The Girl Who Wanted to Wear Diapers (Ch. 25 - 4/27/24)

[MinnesotaWriter]

19 hours ago, LittleAcorn said:

I love this story, and I was not expecting a Harry Potter fanfic reference, but that's genius.  Her parents certainly wouldn't mind her searching for that, since they want her to read something else (ok, they probably didn't mean fan fiction, but still), so searching for that should be fine, even with her concern about parental controls.  And where there's fan fiction, I'm sure there's ABDL fan fiction too...  I'm really curious to see how all these threads get resolved.

I didn't name it specifically in the story, but the site I had in mind that Hannah referenced was AO3. We'll have to see how parental controls play out if/when Maddy decides to look into that.

[kerry]

Though it is well-written, I'm not enjoying this one as much as the "rules" series. One of the reasons is that I want to like the MC but I'm finding it very hard. I know that kids this age can be cruel and unfeeling, but how is it possible for someone who is actively trying to get put into diapers to be so judgmentally negative about a girl she meets who actually wears them? I mean the girl is utterly obsessed by them; this reaction is not very likely. It would be one thing if she were just going along with her friend, but she is clearly thinking these thoughts on her own. I'm not suggesting that kids need to act or think in a consistent manner, but this just seems incomprehensible to me. 

[Brown Owl]

2 hours ago, kerry said:

Though it is well-written, I'm not enjoying this one as much as the "rules" series. One of the reasons is that I want to like the MC but I'm finding it very hard. I know that kids this age can be cruel and unfeeling, but how is it possible for someone who is actively trying to get put into diapers to be so judgmentally negative about a girl she meets who actually wears them? I mean the girl is utterly obsessed by them; this reaction is not very likely. It would be one thing if she were just going along with her friend, but she is clearly thinking these thoughts on her own. I'm not suggesting that kids need to act or think in a consistent manner, but this just seems incomprehensible to me. 

I don't find it implausible.  children that age, are not very introspective. So she might be struggling with her internalized ableism.. As soon as she see herself in Hannah it will evoporate

[Night Rain]

I like the way that just being around Hannah is giving Maddy thoughts. It would be nice to see a little more of the two of them together and see what happens.

[MinnesotaWriter]

8 hours ago, kerry said:

Though it is well-written, I'm not enjoying this one as much as the "rules" series. One of the reasons is that I want to like the MC but I'm finding it very hard. I know that kids this age can be cruel and unfeeling, but how is it possible for someone who is actively trying to get put into diapers to be so judgmentally negative about a girl she meets who actually wears them? I mean the girl is utterly obsessed by them; this reaction is not very likely. It would be one thing if she were just going along with her friend, but she is clearly thinking these thoughts on her own. I'm not suggesting that kids need to act or think in a consistent manner, but this just seems incomprehensible to me. 

Maddy's negative reaction to Hannah is very much intentional, and it will play an important role in her development later in the story. There are a couple of good psychological explanations for why Maddy is reacting like she is, which will be fully explored further on, and we'll see more of Hannah beyond just this weekend. 

I can definitely understand how Maddy's response could come across as rather jarring and inconsistent, especially as we've not seen her behave this way toward other characters. It's hard for that to not be a bit uncomfortable when told from a first-person perspective rather than from an impartial narrator. 

Like I've mentioned in other comments, Maddy is written as neurodivergent (though undiagnosed), something that certainly colors her perception of (and interactions with) Hannah.

18 minutes ago, Night Rain said:

I like the way that just being around Hannah is giving Maddy thoughts. It would be nice to see a little more of the two of them together and see what happens.

We'll have one (maybe two) more chapters with Maddy and Hannah covering events over the rest of the weekend, but Hannah will be a recurring character past that point as well. Plenty of chances for them to continue to interact.

[spark]

Emma has me fascinated as a character. She presents as an absolute miserable self-absorbed young teen, but she let Hannah join them, she tried to remind Hannah about her potty watch, and she gave Hannah her water bottle.  She is way more complex than simple than a 12-year-old who is hanging out with a same-age cousin who is 'special'.   Remember- she doesn't know what Maddy is thinking, and she has keep up appearances.

Hannah reminds me of student we had in the FLS class (highest level of mod/severe class.   We had evacuation drill, and we were supposed to line up on football field  based on our class.  One of us didn't pay attention to where we supposed to line up on the football field, the other lost her class but recognized me a responsible adult.    she found me, and never left my side (even if I didn't know WTF I was doing).  I choose to stay where I was and let her class find us.  She's has 2010 hardware, and trying operate Windows 11, doing the best she can.  

PS- your genius of character development is letting Hannah school the two middle school soccer stars.

[Night Rain]

9 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

We'll have one (maybe two) more chapters with Maddy and Hannah covering events over the rest of the weekend, but Hannah will be a recurring character past that point as well. Plenty of chances for them to continue to interact.

That's nice to know.

[MinnesotaWriter]

19 hours ago, spark said:

Emma has me fascinated as a character. She presents as an absolute miserable self-absorbed young teen, but she let Hannah join them, she tried to remind Hannah about her potty watch, and she gave Hannah her water bottle.  She is way more complex than simple than a 12-year-old who is hanging out with a same-age cousin who is 'special'.   Remember- she doesn't know what Maddy is thinking, and she has keep up appearances.

Hannah reminds me of student we had in the FLS class (highest level of mod/severe class.   We had evacuation drill, and we were supposed to line up on football field  based on our class.  One of us didn't pay attention to where we supposed to line up on the football field, the other lost her class but recognized me a responsible adult.    she found me, and never left my side (even if I didn't know WTF I was doing).  I choose to stay where I was and let her class find us.  She's has 2010 hardware, and trying operate Windows 11, doing the best she can.  

PS- your genius of character development is letting Hannah school the two middle school soccer stars.

One thing to note: Emma was very much not interested in having Hannah along. In the previous chapter, she described Hannah being there as "bad news" and explained that the only reason Hannah is coming with them to the park is because Emma's Mom is making Emma bring her cousin along.

And then there is the way she uses the r-word to describe her cousin to Maddy.

With the water bottle, there is the additional note from Emma where she mentions to Maddy that she had to give the water bottle to her cousin because she doesn't want Hannah to tattle on her back at home.

Emma doesn't like her cousin, and the only times she is doing anything that might seem nice is because she is motivated by not getting in trouble with her parents.

 

 

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 21: Beyond My Imagination

I wasn't in a hurry as I biked back home from Emma's place after saying my goodbyes and setting up a tentative plan for me to come over tomorrow afternoon.

My feet pedaled slowly as my bike meandered down the side of the road, but my mind was racing.

I simply couldn't get the image of Hannah's pull-ups out of my mind. It was one thing to see pictures of the pull-ups on all the advertisements I had spotted in magazines and newspapers. It was something entirely else to see what they looked like in person. And the pictures had not done them justice.

I had been unable to take my eyes off Hannah every time her skirt had lifted up to reveal what she had euphemistically referred to as her absorbent underwear.

I simply had to have them.

Yes, I had managed to wait about three years so far, but even waiting another three days now felt nearly impossible.

When I'd followed Emma up the driveway to her house, passing the spot where Hannah had seemed to have stopped and peed herself, the black pavement had been completely dry. I'd seen Hannah drink enough water that she must have had a sizeable accident, but the pull-up seemed to have been more than absorbent enough to handle it.

While the size ranges listed in the ads for the pull-ups had suggested that I wouldn't have any issue fitting into them, there was now zero doubt that the pull-ups would work for me. I estimated that Hannah's pant sizes were one or two larger than mine. Any fears about having grown too big to wear the pull-ups were now fully assuaged.

I was going to see Hannah one more time tomorrow, and then, who knew if our paths would ever cross again? If I had met her in any other way, if Hannah hadn't been my best friend's cousin, perhaps I could have discussed bedwetting with her, even in spite of the discomfort I felt around her weird behaviors.

But that topic had to be off-limits with her. I didn't have any faith that Hannah would be able to keep that secret from Emma.

Perhaps, like that time with my cousins all those years ago, I could corner Hannah for a bit while she was alone and see if I couldn't manage to dredge out some more details about her bedwetting, daytime accidents, and pull-ups.

For the briefest of moments, I actually toyed again with the idea of wetting my pants during the day in front of my parents. There was no way that couldn't result in being required to wear pull-ups during the day like her. But I realized now that hiding that I was wearing pull-ups in the day would be incredibly difficult. Even if I avoided shorts, skirts, or other things that might make the pull-up become visible, the crinkling sound alone could be a dead giveaway to someone familiar with that sound.

Time was running out quickly. I would need to get the pull-ups soon enough before my birthday so that I could prove to my parents that they worked. I needed them to allow me to have the sleepover, and I couldn't quit bedwetting now, not after all the progress that I had made.

But with Mom's comments the other night about how she wasn't ever going to force me to wear diapers, I had no choice but to take the initiative if I was to ever get those pull-ups.

As the bike ride home continued, I silently mouthed my way through a half-dozen different scenarios before I turned to pull into the driveway, desperately searching for the magic phrase that, if used on my parents, would convince them to purchase pull-ups for me without any hesitation.

