortal children and hybrid granddaughter. She and Carlisle presented it as a birthday present to Renesmee—and Renesmee could not stop thanking Esme as she explored every minute and intricate detail of her new family home. Even my Isabella, born and reborn with an aversion to gifts, was overcome with gratitude and true appreciation for our hand-renovated home. That was the day my mother truly reconciled the death of her mortal son and embraced the difficulties of the life that lay ahead for her. If she could be a homemaker in all the conceivable ways, then she had a purpose in this life alongside her natural role as Carlisle's companion, his mate. She became his wife one month later, and their honeymoon lasted the following eleven months; Carlisle had purchased an island for her, named it after her, and would encourage her to build her very own dream holiday home.

In those months I restlessly photographed and meticulously logged Renesmee's growth. Some days she paused growing, physically. By her second birthday, she had devoured all of her grandfather's medical library and was composing musical masterpieces that rivalled Chopin and Mozart in their complex and intricate beauty. She learned to hunt for herself and refrain from the lure of human blood, though Isabella and I daren't take her into town—her continuing rapid growth would expose us and end us all; we could not withstand the agony of the thought of the Volturi ending our daughter, then Carlisle and Esme after us as Carlisle had begun our coven when he transformed me. No, we would not let Renesmee's existence threaten compassionate Carlisle and loving Esme, also known as our parents. Renesmee was such a sweet child. She scarcely spoke but she knew how to spin a tale from her memories. Isabella continued to spend endless hours each night watching our daughter dream. Irrespective of how nonsensical Renesmee's dreams could become, they fascinated Isabella and myself in equal measure. We had not slept for approximately seven years between us; our daughter's dreams brought us to the closest restful state reflective of sleep we could achieve. We loved her even more for the peace, unconditional love, and boundless joy she brought into our lives with each breath. We still feared for her mortality, but we had come to simply enjoy each moment of her life with her; she seemed to find it fulfilling, and loved us beyond measure.
"Grandma! Grandpa!" squealed Renesmee when she caught their fresh scent coming our way—to our lake home—on her birthday romp in the woods.
"She's still got your speed," laughed Isabella as we chased after our daughter.
"Renesmee! Happy birthday, sweetheart," greeted a smiling, relaxed Esme as she pulled her granddaughter into her arms and up onto her hip. To any human, Renesmee would appear too big and heavy for Esme to lift her as she had. Even as a vampire it was an uncomfortable sight—for a vampire, Esme looked unnaturally delicate and breakable.
"Thank you, Grandma!" Renesmee grinned before kissing Esme's cheek then welcoming her grandfather home. Both Carlisle and Esme noted that they had expected to return and find Renesmee the size of an eight year old, and were delighted to find her appearance to be that of a seven year old.

With Esme consistently in control of herself, Carlisle returned to work. Esme and Renesmee spent hours together each day for months after her return, and she spent the nights sketching a portrait of Renesmee for that day. Some nights she sketched parts of Renesmee's dreams she spied on. Esme delighted in my child's piano compositions and performances. We easily fell into a new, more relaxed family routine. Carlisle relaxed slightly when Renesmee started pausing her growth for a week at a time and was as relieved as Isabella, Esme and myself when Renesmee didn't physically grow for a month. We all hoped to be blessed with many similar months. We received two more such months before Renesmee's third birthday. As their present to her, Esme had converted the spare room into a library that Carlisle had stocked with every book he could source and purchase. She did not sleep that night, for she was unable to be removed from the room of facts and fantastical stories that were stored in the print on the wonderful smell of paper; her own forest of knowledge in her lake home. Isabella and I did not dare upset her—our time with her was so precious we did not wish to spend it arguing with our normally placid child; she would surely learn the lesson of her dependence upon sleep soon enough.
We went for a hunt as a family the next day, mid-afternoon. She had recently discovered she enjoyed playing with her food, and the cats and wolves all fell for her innocent, child's charm. She would nearly sedate them with her gift when she could finally scratch or pet their heads after she chased them down, before sinking her teeth into their necks before they could realise she ever posed a threat. But today, she could barely keep her eyes open enough to finish off the cougar her mother had incapacitated for her. She had not had aid hunting for well over two years. She took great joy in feeding herself so it was with great shame she fell asleep mid-drink. Isabella finished the cougar before taking Renesmee home whilst I hurriedly finished my hunt.