Babies Ever After

"We're supposed to forget the struggles we've just witnessed and join in the euphoria. After all, a birth represents a joyful new beginning and, conveniently, a happy ending."

- Bright Lights Film Journal



Sometimes you have a Happily Ever After situation, but it just isn't heartwarming enough. Maybe the marriage happened earlier in the season; perhaps the couple was already betrothed but weren't able to consummate the union. Perhaps you need some Denouement to confirm that, yes, really, it really was happy. Maybe the Bittersweet Ending is short on "sweet". Or, maybe, you just want to make things as sweet as possible. The answer? Skip ahead a bit to show the Happily Married couple...and their adorable new baby. Awwwww!

Or, if we cut to the future, show them at home with their growing children. Generally a whole brood, as a mundane equivalent to Fertile Feet, or demonstrating that Mordor has No Ontological Inertia. (See also Hope Sprouts Eternal.) If the ending is not Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends, unmatched friends often appear in the role of Honorary Uncle; conversely, Weddings for Everyone may result in loads of underfoot children. And expect the newborns to be named after dead friends or teammates who had made Heroic Sacrifices during the course of the story, clearing the path for the heroes' victory at the cost of their own lives.

It seems that the Law of Inverse Fertility gets inverted once you get past the climax. Even if one or both were confirmed as sterile -- such is The Power of Love. The likelihood of this increases exponentially every time one or both people say they don't want to have a kid, or express reluctance to. (Makes many parents very happy.)

The Bittersweet Ending often shows a Dead Guy, Junior in this situation. Her Heart Will Go On may entail the discovery that she is pregnant after the father is dead: he's gone, but he's left her Someone to Remember Him By.

If the couple had a child early in the story, perhaps resulting in a Shotgun Wedding, this may result in a younger brother or sister.

Might involve a Screaming Birth, but this is, of course, optional; the baby itself is what makes this trope run, so the cuter the better.

Sequels to works with these sort of endings often make the kids into major characters.

The rationale for this trope is related to Babies Make Everything Better. Compare Birth-Death Juxtaposition. Not to be confused with Wave of Babies.

Naturally, this is an , so spoilers ahoy!

