Letting her in

This past week was rough.
I pushed myself hard to get everything into the Verena update that I felt necessary for her Quest to feel complete. Given that this was just a one month update I had to make some cuts. For example I had already prepared a new dress for Verena that she would then wear... But the thought of replacing all her dialogue with new images... + make actual content for the new dress... It would have been too much. Even the scene at the workshop wasn't planned at first. I made the decision to add it while writing the story and felt that it was needed to better explain Verena's perspective.
Overall I ran a bit out of time at the end. That's also the reason why some of her dialogue in Arenfield isn't replaced yet *cough* Claire... I also barely managed to give her some corruption based dialogue.. This is something I will add in the future.

Yesterday I then started a turbo work on Penny's bonus scene because I wanted to get at least a part of it done before midnight. But even though I managed to make 3 animations + implementation and started writing the dialogue it just wasn't possible and I needed sleep.
So I will finish the first part today and work on a few more images for it. The second part that includes the scene with Lucius will come next week.

Looking forward into the coming month there is a big decision to make. I know not all of you are a fan of pregnancy content. But others have been asking me to add this since the very beginning.
By adding this for Kate I want to lay a foundation that will make it easier and quicker to add something similar for other women in the future. I also plan to rework some of Kate's older animations for the coming 0.4.3.5 update so that even those who aren't a fan of pregnancy content will get something new. Also don't worry if you don't want pregnancy content you will be able to avoid it.

But getting back to pregnancy: I have to decide how exactly I want to implement this. And I'm not talking about animations (I'll do that of course) It's about what happens after the pregnancy is over.
I've been thinking about it for a while now and I've come up with 2 options.

First off: This is an adult game and children do not really fit into this kind of scenario. It's also the reason why there currently aren't any children in the game at it's current state. This is also why I won't be doing any scenes be it cuddeling or so for child-like characters. So this means a child  character will get at maximum a few dialogue images and of course no sexual content.

That said back to the topic.
My 2 ideas for the implementation:

1. After pregnancy the woman nurses the child for a while, after that it will disappear from the game being send off to a safer location (I'm adding a child counter to the relations screen) - This way we get the option to repeat the pregnancy events as much as you like while the focus stays on the woman and not building a family with her.

2. After pregnancy children stay. it will be limited how many children a woman can care for (let's say 2, it would get out of hand quickly in the future otherwise). I could even add kind of a progression for the child showing how it gets older and eventually leaves on a journey opening up a new slot for another child. I would combine this system with option 1, in this case it would mean that you could get for example Kate pregnant a 3rd time, but if you still have 2 children present the 3rd would be given away like in option 1.

I'd like to hear your oppinion on this topic! You have an other idea about how to implement pregnancy? Let me know! You can write me here in a comment, on discord or via pm. I will make my decision next week when Penny's scene is finally completed.

Thank you all for joining in this month!
And I wish all of you a relaxing weekend!

Update:
After reading all your comments, all the pm's and thinking about this topic myself yesterday and early this morning I've come to a conclusion.
First of thanks for all your feedback! It's really cool for me to see so many of you invested in the topic! It would take too much time to answer you all individually so I'm stating my decision here.
My decision: I'm going to do option 2. But as some of you suggested I'm not going to let the child grow and then leave. Children won't have an age. They will stay toddlers and the amount will be limited to 2 per woman as of now. Any further child (I don't want to make pregnancy scenes unavailable after 2 times) will be given to father Francis so that he shall find a new home for them. There will be a child counter for each woman that shows how many they have given birth to. I will leave it open for now if I add any content for children in the future like teaching them to hunt/cut wood/cook or something like that. At this point they of course need a personality and some individuality. But this is a complex topic and I will think about it when it really becomes a thing.

Pregnancy will be fully optional, I'm not going to tie any character quest to it and you can prevent it by dialogue choices. At the same time I see it as an "endgame" content for each woman. So after the story of the woman in question is finished I might add more to it if enough interest is there.
The reason why I've chosen this option 2 over option 1 is that it feels more fitting to me. Like some pointed out the MC often talks about taking responsibility. That wouldn't be possible if the child in question wouldn't really exist. I think this way the amount of work will be manageable. The focus will still be on the current characters and their storyline.

Some of you have pointed that it would be to early to add a feature like this. But at the same time I feel like I have to start somewhere. It has been on my mind since I started working on this game as I always wanted to add it at some point. You voted for it and now is that time to do it. That doesn't mean that the other storylines will suffer because of it. The developement of a fitting system takes time which is correct. But after that system is there (hopefully by the end of the month) I can replicate it in the future and then all I need to do is add animations + sprites + dialogue. I can then when I do such updates (for example for Emily) also focus on other topics that aren't only bound to pregnancy but also combine it with things like marriage or similar things.