Tell me about fish pregnancy.
Sorry it took me so long to answer this ask! I saw it right before I had to go to work, but I've been thinking of the right way to answer it for my whole shift.
This is going to be a long one, so, I've put it under read more.
The alien fish pregnancy lasts about 15 months. I know in a previous post, the short drabble I made from Ford's perspective, I said that it only lasted a year, but that was on purpose! That was Ford's misconception of it because that's only how long he was actually aware of it. Nimirylov never clarified that that wasn't right.
So, the first nine months progress pretty much the same as a human pregnancy would, but the growth is slightly slower, so it's not as obvious as quickly. Then, the next three months after that is when the ferality starts to set in, and the grip on reality starts to loosen. The pregnant person is mostly driven by their own instincts at this point. Finally, the last three months are completely feral and detached from reality. The fetus can now send their own instincts to the parent, which is a lot stronger than their own, but also a lot more chaotic. Since it is a literal fetus. Most of the time, pregnant people in their three months are kept on a semi house arrest. Not that they tend to notice.
Specifically when it comes to Ford carrying Penni, though. He was slightly delayed in becoming feral because, firstly, he didn't know it was coming and therefore tried to fight it off and, secondly, human minds don't have as strong instincts as the fish alien people. So, when Ford started becoming feral, he was extremely embarrassed over it whilst Nimirylov and Nimirylov's family were all relieved, because finally he's acting how he should be.
Basically, Ford would do something like steal something of Nimirylov's to have it with him or headbutt people (because that is one image I've been unable to get out of my head. Ford, just headbutting people) without thinking, then start apologising profusely, and everyone around him is like, "No, we're actually glad you're doing this because it shows everything is progressing normally!"
Additionally, I considered going down an angsty route and have Ford constantly be craving human foods that he's unable to get in that dimension. However, I decided that since there's already a lot of body horror potential with the whole fetus mind control thing, I'd go down the crack route for cravings. So Ford is constantly craving something inedible. It's the first feral thing that happened to him because it was there not long after he discovered he was pregnant. Nimirylov could turn away for like five seconds, only to turn back and see Ford trying to eat a rock. Ford also just named random elements of the periodic table that he had a craving to eat.
Finally, the birth was obviously a c-section, as all of the alien fish births are. None of them have wombs since gender and sex are very loose in that dimension. So, how do babies grow? In a sort of egg thing. That's why the pregnancies take so long. The babies only come out slightly more developed than human babies (they can like, see colour from the moment they were born, that sort of only slight development). However, the body has to build this very thin egg covering for the child to grow inside of safely. So, when the babies are born, they have to be pulled out in the egg thing, then it's peeled off of them.
There's definitely more that I could say here, but I can't think of it off the top of my head, and the additional details I can think of, I can't actually conceptualise into words. Most of this shouldn't make sense scientifically because I didn't do any scientific research, I just made it up. However, biology is my favourite science by far, so there might be some sense to it.