Anime & Manga

 * In the Itazura na Kiss anime,  all end up with children.
 * Maison Ikkoku, on the last page of the last chapter.
 * The Inuyasha manga ends this way.
 * Planetes ends with some baby clothes being hung on a clothesline....
 * The Electric Tale of Pikachu, a manga adaption of Ash's Kanto journey,.
 * The Rurouni Kenshin manga ends with.
 * At the end of Dragonball Z there is Gohan and Videl with their daughter Pan, and Bulma and Vegeta with their second child, Bra.
 * And in one Non-Serial Movie, it shows that Goku and Vegita's lines are still around (and completely identical to their ancestors some seven generations later.
 * Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. The title character (Nadia, married to Jean), the narrator ( of the Terrible Trio, married to a much younger lady ), and the most "complex" character . Hanson, the other half of the team, has kids but we don't see them (or his wife for that matter). Grandis (the boss of the trio), notably is still single, and loving it.
 * The last chapter of Digimon Adventure 02. It shows a few couples ( and ) that got together and ones that didn't, much to the disappointment of some fans.
 * Fushigi Yuugi. Awwwww,
 * Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, manga. To make it even happier ever after, the babies in question are
 * The Epilogue of Code Geass R2 shows  as Prime Minister of Japan, with his wife   (who is visibly pregnant) watching him on TV...from Tamaki's bar.
 * The end of Fruits Basket has granddaughter looking for them in all their senior lovey-dovey glory.
 * Sailor Moon. Well, Chibi-Usa is the Kid From the Future; and in the last pages of the manga, which show Usagi and Mamoru's wedding, Usagi is implied to be pregnant with Chibi-Usa.
 * School Rumble Z ends this way.
 * Rave Master has an interesting twist on this. A recurring omake deals with the wacky misadventures of a boy named Levin. About halfway through the main series, it is revealed that the omake took place in the future of the main story and that Levin is the future son of Haru and Elie.
 * At the end of Suzuka, the main couple has a baby. Although it raise a big fuss in their family; at least, it's settled down at the last chapter.
 * Daa Daa Daa (a.k.a. UFO Baby) ends with an episode showing Miyu and Kanata, the protagonists, Happily Married and with a cute little baby of their own
 * In Kurogane Communication, Haruka and Kitano return to earth with their daughter -- who looks a lot like Haruka herself.
 * Implied in the manga epilogue of Chrono Crusade. Azmaria has a grandchild shown in the Distant Finale, and considering his resemblance to Joshua and the fact that they're shown with their hands clasped with a ring on Az's finger, they likely married and had at least one child together.
 * The kitty variation shows up in Princess Tutu. The tomcat teacher who is so desperate to marry is shown as a normal cat now, walking with a white cat and a line of kittens following them.
 * Mnemosyne ends with Rin's pregnancy.
 * Hyper Police has an example that can only be called extravagant. In the Distant Finale set 3 years after the last manga chapter, Tomy and Po have gotten married and had nineteen kids. Tomy is a dog-boy, so they had litters. (Yes, I know. Shut up.)
 * In Romeo X Juliet,
 * In the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou TV series, towards the end Inori's sister Seri is all but outright stated to be pregnant with Iktidaru's child; the series' epilogue (before it goes for the Multiple Endings) shows Sefuru holding their baby.
 * Slightly subverted in Ayashi no Ceres, where Aya learns about being pregnant in volume 12 and is in her last month of pregnancy at the end of the series.
 * A side-story in another one of Yuu Watase 's works showed on the last page, that Aya gave birth
 * In the anime series, though, this is actually...
 * Its not a 100% confirmation but in the final DVD volume of Eureka Seven cover art, one can't help but wonder whose offspring/descendants do those two teenagers belong to. Also lets not forget about the baby of Talho and Holland (which ironically was not shown in the one-year time skip). Word of God has gone on record that Eureka and Renton did indeed have a kid who will appear in the sequel Eureka Seven AO.
 * In the epilogue of Shaman King manga, Yoh and Anna have a son named Hana. Same goes for Tao Ren, who had a son named Tao Men. The mother was implied to be . Hana was conceived because during the series, it was a real possibility that Yoh could die, so the couple decided to have Their First Time.
 * Morinas and Wapourif have a big family in the Distant Finale of Simoun. Wauf and his Ascended Extra wife have a new baby, too. And Paraietta manages a whole orphanage full of kids, with Rodoreamon's financial backing.
 * The ending of Fullmetal Alchemist.
 * The last three pages of Boys Empire are a cavalcade of babies,
 * In Umisho manga ending, Amuro and Kaname have a son.
 * Outlanders ends with Tetsuya and Kahm having quintuplets.
 * In Amagami SS, the epilogue to Her Good End in the Visual Novel is what the epilogue was adapted from.
 * In Tenchi Muyo, because it's All There in the Manual, Tenchi will wind up having multiple children by multiple girls of his harem.
 * In the ending of the manga Aragami Hime, Shirou and Kazuki have a son and a daughter.
 * In the manga ending of Chibi Vampire, have a daughter named Kanon, who is actually  Which makes it a tad awkward, because she ends up loving her father a little bit TOO much. ...And her mother too, since Kanon tries to glomp and kiss her as well.
 * In Berserk, Griffith has a vision of he Casca sharing a quiet life as a married couple with a child, since, to make a complicated Love Triangle simple, he might really have had unrequited feelings for her, even though he never expressed them nor showed interest when she was fawning over him during her hero worshipping days. However, this happy fantasy was horribly twisted and deconstructed since it was induced by his Despair Event Horizon of seeing Casca in love with his former best friend Guts, along with the fact that he was tortured and mutilated for a year and no one wanted him as a leader anymore. When the Eclipse happens, this was twisted even further when it was later revealed that
 * RahXephon: in the new reality resulting from the world's retuning, Ayato and Haruka are Happily Married, with  reincarnated as their baby daughter.
 * Done to a certain degree in Naruto.
 * At the end of Spice and Wolf light novels,
 * Played for drama in Mawaru Penguindrum. believes that carrying and giving birth to 's child will be the corollary to her dreams  ; however, the lengths she will reach to be impregnated by him are NOT portrayed as okay, but as a sign of how unstable and desperate the girl is.
 * In the final chapter of Hana to Akuma, Vivi and Hana have a son and a daughter.
 * Toyed with in Michiko to Hatchin. The last few minutes show living modestly but well with her baby daughter. However, the baby's father left her after only three months, so it's not exactly a perfectly happy outcome.
 * Both Narutaki twins in the final manga chapter of Mahou Sensei Negima gave birth to their respective daughters whom are a splitting image of their younger selves.
 * Among the ending scenes in Mirai Nikki is one with