But none of my arguments felt quite right. I had to find good excuses for the questions I was asking. It couldn't be that I was asking for pull-ups out of the blue. I had to have an explanation for what inspired the request.

The only thing I'd settled on so far was that the movie we had watched the other night would be the ideal way to open up the discussion; I could act as though that had given me the idea that this was even something that could be done to handle bedwetting.

But how to get from that to the specific bedwetting pull-ups that I wanted to wear? I suddenly had an idea.

Once I was back in the driveway, I tapped in the five-digit code to open the garage door so I could put my bike away. When I entered the couch from the garage, which led right into the kitchen, I ran across Mom prepping something for dinner. She was hunched over a cutting board in the corner of the room.

"Mom," I asked, "I didn't have a chance to finish that newest Reader's Digest? Where did you put it?"

She answered without looking up from her work, though she did stop chopping with her knife. "It's in the basket next to the couch."

I retrieved my prize and retreated to my bedroom. With the door closed behind me, I flipped rapidly through the tiny magazine until, at last, I came across the advertisement I had seen earlier in the week.

My parents knew that these pull-ups were an option. But they were so adamantly against them that they had even gone to the length of reassuring me that they wouldn't make me wear them.

Was it simply that they thought I didn't want to wear them? Had my sister perhaps reacted negatively to the suggestion of wearing pull-ups a long time ago?

If that was the explanation, perhaps all I had to do was indicate to my parents that I would be OK with trying out the pull-ups.

But even then, I had to go about it in the right way. I couldn't have my parents thinking that I wanted to wear those pull-ups, but perhaps I could frame it as wanting to go on a sleepover so badly that I'd be willing to try anything to make it happen, even something I wasn't keen on, such as pull-ups.

That could do. That could be a successful angle of attack.

I would use the movie we had watched the other night as an opening to bring up the topic of diapers, then I would conveniently mention the ad I had seen in the magazine. I'd have to make sure I didn't sound thrilled about the idea, but if I could come across as desperately willing to try anything so that I could have the sleepover, that surely had to be enough to win my parents over.

But first, I needed to wait until the pills had run their course. Two more nights of wetting the bed should do the trick for that. Then, once the doctor's appointment was over, I would make my move. Perhaps, if I was lucky enough, the doctor would bring up the idea of pull-ups unprompted.

I breathed a sigh of relief and flopped backward onto the bed, stretching out on my back.

I didn't mind the crinkling sound that the new mattress made. It reminded me in a way of how the pull-ups had sounded when I had been wearing them three years ago and of the sounds I had heard all yesterday afternoon when Hannah had been walking or running next to me.

Everything would be simple once my parents were buying pull-ups for me. Continuing the ruse of bedwetting would be as easy as peeing in a pull-up most nights, rather than the charade of going down to the basement after midnight to toss in my bedding. And there would be no need to fake that I was having headaches from the anti-bedwetting pills in the morning.

For times when I was away from home – whether for sleepovers or for the soccer camp I'd have later in the summer — I could leave whatever pull-ups were packed with me safe in the bottom of my suitcase, letting my parents think that the bedwetting issue was resolved without actually needing to risk having anyone discover my secret.

And I wouldn't have to wet the bed every night. I could allow for a few nights a week when I would remain dry, but then I could save those unused pull-ups to be used during the day to continue the experiments I wanted to conduct with wetting my pants while I was awake.

And I'd have the house all to myself to do that.

<><><> 

My nighttime routine followed the same pattern as the past couple of days.

My water intake was heavily monitored. I wasn't given quite as much to drink after dinner and only was allowed a small amount to sip on afterward. I made up for it by drinking from my tap-water filled bottle in my bedroom.

And I was again given the anti-bedwetting pills. Mom stayed in the room, watching as I placed them in my mouth and washed them down with a small glass of water. I had considered the idea of faking that I had taken the pills and just flushing them down the toilet, but that wasn't possible with how she had stuck around to make sure I had actually taken my medication. If I could have avoided taking the pills, that would have allowed me to wet the bed normally.

Mom again reminded me that I was to not drink anything more than the tiniest sip of water now that I had taken the pills. The sternness of the warning was such that there wasn't any scenario where I was going to disobey her.

And then there was the reminder to use the toilet before bed. With Mom and Grace around when that reminder was given, there was no way to fake using the toilet, either.

All of that meant that there wasn't any way I was going to be able to actually pee in the bed tonight. That was a supreme disappointment. It felt like forever since the last time I had actually peed myself, though in reality, only a little more than a day had passed since I had intentionally wet my pants while in the laundry room on Friday afternoon.

I weighed my options: toss everything in the washing machine tonight or wet the bed when I woke up in the morning. As much as I didn't want to deal with having to take my wet bedding down to the basement in the morning, the urge to sleep was irresistible.

<><><> 

The prediction of Sunday being a rainy day turned out to be correct. As Grace was out with her friends, Mom drove me over to Emma's place.

I had woken up to an actual headache this morning, and for once I didn't have to fake how miserable I was feeling until the Tylenol kicked in.

I didn't have any issues with getting myself to pee when I woke up, and I found myself once again lying in a puddle of urine in my bed for about twenty minutes until I decided that it was time to head downstairs.

I nearly managed to take my bedding to the laundry room without running into anyone, only to have Grace unexpectedly pop out around the corner after I had gone down the stairs to the basement. I had attempted to at least wrap up my sheets so that the wet spots weren't visible on the outside, but in my surprise at coming across my older sister in the basement, I dropped everything I was holding, and the sheets unraveled to reveal the spots where they had gotten soaked with urine.

That had led to an awkward moment as I scrambled to pick up the evidence of my wet bed while Grace awkwardly excused herself to head past me and go upstairs.

"How are you holding up?" Mom asked, once I had gotten into the car. She was all buckled with the key in the ignition, but she hadn't taken the car out of park yet.

"Fine."

"How's your head doing?"

"Better."

Mom sighed. "We've got your doctor's appointment setup first thing Monday morning. I'm sure they will be able to figure out what might be causing the bedwetting you've been dealing with."

"It better be something that doesn't give me headaches in the morning."

"Just one more night of the pills, and I won't make you take any more if they don't work, OK?"

I nodded in response, and Mom finally shifted the minivan into reverse and backed out of the driveway.

The drive over to Emma's place was quick, and nothing further was said about the bedwetting or the doctor's appointment. Mom pulled up as far as she could in my friend's driveway, so that I would have to be out in the rain for long.

<><><> 

Hannah was wearing another Harry Potter-themed shirt this afternoon. It made me begin to wonder if she had anything else in her wardrobe.

She was already holding open the front door for me as soon as I was getting out of the passenger side of the minivan. I managed to not get completely soaked during my short sprint up the front steps and into the house.

I had wondered if it would be difficult for me to tell if Hannah was wearing a pull-up today since, from Emma's tale about how Hannah had peed on the couch, it seemed as though she didn't necessarily wear them all the time.

But it became obvious right away that Hannah was wearing a pull-up. Her Harry Potter T-shirt barely made it down to her waist. She was fine if she was just standing still, but as soon as she reached up to hold the door open, the shirt lifted up to reveal about an inch of the pull-up sticking out above her loose-fitting shorts.

"We're all set. Emma helped me get the movie set up on the TV," Hannah said as soon as the door shut behind me.

"This is all your fault," Emma muttered to me after Hannah had raced off toward the family room where the TV was located without waiting for a response from me.

"What is all my fault?" I asked as I slipped out of my shoes.

"I'd finally managed to convince her that I wasn't interested in Harry Potter, and then you had to encourage her yesterday and she hasn't shut up about it since. She's already gotten through the first two movies this morning. All she's done today is sit in front of the TV."

I followed Emma toward the family room. I said hello to Emma's mom on the way over. She was talking with two people who I assumed were Hannah's Mom and Dad.

"Does Hannah have any siblings?" I asked Emma.

"No. Thank goodness," Emma said. "I couldn't handle more than one of her."

Hannah was sitting in the middle of the room in front of the couch when Emma and I walked in. Her eyes were already glued to the TV, where the movie adaptation of the third Harry Potter book was queued up to start.

I figured this wouldn't be so bad. I didn't enjoy the movies as much as the books, but they were still a fun way to pass the time. And it would certainly beat the interrogation I had gotten from Hannah yesterday afternoon.

But I wasn't even able to enjoy the movie. Hannah didn't seem to have the ability to stay quiet for long. She was constantly talking over the movie, either sharing trivia about it or commenting on how she didn't like some parts that weren't similar to the book.

Emma was instead focused intently on her phone. I could see her scrolling through TikTok from the corner of my eye. She didn't even have her headphones in, either. Even though the volume was set low, I could also hear the annoying music from whatever she was watching.

I found myself picking absentmindedly at my nails again. I was getting really annoyed. All I wanted to do was watch the movie in peace and quiet. I found my eyes drifting downward to where Hannah was sitting in front of me. Her shirt wasn't doing a good job of hiding the pull-up.