Comic Books

 * In a Marvel Universe What If?, Sue Storm married Namor and half-way through the story was pregnant. At the end, Reed Richards married another woman. The Denouement shows Sue and Namor cooing over their son while Reed's bride is heavily pregnant, and then scenes of the two children playing together.
 * And in another one (the one with the female Latverian spy) both couples' offspring are shown as teenagers.
 * Peter Parker and Mary Jane have acheived this in a few continuties, the highest-profile of them being the Spider-Girl comic, set in the MC 2 Universe. Here Peter and MJ don't just continue to raise their now teenage daughter (named after Peter's Aunt), they also have an infant baby boy named after both Peter's Uncle and Father.
 * DCU's Kingdom Come.
 * Practically every Elf Quest story arc ends with one elf pregnant: Rainsong starts out pregnant in the very first issue, Leetah is pregnant at the end of the first arc, Dewshine and Kahvi at the end of the first Palace war, Nightfall after the elves move to the new continent, Tyleet (Nightfall's daughter) at the end of the arc before the second Palace war, Krim at the end of the second Palace war, Bethia after the little Palace war, Dodia after the Forevergreen quest, Moonshade after The Searcher And The Sword, and Brill after Discovery.
 * The final issue of Love and Capes (or, at the time of writing, what is supposed to be the final issue) ends with a splash page in which Mark and Abby shout together that they're going to have a baby. It's also a Birth-Death Juxtaposition, since the main theme of the issue deals with the death of a member of the Liberty League.
 * In The Order of the Stick's Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales, Elan tells a Fractured Fairy Tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. The giant has a housekeeper who's trying to rob him. Haley demands she have a role in the Happy Ending; Elan says she marries Jack, and so she's rich too and quits the Thieves' Guild to have children instead. (Haley thinks that ending will do.)
 * Sonic the Hedgehog acheived this with his SATAM/Archie Comics love interest Sally Acorn in the "Mobius 25 Years Later" storyline, with the two ruling over Mobius as King and Queen with thier children Manic and Sonia. Despite the evil Shadow corrupting the original timeline in the story, Sonic and Sally are able to bounce back and acheive their happy ending all over again in time for the sequel...

Comic Strips

 * The final strip of Cathy ended with Cathy telling her mother she was pregnant with a girl. Her mother fell to her knees in jubilation, while Irving offered to show his father-in-law the ultrasound on his iPhone.

Fan Works

 * Just about every romance fanfic. Bonus points if every main character is a Sue. ...ThirtySuePileup.
 * Shows up a lot in fan art, especially for series where the Official Couple is subject to a Bittersweet Ending or Downer Ending.
 * Subverted in Fullmetal Alchemist: Forever. Granted this fanfiction is a sequel to canon and nearly everyone couple has children at some point, but this isn't a WAFF at all: . Every heartwarming moment that comes attached to the kids is balanced by something darker.
 * DC Nation has several child characters -- both canon (Ceridian, Lian Harper, Offspring) and OC (Sandra Grayson, Luumand'r, Allanah Dibny). Surprisingly for stories set in the DCU, the characters in Nation age in real-time. Some of the kids born "on panel" are now old enough to have their own journals and players. There's a Spin-Off game that depicts the kids (among other characters) in their teens and twenties, becoming yet another generation of costumed fighters.
 * Kyon: Big Damn Hero has this for the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni cast.
 * The freeware Mario game Mario Forever (Not to be confused with the Platform Hell hack known as Super Mario Forever) featured, as part of the ending, Mario and Peach disappearing into a castle, and then, accompanied by the text "Nine Months Later", several baby versions of Mario ran out of the front door.
 * A Growing Affection has a Distant Finale showing two-thirds of the couples have had kids and/or are currently expecting.
 * Averted in The Adventures of Blinky Bill fanfic Intimate Healing. Shifty Dingo and Nutsy grow up and get married but can't have babies, one being a dingo the the other a koala, so they just adopt a dingo girl instead.
 * Subverted, Deconstructed, and otherwise completely demolished into a Squickfest Downer/BitterSweetEnding requiring a month's worth of Brain Bleach - for Ranma in particular - in the Ranma Half Fanfic Cheaper by the Dozen.

Films -- Animation
"Robin: We'll have six children.
 * Kiki's Delivery Service
 * Osono, the baker's wife, is pregnant for most of the movie, and the ending shows the baby finally born.
 * An amusing and cute variation also shows up in the ending credits with a shot of Jiji and "Miss Snooty Cat" surrounded by kittens.
 * Pixar's Up ends with many still photos, including one of Dug and another female dog (that looks a lot like him) having many puppies. Which doesn't make up for how brutally subverted this was in Carl and Ellie's own marriage.
 * Animated Disney movie examples:
 * The ending of The Lion King, with Simba and Nala's cute little cub, who becomes the main character in the sequel. That cub becomes a lot of things.
 * The end of Disney's Bambi has Faline giving birth to twin fawns with Bambi looking on.
 * Lady and the Tramp.
 * The sequel to The Little Mermaid shows this is the case for Ariel and Eric.
 * Dinosaur
 * Also, Disney's Treasure Planet.
 * Discussed in Robin Hood where Robin proposes to Marian.

Marian: "Six? Oh, a dozen at least."


 * And after they get married, Skippy tags along, saying "Robin Hood's going to have kids. Somebody has to keep their eye on things."
 * Madame Adelaide Bonfamille comments to Georges during the final scenes of The Aristocats that they'll have to provide for Duchess and O'Malley's "future little ones".
 * Shrek
 * We're shown Donkey is having a healthy and stable relationship with his... dragon... girlfriend, by the appearance of their many donkey-dragon hybrid kids. Aww.
 * The ending of Shrek the Third.
 * Although the scene goes by quickly, if you look carefully during the ending for Rock-a-Doodle you can see that Chanticleer and Goldie had chicks that look like them.
 * While not explicitly stated, it's an easy assumption to make in the ending of The Pebble and the Penguin. Hubie and Marina are shown standing in a group of eight baby penguins. It's unclear whether it's meant to be inferred that all of the offspring are theirs; real Adélie penguins bear only one egg at a time.
 * In Rio, Blu and Jewel are seen with three chicks during the end credits. After all, that was the point of them getting together.
 * In the final scene of Happy Feet, a baby penguin is seen dancing next to Mumble and Gloria (and is later revealed to be their son Erik in Happy Feet Two).
 * Chicken Run ends with a scene of the chickens in their new home, accompanied by dozens of chicks.

Films -- Live-Action

 * Four Weddings and a Funeral ends with a MOS scene of the main couple and their baby-pram.
 * George of the Jungle ends with first a scene of George and Ursula's baby showing he's inherited his dad's clumsiness by walking into a low hanging bar, and then proceeds to parody The Lion King.
 * The end of The Mask of Zorro has Antonio Banderas' character telling his new child a story about how he fought as Zorro. This is also an echo of the opening, where the first Zorro tells his daughter a similar story, down the ending: both men see their wives and observe that they never did anything that stupid again.
 * Hellboy II ends with the title character and Liz looking forward to becoming parents. We never actually see the babies, though. Guillermo del Toro must have felt like an unambiguously heartwarming ending after that other thing he'd just done. Señor Del Toro has always said that he has three Hellboy movies in mind, so we may see them eventually, as soon as he's done with that other thing....
 * Used in the film and musical Funny Girl, where, in the number "Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady," Fanny reflects on her married life and on the "beautiful reflection of her love's affection," which is a Shout-Out to an earlier song.
 * Happens at the end of The Happening, as it happens.
 * Twins: Julius (Schwarzenegger) and Vincent (DeVito) got married to their twin love interests and each had twins.
 * At the end of Cold Mountain, we see Ada with a little girl who turns out to be Inman's daughter. Ruby and Georgia also had a baby.
 * Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End So it's a partial subversion.
 * King Ralph ends with a scene showing the abdicated Ralph with his love interest Miranda and their son.
 * A world where no-one has been born for years, and the MacGuffin Girl is pregnant: this is the whole point of Children of Men. That ending scene where, is one of the most Crowning Moments Of Heartwarming in cinematic history.
 * Spartacus ends with his crucifixion, but his Love Interest stops her flight along the road to show him his newborn son and assure him that they will escape to freedom.
 * The end of the horror movie Planet Terror shows the female lead with a baby after the main lead has died.
 * Played with in Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr The movie depicts a film projectionist who falls asleep on the job, and dreams of being in the movie he's watching. When he wakes up, his love interest arrives, and he takes the movie within the movie's lead on how to act with her. When the movie within a movie's lead kisses his love interest, Keaton's character kisses his. But then Keaton looks at the movie to see "several years later..."
 * Parenthood ends with every woman of childbearing age either giving birth, holding a new baby, or pregnant.
 * At the end of Terminator, Sarah Connor is pregnant with her son; preventing or ensuring this was the whole point of the plot.
 * At the end of Raising Arizona Hi has a vision of himself and his (apparently barren) wife Ed as grandparents to a large family.
 * Notting Hill ends with Hugh Grant's and Julia Roberts' characters sitting in a park, Julia very clearly pregnant.
 * At the end of Eat Drink Man Woman, Jin-Rong is shown pregnant with Chu's future daughter.
 * Jerri and Tom in The Girl Can't Help It have five kids.
 * A rather dark, twisted version occurs in Woody Allen's 2005 film Match Point, when married couple Chloe and Chris, who had spent most of the movie trying unsuccessfully for a baby, are finally shown bringing their new-born son home. Only Chloe is unaware that
 * At the end of Prudence and the Pill,
 * At the end of That Touch of Mink, with Cary Grant and Doris Day, with the added little twist that a psychologist thinks the baby is the product of two men who married.
 * Also at the end of Lover Come Back, with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. That Doris got around.
 * Doc and Clara introduce their two boys, Jules and Verne, at the end of Back to The Future Part III.
 * Look Who's Talking ends with the complaints of the infant protagonist's newborn baby sister.
 * Revenge of the Sith ends with the births of Luke and Leia, and features a Continuity Nod to a famous scene from A New Hope.
 * One Hundred and Twenty Seven Hours, of all things:
 * Turner And Hooch. This does not compensate for the Downer Ending which even Tom Hanks has admitted was a mistake.
 * French Kiss ends with Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan romping in the vineyard with their son.
 * Awesomely Subverted in The Big Lebowski -- the Stranger tells us there's a "Little Lebowski" on the way, Maude having successfully gotten herself impregnated by the Dude. But it has already been explained to us that Maude picked the Dude to essentially do no more than donate sperm for her child precisely because the Dude would want nothing to do with raising a kid.
 * In the Where Are They Now? Epilogue of Little Nicky, Nicky (Adam Sandler), the son of Satan, is revealed to be raising a bouncing baby hellspawn with his love interest.
 * The epilogue of Big Daddy, another Sandler film, is set over a year later at Sonny's birthday party. Julian is accompanied by his father and stepmother, and Sonny and Layla are married with a new baby.
 * The Animal ends like this.
 * In Idiocracy Joe has the world's three smartest children, and Frito fathers 32 of the world's dumbest.
 * Apparently, the fact that Sandra Bullock's character was pregnant at the end of Premonition was supposed to make us feel better about the grimness of the rest of the film.
 * In the last lines of the film Hannah and Her Sisters, Holly tells Mickey that she's pregnant. Which doubles as an example of the Law of Inverse Fertility because when Mickey was married to Hannah he was told he was infertile.
 * In Immortals' ending, true to the Greek mythology, Phaedra gave birth to Theseus's son Acamas.
 * In the end credits for the Shelley Long Rom Com Hello Again, we see the heroine with her doctor husband, bouncing their baby twins on her knee.
 * Immortal by Enki Bilal ends with Jill having.