Even though I had previously foresworn the idea of looking for her pull-ups at Emma's house, and even though I was on track to potentially have pull-ups of my own in a few days, I couldn't help but want to get my hands on some as soon as possible. Every warning I had given myself about it being too much of a risk was washed away by an intense, uncontrollable urge to find and put on one of Hannah's pull-ups.

I wanted nothing more than to put one on, and I simply couldn't wait any longer. All I needed was to find the right excuse to have a chance to explore Emma's bedroom upstairs. If that is where Hannah was sleeping every night, there had to be pull-ups in her luggage there.

We were forty-five minutes into the movie when it was interrupted by the now-familiar sound of Hannah's watch going off.

"Pause it," Hannah yelled to her cousin as she went off toward the bathroom. I realized right then that this was my chance to do a little exploring. With the bathroom on the main floor occupied, I had an excuse to head upstairs to the other bathroom there.

"I really need to go, too," I said as I stood up from the couch. "I'm going to run upstairs."

Emma nodded silently, but didn't look away from her phone.

The layout of Emma's house was exactly the same as mine, as if the company that had developed our neighborhood had simply hit copy and paste hundreds of times as the homes were built. But that also meant that I knew where everything was.

I hadn't completely lied to Emma. I did need to pee slightly, but not nearly so badly as to need to rush all the way upstairs to do so.

What I wanted to do was take a look in Hannah's suitcase, which I assumed would be in Emma's bedroom, where Hannah had been sleeping on the floor.

But first, there was something I wanted to check in the upstairs bathroom.

After arriving upstairs, I discreetly peeked into each of the bedrooms, confirming that I was completely alone. I set a timer on my phone to make sure I remembered to head back downstairs in a reasonable amount of time.

I stepped into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet without lifting up the cover and cautiously opened up the lid to the trash can set next to it.

At the top of the pile of garbage were a half-dozen wet wipes and one of the bedwetting pull-ups Hannah had been wearing the other day. The pull-up hadn't been rolled up particularly well. I could see inside it easily. The previously white padding had expanded and turned yellow. I wondered how frequently she was having accidents.

But what caught my eye was what was beneath the pull-up. I shook the trashcan a little so that the pull-up moved away to the side. No way was I actually going to be reaching in to touch anything.

Underneath the pull-up was a diaper, one different from anything I had seen before. One thing was immediately clear. This was not a baby diaper. That was obvious because it didn't have any of the colorful designs that had been on the diapers my younger brother had worn. There were no pictures of smiling animals or cartoon characters wearing their own diapers. Instead, the diaper was mostly white.

The one similarity it shared with the baby diapers Jackson had worn was that there was a wetness indicator running down the middle, and if I was reading it correctly, the diaper had most certainly been wet before it had been discarded.

But there were other signs as well. Unlike every diaper and pull-up I had seen before, the material of the diaper didn't appear soft. There was a silky-smooth plastic look to it. I wondered what it would feel like, but couldn't bring myself to touch it.

The most obvious sign that this wasn't a baby diaper was how large it was. There was no way this would have fit on a baby – and there weren't any in this house. This had to be a diaper for someone my own age. For Hannah.

In a single moment, all the questions I still had from yesterday had been answers, and another million ones had been created.

I hadn't known what to make of Emma's statement that Hannah's mom had to help her daughter put on a diaper for bed. It didn't seem as though putting on a pull-up would be too challenging, even considering Hannah's disabilities, but I could see how a tape-on diaper would require assistance.

Emma's comment about thinking Hannah should have been put back into diapers during the day after the accident on the couch was also brought into a new light. Had she been insinuating that her cousin should have been wearing these diapers during the day as well, rather than her pull-ups?

I listened closely as I continued to stare down into the garbage bin. The stairs in Emma's house were as noisy as the ones at my place, so I would have ample alert if anyone was to come upstairs after me, but I hadn't heard the telltale signs of footsteps.

I slipped out of the bathroom, trying to walk softly down the hallway so that everyone below me wouldn't realize how much I was wandering around.

The door to Emma's bedroom had been left open. Unlike me or my sister, she didn't do much to protect her privacy.

A whiff of a strange scent hit me as I stepped into the bedroom. I paused while I tried to consider what it was. Emma had complained about how her bedroom smelled like pee because of her cousin's bedwetting. Was that what I was smelling?

That brought an immediate rush of embarrassment and concern. Despite the efforts I had taken to freshen up my room with fabric sprays, is this what my bedroom smelled like? Had I simply not noticed it before? And would Emma be able to tell the next time she came to my house?

I was sick with worry for a moment, but those concerns dropped away as soon as I laid eyes on what was obviously Hannah's suitcase up against the wall, next to a balled-up sleeping bag and pillow.

The suitcase was already unzipped, and there was a pile of dirty laundry sitting next to it. To no surprise, a lot of the clothing was Harry Potter themed.

I pushed aside the guilt of prying into Hannah's personal belongings and lifted up the lid to the suitcase. I found what I was looking for right away.

There were more than a dozen pull-ups tucked along the side of the suitcase. But that isn't what drew my interest. Instead, there were nearly a dozen diapers matching the ones I had come across in the bathroom.

I pulled one of the two diapers out of the suitcase. It crinkly loudly in my hands, much more so than a pull-up. I gently unfolded it, taking a peek at the interior padding that was far more extensive. All I could think about was how it must be able to absorb an incredible amount of pee without leaking.

It was simply beyond anything I could have thought to imagine. I'd never once seen the remotest hint that a product like this could exist in all the advertisements I'd perused over the past three years.

I checked the timer on my phone. Only seven minutes left. There simply wasn't enough time. I had to set aside all my thoughts about the diapers for now and do what I had come upstairs to do.

I reluctantly set the diaper back into the suitcase, which was exactly where I had found it. Taking a diaper simply wasn't an option. I didn't have enough time to figure out how to get it on.

But I would have no issues with putting on a pull-up myself. Besides, I as attempted to remember, that was what I had come up here for in the first place. I was torn momentarily between the two designs – one with pastel stripes and one with floral pattern – before finally deciding to grab the one with the stripes.

I tip-toed back to the bathroom, pull-up in hand.

I looked at my phone again as I entered the bathroom. I had initially given myself thirteen minutes. Being in upstairs much longer than that would only risk making Emma and her family get suspicious.

I still had six minutes left.

After double-checking that the bathroom door was indeed locked, I hastily stripped off my pants and underwear, my hands shaking as I did so. My disappointment at not being able to try on the diaper melted away as soon as I began to stretch out the sides of the pull-up as I prepared to put it on.

Three years. How had so much time gone by so quickly?

I was once again holding a pull-up in my hands, and it felt as though no time had passed at all since I had last done so. Only this time, the pull-up was perfect for me. This was one meant for teen girls.

The pull-up slid up my legs just like a regular pair of underwear, except that it felt entirely different once I had it on. It was as if I was reliving the best dream of my life. Each moment replayed itself like those scenes from years ago that I had worked so hard to re-capture.

I examined myself in the mirror. The fit was perfect. All my worries about the pull-up not working for me had been for nothing.

But time was slipping by way too fast. I couldn't hide away in the bathroom forever, but I couldn't stand the thought of having to remove the pull-up after only having had it on for a few minutes.

Could I get away with wearing the pull-up back to my place? I put my underwear and leggings back on over the pull-up. My leggings at least rose up enough on my waist to easily cover the waistband so I wouldn't be exposing myself like Hannah had.

I turned around, examining the outline of my bottom in the mirror.

If only I had thought things through and worn an outfit that could actually have covered up my bottom, perhaps I could have risked wearing it. But there wasn't any way to hide the outline of the padding beneath my leggings, even if this outfit seemed to have somewhat reduced the crinkling sound.

Defeated, I removed my leggings and underwear a second time. The timer on my phone now said that there were four minutes remaining.

I ran my hands all over the outside of the pull-up, mesmerized by the crinkling sound, the way it hugged my waist, and the feel of the padding between my legs.

It was exactly as I had remembered. It was so completely perfect.

I wanted nothing more than to see what it would feel like to wet the pull-up, but there was no way to get away with doing so. An extra pull-up in the trashcan would risk raising some awkward questions, and I couldn't think of any way to discard the pull-up discreetly after peeing in it.

I let another couple of minutes pass as I stood in the bathroom, anxiously watching the timer on my phone continue to count down. It was over all too soon.

I removed the pull-up carefully, making sure not to rip any of the sides, and checked that the inside padding had remained clean. I folded the pull-up back up the way it had come out of the suitcase and tucked it back into place.

I managed to hit the pause button on my timer three seconds before it went off. I hurried back downstairs, hoping that my absence hadn't been so long as to raise any questions.

 

---

Links to all my stories can be found at https://abdlwriter.wordpress.com/ 

[DiaperStoryReader]

To bad they were not watching Spy Kids. Carmen Cortez wearing diapers at night would have given Madelyn a great excuse to talk to her mother about diapers.

[Night Rain]

It's one thing to be obessed but it's another thing to go digging through. Another person's stuff to get what you really want dude.

[thedman]

Well I guess my suspicions about actual diapers at night and pull ups for daytime wear for Hannah have been confirmed. 

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 4/15/2024 at 9:38 PM, DiaperStoryReader said:

To bad they were not watching Spy Kids. Carmen Cortez wearing diapers at night would have given Madelyn a great excuse to talk to her mother about diapers.