Literature
"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. "
 * Romance novels, particularly Harlequin Romances, are infamous for this. Go to the Romances section and pick out any book at random. Chances are, there's a baby epilogue.
 * The book, Jap Herron ends with Jap's wife Isabel Granger giving birth to a baby boy she names Jasper William.
 * Pick an Anne McCaffrey novel. Any one at all.
 * The Crystal Singer books featured a character that was sterile as a result of the symbiont inhabiting the planet where she cuts crystal.
 * Subverted in Hawksong. The author, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, originally intended to end with Danica singing to her baby, but then she (the author) realized that she could not just end it that way because there were still too many consequences and ramifications from actions taken in the first book that needed closure. The next book in the series deals with the consequences of the pregnancy. The book went from a single novel, to a trilogy, to a five-part series called the Kiesha'ra.
 * In Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, a town is afraid to have children because of the prophecy that their prosperity depended on Haggard, and one of their children would bring him down. At the end, when it has been fulfilled, Prince Lir urges this trope on them; it might help.
 * There's plenty that's dark about the final act of Jane Eyre, but in the last two pages or so nearly all of that is swept aside in favor of WAFF. Not only is Jane and Rochester's newborn son one of the last images we get, we also get
 * By convention Victorian novels had a saccharine last chapter in which this was a frequent occurrence. Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White and The Moonstone end this way, though in the latter it's followed by an epilogue with the proper ending.
 * In Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, David is united with at the end of the book. Cue time lapse and a heartwarming scene of them living with their young children.
 * In Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton's death will be followed Charles and Lucy Darnay having another child, who will be named for him.

"''Such a thing was not to be.
 * Charles Dickens's Hard Times ends with asking weather each character imagines various events will happen to them in their future, then after each paragraph says "such things were to be". Then a fairly typical Babies Ever After situation is described in Louisa's imagination.

But, happy Sissy's happy children loving her; all children loving her...''"


 * Meyer's Twilight ends on this. Notable for being incredibly repulsive instead of heartwarming.
 * Philip Pullman's Shadow in the North has this ending, with the child going on to be extremely important to the plot in the following book (Tiger in the Well).
 * The Harry Potter epilogue.
 * At the end of Dracula, Mina and Jonathan Harker talk of their son Quincy.
 * In White's Charlotte's Web this is actually part of a Bittersweet Ending.
 * Anansi Boys plays this straight with Charlie and Daisy's son, but comedically subverts it with Spider and Rosie; Rosie's mother is given to making pointed remarks about her lack of grandchildren and casting aspersions on Spider's virility. It's implied the reason he hasn't had any is because she's so damned insistent, although as mentioned in American Gods, this may just be because it's very difficult for a god and a human to have a child.
 * Will and Eleanor have three daughters in the epilogue to The Road to Wellville.
 * In Philip Reeve's Predator's Gold, Hester is pregnant at the end.
 * Not exactly an ending trope, but in the Star Wars Expanded Universe just about anyone who has gotten married, be they a main from the movies, an Ascended Extra, or an original, has had children at some point. Almost always one boy, or a set of male-female twins. The exception to that would be Wedge and Iella, who had two nontwin daughters. The only Happily Married couple who didn't have kids would be Winter and Tycho--Winter seems to have considered working as the Solo kids' nanny enough of an experience.
 * Little Women: Although Meg had her twins earlier in the book, the Where Are They Now? Epilogue chapter shows Jo now with two young sons (and a school full of surrogate sons) and Amy with a baby daughter. Interestingly, only Meg has any more children in the sequels set after this chapter.
 * Very common theme in The Ender Wiggin Saga, with the author explicitly and shamelessly inserting long speeches about how saving humanity is nothing compared to extending your line. Even people completely uninterested in sex (i.e. a man with no interest whatsoever) will settle down and get married, satisfied with adopted children but still hoping for a turkey baster miracle. This is because Mormonism places emphasis on having children.
 * In the Shadow series, Anton the geneticist settles down, marries, and has a child in addition to his new step-children. He's also unashamedly gay, but can overcome his sexual urges in order to fulfill his social need for progeny. So, he's fine with being gay, and all, but...
 * And in Ender in Exile Graff goes on a long ramble in a letter to Ender telling him to have children, that children are amazing, breed, breed, breed.
 * Occurs in The Redemption of Althalus to the titular character and Dweia.
 * Joe Haldeman's The Forever War ends with the birth announcement of Mandella and Marygay's son from the local paper.
 * In Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest Denouement, Jennifer is looking forward to this.
 * If any couple in the Belgariad or Mallorean is married at the end, they'll have children. Relg and Taiba are particularly noteworthy - they marry at the end of the Belgariad and have a small army of offspring by the end of the Mallorean (though it's hinted they're getting divine aid - Taiba was the last Marag, thus her children would be Marags, and Mara wants his people back). Belgarion and Ce'Nedra are noteworthy in another way: at one point in the Mallorean, it is heavily implied that they will be getting children for a long, long time.
 * Lois McMaster Bujold is an explicit subscriber to this trope; she always intended for Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith to have a kid, after she came up with them. Of course, given her views on proper Character Development, this is very much not Happily Ever After...
 * A later book in the series to date ends with Miles attending the birth of his son and daughter; after that, Cryoburn reveals that Miles and Ekaterin have added two more daughters to the count while all of the Koudelka sisters except Kareen have had at least one child with their respective partners. And most importantly (as far as Miles, Mark and Ivan are concerned) is that Gregor and Laisla have gotten around to securing the line of succession for the throne.
 * The ending of the Sharing Knife series pretty much exemplifies this trope, especially the last line of Horizon.
 * In JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Sam and Rosie end up having thirteen children, which is a large family even for hobbits. Word of God explicitly states that Sam embodies the true happy end and reason for their troubles: being able to live a simple honest life with a good family and good work.
 * Lolita.  Though that makes it a.
 * Codex Alera ends with  expecting a child in addition to the several they've already adopted (Including Rook's daughter Masha), not to mention 's newborn son Desiderus. Both sets of children are unexpected..
 * Occurs multiple times in Juliet Marillier's The Sevenwaters Trilogy: at the end of Daughter of the Forest, Sorcha is pregnant, and Child of the Prophecy includes an epilogue in which the hero and heroine have two children. One is even named after her dead mother.
 * Deltora Quest's third series ended with the Official Couple, Lief and Jasmine, married and having children named after their dead parents.
 * Subverted in Stardust, as Tristran and Yvaine are very happy even though they can't have children, since he's mortal and she's a star. Played straight in the film, though.
 * The Hunger Games: At the end of Mockingjay. There is Someone to Remember Him By for, and.
 * Very odd example in Goblin Market. Both Lizzie and Laura have children in later years, but we aren't told anything about the children's fathers. Sisterhood is depicted as more important than marriage, despite the fact that both characters are now married.
 * In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Regained, observes at the end that he and  can both fly -- perhaps they should raise a flock. When they are about to marry, he prophesies that they will have this trope and about their descendants.
 * The Star Trek novel "The Fire and the Rose" ends with . This book is part of a self-contained trilogy separate from both established canon and the Star Trek Novel Verse.
 * In the Age of Fire books, the first novel ends with the dragon AuRon settling down with Natasatch, lovingly embracing around a clutch of eggs. In the last lovel, set decades later, the novel ends with his now-pregnant sister Wistala and her mate Dhar Sii flying off to their home cave.
 * In Hal Clement's Still River, when they plan a return to the planetoid, a woman scientist observes that some of the aliens are coming out of curiosity in her pregnancy.