Well, they did watch that on Friday, so that is something that can be brought up again by Madelyn.

On 4/15/2024 at 10:34 PM, Night Rain said:

It's one thing to be obessed but it's another thing to go digging through. Another person's stuff to get what you really want dude.

For sure, and certainly demonstrates how unhealthy parts of her obsession with diapers are.

On 4/16/2024 at 12:06 AM, thedman said:

Well I guess my suspicions about actual diapers at night and pull ups for daytime wear for Hannah have been confirmed. 

That does seem to be the case.

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 22: The Night Before

I returned downstairs to find that Hannah had resumed watching the movie without me. Like before, she was sitting on the floor. Emma remained absorbed in her smartphone on the couch.

"You were in the bathroom for a really long time," Hannah said as I took a seat behind her on the couch.

Emma groaned at her cousin's lack of social etiquette, though she still didn't look up from her phone. I didn't respond at all to Hannah's comment. Anything she might think I had been doing in the bathroom was better than what I had actually been doing. I hoped that I had managed to put everything back into the suitcase exactly like I had found it, and that the pull-up I had tried out wouldn't show any signs of having been worn.

I wasn't able to pay attention to the TV. It didn't matter that this was my favorite of the Harry Potter movies. I simply couldn't sit still and focus on it.

The diapers I'd discovered in Hannah's suitcase both worried and intrigued me. Why was it that she would need to wear those to bed rather than the pull-ups?

There was only one explanation that made sense. The pull-ups must not work well enough for her at night. There was no question from when I was holding the diaper that it had significantly more absorbent padding, but it seemed to follow that it would be more effective at absorbing urine.

But I struggled to understand why that was the case. The pull-ups seemed to work perfectly fine for Hannah during the day. Or did they?

When Emma had mentioned that her cousin had peed all over the couch the other day, I had simply assumed that she must have not had a pull-up on at the time. But what if that wasn't the case? What if she had been wearing the pull-up, and it hadn't been able to completely absorb the accident? Maybe those pull-ups didn't work one hundred percent of that time?

What would that mean for my own fake bedwetting once my parents got the pull-ups for me? I, of course, would be wetting them, but what would happen if they leaked all over the bed? I couldn't see my parents wanting to continue getting pull-ups for me if that were to happen. They wouldn't see them as having any value if there were still wet sheets to deal with, anyway.

Would I end up needing to wear diapers as well if I were to continue faking the bedwetting? And did I want to wear diapers rather than pull-ups?

That was a question I didn't know the answer to at the moment. I hadn't ever remotely considered the possibility of wearing a diaper rather than a pull-up outside of the makeshift diaper I had attempted to make for myself once a couple of years back to disastrous results.

Would a diaper feel as good as wearing a pull-up? Would it feel better than wearing a pull-up? That wasn't a question I could answer without having tried one on, but there hadn't been an opportunity to do so.

From the windows looking out over the backyard, I could see that the rain hadn't let up a single bit. I checked my phone. The forecast said the downpour wasn't supposed to stop until sometime overnight.

The movie finally came to an end. Hannah wanted to move on to the next one immediately, but not before taking another toilet break, as her watch had just gone off a couple of minutes earlier.

"I need to put my foot down," Emma said, though she remained seated on the couch with her legs curled up to the side. "I'm not watching another one of these movies this weekend."

Hannah was gone a lot longer than before. It was hard to tell since it was raining, but I thought I could hear the sound of someone going upstairs and walking around. When she finally returned, she didn't take kindly to Emma's decision to move on to any activity other than watching the next Harry Potter movie.

Hannah stomped her feet and ran off when Emma refused to hand over the TV remote to her. Hannah returned a few minutes later with her mom, who tried to helpfully suggest that perhaps we could make some TikTok videos with Hannah instead.

That seemed to test Emma's limit on wanting to do anything but watch another Harry Potter movie, but she agreed. There was still another hour or so before Mom was going to come and pick me up. We managed to get a couple of someone choreographic dance videos made that Emma promised Hannah that she would post to her account, though when Hannah went off to use the toilet again, Emma whispered to me that she was going to delete it all once Hannah was gone, saying that she didn't want to ruin the vibe on her account.

The doorbell rang a few minutes later. It had to be Mom coming to pick me up.

Hannah stayed behind in the living room as Emma and I went to the front door. Mom was chatting casually with Emma and Hannah's parents in the entryway when we arrived.

"Are you excited about summer break?" Mom asked Emma.

"I will be when Angie is back from her road trip," Emma said. "I'm looking forward to the sleepover on Maddy's birthday."

Mom nodded in response to Emma's statement and shifted her gaze over to me. And just like that, I was caught. Mom wasn't supposed to have known that I'd already invited Angie and Emma to have a sleepover on my birthday next weekend.

"Where's Hannah?" Emma's aunt asked.

"I don't know," Emma said. "Maybe in the other room."

"Can you go grab her? I'm sure she'd want to say goodbye since we're leaving early tomorrow morning."

Emma trudged back off toward the living room. I caught her rolling her eyes once she was at an angle where her parents couldn't see it. A little while later, there was a loud patter of feet running along the wood floor, and Hannah sprinted around the corner. I couldn't help but once again find my eyes drifting down to her waist. As she came to a stop, her shirt lifted up briefly, giving one final half-second glimpse of the pull-up beneath her shorts.

"Bye!" Hannah said with a wave at me. And just like that, she was done, having turned back around to sprint off toward the living room.

We continued to make small talk about plans for the summer for a few minutes, and then it was time to head home.

I closed the door behind me after getting into the passenger seat, bracing myself for an awkward conversation.

Mom turned on the ignition without saying a word and watched the rear-view camera as she carefully backed out of the driveway. Once we were out on the road, the questions began.

"Why does Emma think there's going to be a sleepover on your birthday?" she asked.

She had me there. It was stupid bad luck that Emma had thought to say anything about that to Mom. Mom had shot down the idea of an all-nighter, and she had made it clear that she wasn't going to OK the idea of a sleepover unless the anti-bedwetting pills had worked.

I really didn't want to answer Mom's question, even though it wasn't as though she likely knew the answer already.

"I told Angie and Emma that a sleepover was the plan for my birthday."

"Madelyn, you know that I had said that wasn't an option unless we managed to figure out what was happening with the bedwetting."

I nearly did it. Even though I had planned to bring up the topic of pull-ups tomorrow, I nearly went forward with the speech I had rehearsed about how it might be good to try them. But I instead fell back on a more vague excuse.

"I just figured that maybe the doctor would have something that would stop the bedwetting so I could still have the sleepover. I didn't want to tell them that I couldn't do it."

"That doesn't leave a lot of time," Mom said as we turned onto the road that led back to our house. "I want to make sure any solution actually works before letting you do a sleepover. Maybe it would be best if we just postponed it. Your friends can stay until it is time to go to bed. It's not as though you'd really miss anything while being asleep."

That was the last thing I wanted, especially after having already told my friends that a sleepover was going to happen.

"Please don't tell them that it is canceled yet. I don't want them to think anything is wrong."

Mom was silent for a bit as she pulled into the driveway and waited for the garage door to open.

"That's fine for now," Mom said at last. "But if we don't find a way to deal with the bedwetting before then, it isn't going to work to have the sleepover."

<><><> 

Another night. Another set of pills to take before bed. At least this was going to be the last time.

Despite my pleas to get out of taking the pills tonight, Mom insisted that I should give it one more try before going to the doctor's appointment in the morning.

"I don't want you staying up too late tonight," Mom said. "The appointment is first thing in the morning, so you need to make sure you set your alarm for eight."

Great. Pills. No more water for tonight. No chance of peeing the bed this evening. And I had to get up early in the morning.

I held out my hand, and she dropped the two pills onto my open palm. I grabbed a glass with a small amount of water in it from her as well. Mom watched as I popped both of the pills into my mouth. I resigned myself to the possibility of dealing with an actual headache tomorrow morning as I began to raise the glass of water to my lips.

Some loud yelling in the distance – which sounded like my younger brother, Jackson – suddenly grabbed Mom's attention, as she turned around to look in the other direction.

Mom's back was turned as she headed down the hallway in the direction of the tantrum that Jackson seemed to be throwing. That wasn't common behavior for him, but when it happened, it usually took both of my parents to rein my six-year-old brother in.

This was my chance. I pulled the two tiny pills out of my mouth and placed them in my pocket before quickly chugging down the small glass of water.

With my plans for the evening suddenly looking much more positive, I didn't throw a fuss at going to bed earlier than I normally would have on an evening during summer break. I made sure to use the toilet while my parents were helping my brother get ready for bed, making sure they would know that any bedwetting would be happening in spite of all the precautions that were being taken.

I flushed the two pills down the toilet, watching carefully to make sure that they didn't resurface. The best part about having avoided taking the pills tonight was that I wasn't going to have to avoid drinking anything afterward. My mouth had been so parched the past several nights when I had gone to bed without sneaking a drink from the sports bottle I had tucked away in my bedroom.

Alone in my bedroom, I raised the bottle to my lips. I couldn't believe that I was somehow actually excited about the idea of drinking lukewarm tap water. The likelihood of being able to wet myself in bed tonight allowed me to manage to set aside my disgust at the bitter taste of the water.

The problem of going to bed this early was that I still had plenty of time to kill before midnight.

I tapped open the web browser on my phone, trying to recall the name of the website Hannah had mentioned reading those Harry Potter fanfiction stories on. I couldn't recall the exact name, but a quick Google search of the acronym she had mentioned brought up a link to the website.

I tapped on the link, and then I groaned as a new pop-up appeared on my phone, one that was unwelcome but familiar, a message that the website was blocked due to the parental restrictions on my phone.

Well, that was just great. Defeated, I set my phone down on the bed.

It wouldn't be the first time that an otherwise appropriate website had been mistakenly blocked by the software. If it was something Hannah had access to, I couldn't imagine that it was actually anything that bad or inappropriate.

I would need to ask Dad about the website tomorrow, and he would be able to update the permissions on the parental controls like he had done for me before, though perhaps I should consider coming up with a reason for wanting to access the website other than wanting to read Harry Potter stories.

A sense of melancholy struck me as midnight approached. This might be the last time of wetting myself like this. Going forward, I would be wearing a pull-up to bed every night for the foreseeable future.

I had first wet the bed nine nights ago. And tomorrow I would be going to see a doctor. I was amazed at how quickly everything had progressed.

I'd tried to put off thinking about what the doctor's appointment might mean for me in the morning. What tests would they end up running? What theories would they have for why the bedwetting might be happening? Was there anything I had done that might cause them to suspect that I was actually wetting the bed on purpose?

One thing was clear. Regardless of what happened at that appointment, I was going to need to find a way to broach the topic of pull-ups with Mom tomorrow. With any luck, tomorrow night, I'd be going to bed while wearing a pull-up identical to the one of Hannah's that I had tried out earlier today.

Having managed to avoid taking the anti-bedwetting pills, I didn't have to struggle at all to manage to wet the bed, and I took in the sensation of the warmth spreading beneath my waist.

Even though everything had gone right so far, even though I was still completely on track for my plan to succeed, another thought began to fill me with a new worry as I lay on top of my thoroughly soaked bedding.

What if the pull-ups didn't work for me?

 

---

Links to all my stories can be found at https://abdlwriter.wordpress.com/ 

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 23: The Little That I Know

Three Years Ago

I now knew for certain that there were no pull-ups or diapers in the house. All I had managed to find were a bunch of Jackson's old baby items, but pacifiers and bottles held no interest for me. I may have wanted to wear diapers, but I didn't have the slightest interest in behaving like or being treated as a baby.

There was so much that I didn't know and very few means of attaining the information that I sought.

My fixation on pull-ups ebbed and flowed for the following year after I first learned about those bedwetting pull-ups from my cousins. It wasn't as though there was any point where I didn't want to try to wear one, but without any actual ability to do so, the desire would fade out of mind for weeks or months at a time until something would occur to spark those urges again.

I would catch a glimpse of an advertisement for diapers on the TV or in a newspaper. I would be at the park when a toddler would run by with the waistband of a pull-up clearly sticking out the top of their shorts. I would overhear some of my mom's friends talking about struggles they had with getting their toddlers to potty train.

And then my mind would be back at it again, fruitlessly searching for information until I once again gave up hope of ever getting my hands on pull-ups of my own.

<><><> 

My mom kept me close at hand when we went shopping for groceries. Jackson was still young enough to sit in the cart, facing Mom as she pushed it down most – but not all – of the aisles in the grocery store.

To my dismay, there were a number of aisles that we never seemed to go by anymore, ones that I wished I had paid more attention to previously but that had been before I had known what I wanted to look for.

Slipping off to check out the baby aisle was never an option. Mom preferred that I stay within arm's reach of her at all times. I had to make do with attempting to discreetly peek down the baby aisle as we went by, taking in its distinct scents.

But it was hard to make out much from a distance. There were so many brands and styles, and I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for.

That changed one day right at the end of summer break, several months since my interest in pull-ups had begun. One of my mom's co-workers was having a baby shower for her first baby, which she was expecting in a couple of months, and Mom needed to pick out some diapers and wipes as a present.

I found myself standing smack dab in the middle of the diaper section of the baby aisle, completely overwhelmed by all the options, brands, and styles. All the bright colors and smells made it hard to concentrate on what I was looking for. I needed to find something that was meant for older kids my age, not toddlers or preschoolers. There were regular diapers and pull-ups and ones that seemed to be a mix of the two.

On a few of the other packages where information about the sizing was available, it was again clear that none of the products were remotely close to my size, as if that wasn't clear from the age of the models on the front of the packages. I began to wonder if that scene with my cousins a few months back had actually been real. Could it have just been something that I dreamed up in the boredom of that vacation?

Then I saw a package. There was a picture of a sleeping girl on it, more than old enough to be my age. Could that be it? But then I saw the phrase "nighttime underwear" beneath the brand name. That didn't make any sense to me. Why would they be selling underwear for girls in the baby aisle? That was just plain silly.

"Maddy," Mom said. "You need to keep up with us."

While I wanted to see if there was any other information to glean from the package, I didn't have any choice but to obey Mom as I turned around and dashed ahead to catch up to her shopping cart.

What exactly did that package mean by "nighttime underwear," and why was it located in the baby aisle close to all the diapers and pull-ups?

It would be a long time before I walked through the baby aisle again.

<><><> 

An indoor water park in the winter made for a perfect vacation.

Grace was busy lying on her stomach on one of the poolside chairs. Teenagers were weird. It wasn't like she could catch a tan inside. Mom was at least reading a book while reclining in her chair. Dad was munching on some snacks, keeping an eye on Jackson and me from off in the distance.

I was playing with Jackson in the kiddie pool. The warm water only came up to our ankles, but there were tons of fountains, sprinklers, slides, and water toys to play with.

Above us was a bucket connected to a swivel. It gradually filled with water before tipping over and emptying its contents onto whoever might be unlucky enough to be standing beneath it at the time.

Jackson found the idea hilarious. Though for him it was more amusing when the bucket of water was dropping down on my head rather than his.

I knew better than to look up to try to see if the bucket was close to overflowing. I had made that mistake once and wasn't interested in making it again.

At this point, my hair was already thoroughly soaked, so there was no use in fussing over yet another bucket of water pouring over it again. The small clang the bucket made as it began to tip was the only warning I got. I closed my eyes and shut my mouth as the warm water – at least it was warm water – poured over my head. I opened my eyes to the sight of Jackson giggling and pointing at me like a maniac.

"OK, it's your turn now," I said.

I stepped away from the spot under the basket and motion for Jackson to take my place. It seemed to take the bucket a little under a minute to refill before soaking its next victim. But my eyes drifted away from Jackson.

Her top was a normal swimsuit, but around her waist was an uncovered swim diaper, blue with a picture of a mermaid on it. It was absolutely mesmerizing. Jackson yelled at me to pay attention to him, and when I looked again in the direction the girl had run off in, I had lost sight of her.

I knew that I wouldn't fit in a swim diaper made for a baby, but the site of the swim diaper still stirred up that longing that had gotten tucked away for a couple of months. Since that disappointing trip through the baby aisle, my interest in diapers had dropped off.

With diapers on my mind again, I couldn't help but notice them everywhere I went at the water park, and over the course of the long weekend, I spent much more time playing with Jackson than I normally would have, much to the delight of Grace and my parents. It wasn't so much that I cared to spend time around my brother, but being in the kiddie pool gave me a chance to catch glimpses of diapered kids as they splashed around in the water, wishing all the while that it was me who was wearing those diapers and pull-ups instead.

<><><> 

I learned not to leave the room during commercial breaks. I didn't care much about the cartoon show that my brother was watching on TV. I found it difficult to concentrate on my book with all of that background noise.

Ever since coming home from the water park vacation, I had been obsessed with learning as much as I could about pull-ups and diapers, and I had discovered an easy way to do so.

I endured the annoying shows my younger brother watched for one, and only one, reason. The programs geared toward kids his age often featured advertisements for pull-ups and diapers. I had become familiar with the names of all the brands and the different types of pull-ups and diapers they would sell, and all the new features they were constantly adding.

I peeked at the TV over the top of the book I was reading. A new commercial break had just begun. The first two advertisements were disappointments. The first was for a cereal brand I absolutely detested. The second was for baby formula. A few commercial breaks had passed by already without any of the advertisements I had been looking for, and I was beginning to wish I had just spent the morning reading in my room instead when the next ad caught my eye.

One of the brands I was familiar with was advertising a new type of pull-up. A boy and a girl around Jackson's age were both going through the routine of getting ready for bed with their parent's assistance. There was the familiar scene of the closeup shot of them sliding the pull-up over their waists.

And then the lights went out, and the designs on the pull-ups were glowing in the dark.

But I knew by now not to get my hopes up. The kids in the advertisement were Jackson's age. No matter how cool those pull-ups looked, they weren't for me, either. The ad continued by showing how to activate the pull-ups first by holding them under a light.