Live-Action TV

 * Heroes: Played with -- in season three this trope is used (via Isaac Mendez-style paintings) to show Matt Parkman that his "happy ever after" future has been irreparably altered, in that a future containing Babies Ever After for him and his wife has been knocked out by some event in the present.
 * At the end of Coupling, the main couple Steve and Sue have a baby. It's an ending which tends to divide fans -- some are dissatisfied, considering the nature of the show's comedy, and some think it's rather sweet (and are glad that Steve finally grew the hell up).
 * Spaced has an epilogue where Tim and Daisy have a child.
 * The series finale of Lois and Clark. They came downstairs to find said baby mysteriously in their living room with no idea of where it came from.
 * The whole story of How I Met Your Mother will lead to this ending, seeing as the Framing Device is the memoirs of the male character relating the tale to his kids; the real question is, which woman does he really end up with?
 * Charmed: The last episode shows all of the sisters, their love interests, and their children.
 * Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars.
 * Scrubs series finale ends this way, although all of what JD sees for this trope are only possibilities and do not actually happen because they are a giant montage video playing in front of him. (If you count the ninth/spinoff season, JD and Elliot did indeed have a baby.)
 * Friends ended with the birth of Chandler and Monica's adopted twins.
 * In the finale of Will and Grace, both Will and Grace have children with their respective partners.
 * There's a pretty creepy one in the Distant Finale of Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job. After an elderly Tim and sex-changed Eric reunite fifty years later, there's a montage featuring their wedding and the absurd amount of babies they have together. (followed by Tim's slow death and Eric finding another man, much to the dismay of Tim's ghost.)
 * Doctor Who
 * Subverted extremely cruelly in the series 3 episode The Family of Blood, when the Doctor has become human temporarily to escape a band of aliens that can follow the TARDIS anywhere. As a human (John Smith), he meets and falls in love with a normal woman, then, due to them both touching a piece of Applied Phlebotinum at the same time, shares a vision with her of them marrying, having children, and of an elderly "John" on his deathbed, secure in the knowledge that his children and grandchildren are happy. Knowing that the Doctor  but has since decided that he can never have "a normal life" means that, while creepy, it seems entirely fitting when the Doctor takes care of the aliens that were responsible, even if indirectly, for him experiencing that life.
 * And subverted again in Amy's Choice, a Season 5 episode where the Doctor, Amy and Rory wind up in what initially appears to be a flash-forward in Amy and Rory's lives to a time when they're happily married and settled in an idyllic village, with a baby on the way. However, it soon turns out to be a nightmarish dream-world construction specifically deigned to torture Amy into making a choice between her life with the Doctor and her potential life with Rory.
 * Variant in Dollhouse: the Ensemble Darkhorse couple(Priya/Sierra and Tony/Victor) had a son between "The Hollow Men" and Epitaph One.
 * Subverted in Absolutely Fabulous with the strong implication that the reason Saffy isn't happy ever after with her two young children, to the point of an absent father, is entirely because her mother now lives next door.
 * From Korean drama Goong, it was implied that the main character was pregnant, judging from her and her husband's half-amazed, half-stunned look the two of them shared when another characted suggested it when the main character was feeling sick.
 * The Nanny ends with not only Fran and Maxwell having twins, but C.C. and Niles discovering C.C.'s pregnant.
 * Teased in the penultimate episode of Firefly.
 * The series finale of Star Trek Voyager ends with the title ship making it back home just as B'Elanna is giving birth.
 * During the finale of the TV mini-series The Tenth Kingdom, Wolf reveals to Virginia that he knows she's "got a little wolf cub growing inside" of her. Wolf also makes the none-too-subtle comment to Tony of "See you soon, grampa!" before stepping into the traveling mirror.