The advertisement was over all too soon, and Jackson's show resumed. But instead of turning back to my book, I thought over again about what I had just seen.

This didn't confirm that the pull-ups I remembered my cousins' wearing were real, but it did confirm one important detail. There were pull-ups made specifically for use during the night.

I wondered again about the brand of nighttime underwear that I had seen in the diaper aisle nearly half a year ago. There was a word I had learned in class the other day. It was really long, and I didn't think I'd ever be able to remember how to spell it. The concept of the word – euphemism – was also hard to grasp, and the idea that a word might not mean what it actually meant was simply too confusing. It didn't seem right. It was so much easier when people simply said exactly what they meant, rather than the opposite of it.

But it was like a lightbulb had gone off in my head. Could nighttime underwear actually mean something entirely else?

I tried to recall the name of the brand I had seen that day in the baby aisle. It took several minutes for it to come back to me. I had to recite the alphabet silently in my head several times before I remembered it.

I whispered the name of the brand silently to myself over and over again, like a mantra.

With the name of what I was looking for now in mind, I kept my eyes peeled for any glimpse of it, but several more months passed by without any additional luck. I managed to catch a glimpse or two – or at least thought I had – of the packages of so-called nighttime underwear in the baby aisle. But that was only for seconds and from a long distance, so I wasn't able to glean any more information than from the time I had spent first looking at it.

My remaining options were highly limited. There was absolutely no scenario in which I would look up that brand on the family computer or tablet. I couldn't have my parents question why I was seeking out that information. I knew instinctively that they would not approve of this quest. There was no way that query would escape Dad's notice, and I had no desire for the questions that would surely follow.

And despite my continued vigilance in watching ads on the TV, I never managed to come across one for that nighttime underwear.

<><><> 

About a year had passed now since the day I had worn pull-ups

My biggest fear was that I was growing. I was quite a few inches taller than a year before.

I wanted to believe that they made pull-ups for teenagers, but without any direct evidence to confirm that, my worry was that I would eventually get my hands on the bedwetting pull-ups, only to find that I had done so too later and would no longer be able to fit into them.

I was once again on the alert for any information I could find about that nighttime underwear brand. It was a week after my tenth birthday. To celebrate, I had gone with Emma and Angie to an indoor trampoline park. I had put the thought of those pull-ups out of my mind for a while, as I hadn't recently come across any new information.

The allure of the TV advertisements had faded. It was just the same old information re-packaged in different ways. Yes, I would still look up at the TV at the familiar sound of certain jingles, but I no longer went out of the way to stay in the living room as Jackson watched the TV.

The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafted upward through the air and to the second floor of the house. I followed the irresistible scent downstairs as it grew stronger and stronger until I came across a bunch of cookies spread out on old pages of yesterday's newspaper on the dining room table.

To my disappointment, my parents only got the newspaper on Sunday. Mom said the only reasons she got it at all was for the advertisements that came tucked inside it, though all I cared about was pulling out the comics section from the middle, often wishing that I would be able to get the comics from the middle of the week as well.

Mom was in the kitchen, putting one final batch of cookies in the oven. She gave me permission to eat two – and only two – cookies.

I stared down at the newspaper pages as I tried to determine which two cookies were the biggest. None of the newspaper articles carried any interest to me. Reading the news was something that adults did.

However, the newspaper pages also included a section with advertisements for the local grocery store that Mom preferred to shop at. There were ads for a variety of baby products. I glanced over at them, not really expecting to learn anything that I already didn't know. There were headings for different products that were on sale: wipes, formula, diapers, and pull-ups.

I turned my attention to the images in the pull-up sections, which, according to the ad, were on sale for fifteen percent off this week.

And there it was. The picture was tiny, but unmistakable. It was the same package of nighttime underwear that I had come across so long ago in the grocery store.

And there was no mistaking what it actually was. It couldn't have been an accident that it had been listed in the pull-ups section.

I squinted down at the newspaper as I removed a couple of cookies and put them on my plate. There was some tiny writing on the package, but it was indecipherable with how small the picture was. The text next to the advertisement said that the sale included small through extra-large sizes, but I knew better than to let that phrase get my hopes up. I had seen a couple of ads for extra-large pull-ups before, only to find that this just meant they were for preschool-age kids and not toddlers.

I poured myself a glass of milk in the kitchen and slowly ate my cookie while considering this new revelation. I realized that the most important thing I had learned wasn't that these nighttime underwear were actually pull-ups. That was a discovery I had made on my own a few months back.

No, what I realized was that there was another potential untapped source of information about these pull-ups. From then on, I made sure to skim through all the advertisements in the newspaper. These special bedwetting pull-ups didn't show up often, but each time they did, the same problem remained as before.

The information contained in the ads was minimal, with nothing to suggest whether I would still be able to fit into these pull-ups or if I had already outgrown them in the past year. There wasn't any information about the weight ranges or clothing sizes that the pull-ups would fit.

But with the confirmation that these pull-ups existed, I found it impossible to put the topic out of my mind. After that moment, not a single day passed where I didn't think about what it would be like to be wearing a pull-up once again.

But actually getting my hands on one of those pull-ups seemed like an impossibility for the time being. It wasn't likely that I would be visiting those cousins anytime again soon, and I didn't know of a single other kid my age who was a bedwetter. 

It was time to take matters into my own hands. If I couldn't get a diaper of my own, perhaps I could make one for myself.

 

---

Links to all my stories can be found at https://abdlwriter.wordpress.com/ 

[BabySofia]

Your flashback here could have been my own from my childhood. I remember looking through the ads for diapers, magazines for goodnite advertisements, and also the huggies and pampers sites as they became a thing. Enjoying this tale, looking forward to seeing more!

[spark]

44 minutes ago, BabySofia said:

Your flashback here could have been my own from my childhood. I remember looking through the ads for diapers, magazines for goodnite advertisements, and also the huggies and pampers sites as they became a thing. Enjoying this tale, looking forward to seeing more!

Why did you copy what I did?   I used to open the coupons just to see the coupons for diapers.  I also tried to make my own diapers.  It didn't work.

[LGGrace]

Maddy walking down the diaper aisle was a play by play of my own childhood memories. I remember being overwhelmed by all the smells and bright colors.  Luckily for me the baby stuff was on one side and paper goods were on the other, so I got to go down that aisle all the time when I was shopping with my mom. I was always nervous that my mom would catch me looking.

[BabySofia]

1 hour ago, spark said:

I also tried to make my own diapers.  It didn't work.

I pretended with towels, but never used them! I didn't grow up with cloth diapers, so I only ever learned about those in stories.

[Little Sherri]

13 hours ago, LGGrace said:

I was always nervous that my mom would catch me looking.

I used to offer to help my mom by dashing off to other aisles to get this or that box of crackers or cereal, or paper towels, and I would always divert up the baby aisle. 

13 hours ago, spark said:

I also tried to make my own diapers.  It didn't work.

I eventually scraped up the nerve to ride my bike up to the drugstore in our local strip mall, so that I could drop my saved-up allowance on a cardboard card of diaper pins, which I then used to turn towels and pillow cases into diapers. They were not very effective "protection" - I made plastic pants out of plastic bags but the fit was very ad hoc - however I wore them to bed a lot, and occasionally around  the house under my clothes - I loved how they felt even if I couldn't use them very often. I even wore a homemade diaper to school a few times in the 6th grade, which I now realize was bonkers, but at the time was a very exciting prospect. 

[LittleAcorn]

I think one of the reasons I like this story is it's so relatable, since I had a very, very similar relationship with the diaper aisle at the store and the advertising section of the Sunday paper.

I enjoyed he flashback, but I also want Maddy to get her pull-ups and/or diapers - so nice job making the slow burn even slower :).

[spark]

13 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I used to offer to help my mom by dashing off to other aisles to get this or that box of crackers or cereal, or paper towels, and I would always divert up the baby aisle. 

I eventually scraped up the nerve to ride my bike up to the drugstore in our local strip mall, so that I could drop my saved-up allowance on a cardboard card of diaper pins, which I then used to turn towels and pillow cases into diapers. They were not very effective "protection" - I made plastic pants out of plastic bags but the fit was very ad hoc - however I wore them to bed a lot, and occasionally around  the house under my clothes - I loved how they felt even if I couldn't use them very often. I even wore a homemade diaper to school a few times in the 6th grade, which I now realize was bonkers, but at the time was a very exciting prospect. 

I was living in a boarding house when I was in High School, so I couldn't risk such things.   I also was a little spoiled in college and never had my own money until I was out of college (22 years old).     Goodnites came out at roughly the same time, and the day I got hired for my first paying job out of college was the day that I bought my first package of Goodnites from a store.

 

[LGGrace]

On 4/21/2024 at 7:17 PM, BabySofia said:

I pretended with towels, but never used them! I didn't grow up with cloth diapers, so I only ever learned about those in stories.

I did the same thing in middle and high-school too.  Since I lived in a household of 7 with no privacy, I could only do it for 5 to 10 minutes before or after getting out the shower. 

14 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I used to offer to help my mom by dashing off to other aisles to get this or that box of crackers or cereal, or paper towels, and I would always divert up the baby aisle. 

I was too scared to go down the aisle by myself. I had an fear that people would think I needed diapers for some reason by just walking down it. It also didn't help that my Dad threatened to put me in goodnites for my bedwetting and I didn't want anyone to find out. Thinking back, I wet the enough to justify needing them until I was at least 11.

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 4/21/2024 at 6:14 PM, BabySofia said:

Your flashback here could have been my own from my childhood. I remember looking through the ads for diapers, magazines for goodnite advertisements, and also the huggies and pampers sites as they became a thing. Enjoying this tale, looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks! Those were all things I experienced as well before I learned how much easier it was to get information off of the internet (and give my parent's old computer a lot of viruses).

On 4/21/2024 at 7:43 PM, LGGrace said:

Maddy walking down the diaper aisle was a play by play of my own childhood memories. I remember being overwhelmed by all the smells and bright colors.  Luckily for me the baby stuff was on one side and paper goods were on the other, so I got to go down that aisle all the time when I was shopping with my mom. I was always nervous that my mom would catch me looking.

And it's funny too, because no way our parents would have realized that we were looking because we wanted to wear them. Kids get curious about all kinds of things when they are bored silly during a shopping trip.

On 4/21/2024 at 7:00 PM, spark said:

Why did you copy what I did?   I used to open the coupons just to see the coupons for diapers.  I also tried to make my own diapers.  It didn't work.

Yes, as has been hinted, Maddy's diaper making experiment didn't go all that well. The next flashback will cover exactly what happened for her then.

On 4/22/2024 at 8:56 AM, Little Sherri said:

I used to offer to help my mom by dashing off to other aisles to get this or that box of crackers or cereal, or paper towels, and I would always divert up the baby aisle. 

I eventually scraped up the nerve to ride my bike up to the drugstore in our local strip mall, so that I could drop my saved-up allowance on a cardboard card of diaper pins, which I then used to turn towels and pillow cases into diapers. They were not very effective "protection" - I made plastic pants out of plastic bags but the fit was very ad hoc - however I wore them to bed a lot, and occasionally around  the house under my clothes - I loved how they felt even if I couldn't use them very often. I even wore a homemade diaper to school a few times in the 6th grade, which I now realize was bonkers, but at the time was a very exciting prospect. 

I managed some very good makeshift diapers myself. Plastic garbage bags cut into the shape of a diaper, then lined with a ton of toilet paper, and then taped on like normal. 

On 4/22/2024 at 2:45 PM, LittleAcorn said:

I think one of the reasons I like this story is it's so relatable, since I had a very, very similar relationship with the diaper aisle at the store and the advertising section of the Sunday paper.

I enjoyed he flashback, but I also want Maddy to get her pull-ups and/or diapers - so nice job making the slow burn even slower :).

I promise we are getting very close to Maddy getting what she wants (though not anywhere close to the end of the story)

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 24: The Only Other Option

I hated everything about going to the doctor.

I tried to avoid thinking about what this doctor’s appointment was going to entail as I got ready for the day, but nothing I did was able to prevent my thoughts from drifting back to the subject.

There were the normal fears: needles, all the ways I’d be poked and prodded, the way that the general atmosphere of the hospital always seemed to unnerve me.

But there were also some fears that were specific to this occasion: I had successfully tricked my parents and older sister into believing that I was genuinely wetting the bed. But what would happen when my situation was examined by a professional? I had a sudden fear that they would be able to see right through the façade. Could there be something about the way I had gone about faking my bedwetting that would clue a doctor into the fact that it was all a lie?

The one good thing was that I wouldn’t be needing to take those anti-bedwetting pills anymore. It shouldn’t have taken as long as four days to convince Mom to give up on them, but when she got me out of bed this morning, the sight different sheets than I had on the bed the night before was all the confirmation she needed that I had wet the bed and changed my sheets overnight.

I didn’t bother with faking a headache this morning. And I didn’t have an actual one, as I’d managed to fake taking the pills the night before.

I fiddled around with my breakfast as Mom focused on getting Jackson ready for his first day at his summer camp, sipping on a glass of orange juice while nibbling on a piece of toast with cinnamon butter on it. In the background, Mom was chasing Jackson around, prodding him to finish getting dressed and packed.

I wasn’t normally all that enthusiastic about breakfast, but today, I didn’t feel hungry at all. My stomach felt all jittery, and while the upcoming appointment was weighing heavily on my mind, it wasn’t the only thing that was making me nervous. I was going to have to bring up the topic of pull-ups with my parents soon. I couldn’t hold off for much longer, not if I wanted to avoid having the birthday sleepover get canceled.

I stared down at the kitchen table. There wasn’t any way I could eat anymore. I went to dispose of my half-eaten breakfast. I dumped my half-piece of toast in the trash, but Mom caught sight of what I was doing before I could pour out the rest of my orange juice in the sink.

“Madelyn,” Mom said. “You need to finish your orange juice.”

I paused with the glass of orange juice held over the sink. “But I’m not thirsty.”

“I poured a full glass for you because Dr. Mathorn said he wanted to make sure that you were hydrated for the appointment. Now, please finish it because we need to be out the door in a few minutes.”

I retreated from the sink and finished the orange juice, as Mom had asked. Why would Dr. Mathorn care how much I had to drink for breakfast?

<><><> 

It was a bit of a relief that we had to drop Jackson off first before we needed to be at the hospital for my appointment.

I sat in the car while Mom took Jackson inside to drop him off at his all-day summer daycare camp. I remembered the summers when I had been forced to do that every day. Sometimes, it had been fun. We took cool field trips to museums or amusement parks. But there had been plenty of other times when I had been forced to take part in group games or activities that I had no interest in. I’d rather be at the park playing soccer with my friends or curled up at home reading a book.

“We’ll be at the hospital in about ten minutes,” Mom said once she got back in the car. “It will be in plenty of time before your appointment.”

The silence in the car as the ride to the hospital began was deafening. On any drive longer than a few minutes, Mom typically had music playing, usually from some musical. Today there wasn’t anything coming out of the speakers.

I thought it perhaps was because she wanted to talk about the upcoming appointment, but the next few minutes instead passed by in silence as I texted my friends. I mentioned that I had a doctor’s appointment I had to go to, mostly because I wanted someone I could complain about it to, though I played it off as a standard check-up.

Both Angie and Emma were also excited to hear the news that I was allowed to stay home by myself during the summer, but disappointed by the restrictions my parents had still placed on me. Emma texted, asking if she could come over after lunch to hang out.

I promised Emma that I would ask, though I didn’t think I was going to like the answer.

“Can Emma come over after lunch? Please?”

As happy as I was that my parents were now entrusting me with the responsibility of being able to stay home during the summer by myself, there were a couple of downsides to it, namely the fact that I wasn’t supposed to have anyone over or be at my friend’s place without their parents or adult siblings around.

That wasn’t to say that I wasn’t going to enjoy my time alone. Between having as much time as I wanted to read Harry Potter without being accosted about the lack of diversity in my reading habits and being able to have more chances to experiment with wetting my pants, there was plenty to occupy my time.

“That’s not going to work today,” Mom said. “Your sister is going to be gone all afternoon, and I’m heading off to work once the appointment is over. I wasn’t intending to take the whole day off.”

“But Mom, that’s going to be boring. Can’t my friends at least come over some of the time? That can’t be any worse than letting me have the house to myself?”

“We’ll see how the first few weeks go,” Mom said. “Then your dad and I could perhaps talk it over and see if that might be allowed.”

I resisted the urge to argue further. That was probably as much of a concession as I was going to get. I passed on the bad news to Emma and received a bunch of sad-faced emojis in response.

<><><> 

The last time I had seen our pediatrician had been at the start of the last school year, when I had gone through my normal physical required for the soccer teams I played on and had also gotten up to date on my shots.

The only good thing about that last appointment was that Dr. Mathorn had reassured me that it would be several more years before I would need any additional vaccinations. That was far enough away that I didn’t need to worry about it for now.

I took a seat in the waiting room as Mom got in line to get me checked in. We had arrived about twenty minutes early. I scanned the magazines stacked on the table next to me, trying to guess which one might have some ads for diapers or pull-ups.

After flicking through the pile of magazines, I came across a parenting one. I looked over to where Mom was standing in a long line. I had plenty of time to browse and then put it down before she got back.

I did manage to come across a few advertisements for baby diapers, which had me reflect again on the strange white diapers I had discovered in Hannah’s suitcase, ones that had two tabs on each side rather than one, but there weren’t any ads for the bedwetting pull-ups. I did stumble across an article discussing late potty training, but unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to read it, as I could see out of the corner of my eye that Mom was at the front of the line.

I reluctantly set the magazine down and pulled my phone out of my pocket. Mom came down to sit beside me a minute later, grabbing the same parenting magazine that I had previously been reading. I waited anxiously as a nurse occasionally stepped out of a door and called someone’s name. I breathed a short sigh of relief each time it wasn’t mine. I was so not ready for this.

After about ten minutes, the nurse again stepped out into the waiting area.

“Madelyn?”

<><><> 

The first parts of the appointment were no different from past check-ups. I was weighed and had my height measured. I was a little disappointed to find that I wasn’t five feet tall just yet. I still had another inch to go for that. And according to the scale, I weighed ninety-six pounds.

Then there was the exam room to deal with. The nurse led Mom and me in and had me take a seat on the paper-covered exam table. She listened to my heartbeat and then took my blood pressure with that uncomfortable cuff that went around my arm.

Nothing was said yet about the reason for the visit while all these tests were underway. I sat silently while the nurse types some details into a computer.

“I’m going to go and grab Dr. Mathorn for you,” the nurse said. “She’ll be with you shortly.”

Then, it was just Mom and me in the room together. She was sitting in a plastic chair off to the side while I remained at the exam table. Mom gave me a reassuring smile as I looked over at her.

I tried to mentally prepare myself for Dr. Mathorn’s arrival. I couldn’t have her thinking in any way that the bedwetting might not be genuine.

I nearly slid off of the exam table in surprise as the door to the exam room swung open without a knock. I smiled nervously as we all exchange some pleasantries.

Dr. Mathorn took a seat in front of a computer and pulled up a chart with my medical history.

“I see you are going to be turning thirteen this weekend, about to be a teenager. That’s so cool. You have something fun planned for your birthday?”

The difficulties I often had with lying hit me right there. “I was wanting to have a sleepover…”

My voice trailed off. While that still was my plan for the coming weekend, sleepovers weren’t something that bedwetters went to typically, at least not in my family, and certainly not without something like medication or pull-ups to keep the issue hidden and managed.

“Of course,” Dr. Mathorn said. “I can see why that would be more of a challenge. Your mom did talk with me about the reason for this visit.”

I winced as I bit my lip a little too hard in nervous anticipation of what she was about to say next.

“Your mom mentioned that you’ve had some recent issues with bedwetting. Is that right?”

There was no need to fake how embarrassing and humiliating that question was, but that was the price I had agreed to pay in order to get those pull-ups. I tried to conjure the feeling of the pull-up from Hannah’s suitcase. I had worn it just the day before. If I could just get those pull-ups for myself, all of this humiliation would be worth it.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything in response. I looked down at my lap and nodded. Mom saved me the difficulty of needing to give a full update on the status of my recent bedwetting. She filled Dr. Mathorn in on all the details: when the first bedwetting accident had happened, how frequently it had been since then, the unsuccessful attempts they had taken so far to try to get the accidents to stop, our family’s history of bedwetting.

I finally managed to look up about halfway through Mom’s speech. Dr. Mathorn was just nodding along as Mom talked, as though the subject of bedwetting was something she came across on an everyday basis.

Dr. Mathorn turned to me once again after Mom had finished with her very thorough explanation of the past week-and-a-half of my bedwetting. “Plenty of kids wet the bed – even some adults,” Dr. Mathorn said. “Even though it is more common in elementary age kids, it still does happen with kids around your age as well.”

Next came a whole litany of questions for me: Did it hurt at all when I peed? Had the color of my urine changed at all? Had I had any accidents in the day or had any times when it felt like I had to urgently rush off to the toilet? Was I waking up a lot at night? How much was I drinking before bed? Was I having trouble falling asleep? Had I been happy at school?

I answered all the questions as truthfully as I could, even the ones that didn’t seem to make all that much sense. It wouldn’t do to get caught in any unnecessary lies, but so far, the questions, if a little awkward, had been pretty straightforward to answer. Still, I found that I wasn’t quite able to meet Dr. Mathorn’s eyes as I answered all of her questions.

The gentle interrogation continued for a few more minutes before arriving at a surprising – an even more awkward – question than the ones that had pertained directly to the bedwetting and my peeing habits.

“From my notes from your last visit, you hadn’t gotten your first period yet. Has that changed?”

“Um.”

It wasn’t as though I didn’t know what Dr. Mathorn meant. My health class the year before had provided way more information than I would have wanted to know, and I figured that a little more than half of the girls on my soccer team had to deal with that affliction that came from growing older.

“No,” I said at last, followed by the only question that came to mind. “But why would that matter?”

“That’s not something we’ll know until we’ve got all your tests taken care of. There are a lot of things that could cause bedwetting to start, and puberty – hormones and the way your body is changing – could be one possible factor.”

Tests. I took a deep breath. What tests?

<><><> 

If I had known that faking bedwetting would have resulted in needing to have my blood drawn, I might not have been brave enough to go through with it.

The testing area was on the main floor of the hospital. I had trailed behind Mom on the way to it like a prisoner heading to the gallows. The worst part of it was that Dr. Mathorn seemed to have implied that there was going to be more than one blood test that would be required.

At least the chair to sit in during the blood draw was comfortable. It was soft and allowed me to lean back quite a ways as I set my feet on a footrest.

The nurse who would be drawing my blood rested her hand on my arm. “I’m going to need you to relax. Why don’t you look off at the picture hanging in the hallway? I’ll count down when I’m ready.”

I tried to follow her advice, focusing my gaze on a painting of a mountain landscape in the distance.

“Three.”

“Two.”

And then the needle was in. I gasped audibly as the nurse poked me. She hadn’t even waited until saying “one.” That was not fair.

“You poked me early,” I protested a few seconds later after the blood draw was finished.

“That’s because you were less tense then. I don’t think you’d want me to have to try again if I missed your vein the first time.”

As the nurse placed a pink Band-Aid on my arm, I admitted to myself that she had a valid point.

<><><> 

Next, it was time to pee in a cup, and I understood why I had been required to have a full glass to drink along with breakfast. That test was easy enough to pass, though it again made me worry about what would happen when my blood and urine tests came back and showed that there wasn’t anything noticeably wrong with me. What exactly were they hoping to learn from those tests?

I managed to fill up the plastic cup nearly all the way with any difficulty. I’d gotten better at making my body need to go whenever I wanted to over the past week or so. I didn’t even need to hand the cup back to the nurse. There was a discreet hole in the bathroom wall to slide the cup of pee into afterward.

But that wasn’t the last test.

I followed Mom down a couple more hallways to the final exam room, where they did an ultrasound of my bladder. I saw some black-and-white images flash on the computer screen during the process, but I had no clue what they meant, and the technician doing the ultrasound said we’d have to wait to talk with my doctor afterward.

<><><> 

Dr. Mathorn was waiting for us in the exam room when all the tests were finished.

“We can rule one thing out right away,” she said as I once again took a seat on the exam table.

I tried to decide whether that would be good news for me or not.

“Some of the results we can get back right away,” Dr. Mathorn said. “The lab technicians ran a test of your urine, and it came back negative for a UTI, which isn’t too surprising since you weren’t showing any other symptoms for that. There’s a more thorough test they’ll do later that takes a few days to get results back, but I’m not expecting it to say anything different.”

I tried to look relieved, as if I wasn’t completely aware of what the test result was going to show.

“So, what do you think the issue might be, then?” Mom asked.

Dr. Mathorn swiveled in her chair to face Mom. “There are a number of things we might look for in a situation like this, where bedwetting is starting for a teenager who hasn’t had any previous issues. We’re going to test for diabetes as well as any other medical conditions or illnesses that could be causing complications. There is your family’s medical history to consider since there is a genetic component to bedwetting. And given Maddy’s age, it could very well be an issue with hormones that may resolve itself on its own in a matter of weeks or months.”

Dr. Mathorn turned to face me. I again couldn’t quite manage to look her in the eye. “I know it is frustrating, Maddy, but I don’t think we should worry about it much until we’ve got the test results back and have a better sense of what the next steps should be.”

“But what should we do in the meantime? Are there other medications we could try?” Mom asked.

That caused me to groan loudly. I was annoyed at how Mom kept avoiding the obvious solution, but I hadn’t intended to noticeably complain about it.

“You didn’t like the pills you used the past few days?” Dr. Mathorn asked.

“No, they gave me headaches, and they didn’t even work at all.”

“That’s OK,” Dr. Mathorn said. “We won’t make you take those pills again. And for now, I think it would be best to wait until we get the test results back – it shouldn’t take more than a week – until we think about trying other medications.”

That was it. We were back to square one. The question was now on the tip of my tongue. All I had to do was ask. Surely, pull-ups would be an acceptable choice for now if there weren’t any other options to choose from.

It was so obvious that pull-ups were the right decision to handle my bedwetting at this point. Why was it so difficult for either of the adults to bring it up?

I swung my legs back and forth. The exam table was tall enough that my feet didn’t come close to touching the floor. I wanted to ask the question. What was stopping me from doing it? I just couldn’t get the word “pull-ups” past my lips, so I asked something else instead.

“But what about the sleepover?”

Dr. Mathorn looked as though she was about to say something, but she paused as Mom answered my question first.

“I think we’re just going to need to skip sleepovers for a little while,” Mom said. “I’m sure it won’t be long before you get better.”

“There is something that could help with that,” Dr. Mathorn said tentatively, as if not wanting to upset me. “It’s not something you have to try, but there are other kids, some of them your age, in fact, who find that it helps to wear some protection to bed.”

---

Links to all my stories can be found at https://abdlwriter.wordpress.com/