Theater
"Oberon. Now, until the break of day,
 * A Midsummer Nights Dream: Oberon sets out to bless the children being conceived on the couples' wedding nights.

Through this house each fairy stray.

To the best bride-bed will we,

Which by us shall blessed be;

And the issue there create

Ever shall be fortunate.

So shall all the couples three

Ever true in loving be;

And the blots of Nature's hand

Shall not in their issue stand;

Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,

Nor mark prodigious, such as are

Despised in nativity,

Shall upon their children be."

Video Games
"Liara: So, tell me what you want. If this all ends tomorrow, what happens to us?
 * Dragon's Lair II begins with numerous children of varying ages, which makes Dragon's Lair qualify as Babies Ever After.
 * After the final battle in Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots,  is recuperating from his injuries when   Turns out it was all a cover to protect the kid from the Patriots.
 * The endings of both Grandia and Grandia III show the children of the two lead characters. One kid in the third game, but five in the first, apparently a pair of twins and a set of triplets.
 * Ending Tu fui ego eris in Haunting Ground... Zigzagged in a terrible and creepy way. Followed by Laughing Mad.
 * One of the Multiple Endings of Star Fox Command shows  with their son and   with their children. It's even shown that they eventually take over the command team.
 * Noh is implied to be pregnant in her ending for Sengoku Basara 2, despite the fact that historically she never bore Oda Nobunaga any children.
 * This is how Fire Emblem 7 ends, which also serves to give the protagonists of Fire Emblem 6 a cameo role, seeing as FE7 is a prequel to FE6.
 * Super Mario World ends with the hatching of the Yoshi eggs that Mario saved.
 * One of the endings of Mana Khemia Alchemists of Al Revis shows years later as the tired parents of three very active little children, noting that they won't have much time alone until the kids grow up.
 * In Aquaria, the protagonist ends up having a child with her Love Interest,
 * Implied in the end of Final Fantasy IV, as the ending cutscene includes the wedding of the Official Couple, and confirmed in the Sequel, given who a major character in it is.
 * In the ending epilogue of Final Fantasy V shows the eggs of Boko's newlywed mate hatched.
 * In "Mog's House", a game-within-the-game in Final Fantasy VII (can be played at Gold Saucer), if Mog manages to impress the female mog with his flying, the ending shows the ridiculously fruitful bounty of their joining.
 * Final Fantasy IX has possibly the most touching subversion in the series:
 * Several mini-games in Rhythm Heaven involve romance, so the ending screens for getting "Perfects" on them show baby versions of the "characters" from the original game. Up to and including baby Moai.
 * Generally the goal of most Harvest Moon games: Marry your Love Interest, and have a baby with them. Since plenty of Harvest Moon games have a Playable Epilogue, the baby usually isn't part of an "ending" per se, but it is in at least one game: Harvest Moon 3 on the Game Boy, if you're playing as the female character, will show you and your farming partner under a tree with a baby in the ending.
 * This trope is completely inverted in F.E.A.R. 2. The game ends with Alma pregnant with the 's baby because she Since this sets up the story for the third game, this is not a good thing.
 * Zoe and Twinsen's baby is born at the end of Little Big Adventure 2.
 * The Wild Arms series:
 * Wild Arms 4 with Raquel and Arnaud. Doesn't manage to make it into a happy ending though...
 * Wild Arms 2 has a more happy ending with Ashley and Marina, and twin babies.
 * Several female characters are pregnant or have already given birth by the ending of Okami. Later becomes Spin Offspring with Okamiden.
 * One of the final scenes of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess shows this happening to Rusl and Uli. Granted they were married with a child for the course of the game and Uli's pregnancy is both visually noticeable and plot-related, the fact that they show the baby at the end makes it count.
 * The ending of Mega Man Battle Network 6 has a dialogue between
 * In the end of Baldurs Gate: Throne of Bhaal, gave birth to CHARNAME's son and, later in the epilogue, his daughter.  also give birth to his son in the epilogue and, if you have installed the Ascention mod, so is  If you've installed her mod,  has a LOT of children with CHARNAME, and if you've installed the Ascention mod, a female CHARNAME can have a daughter with
 * In the epilogue of Valkyria Chronicles, have one. Their daughter is also called  It's nice to hear that  got laid.
 * Final Fantasy X 2: Lulu, who had been pregnant throughout the game, is seen holding a baby at the end. The baby is born in the chapter before the finale (and a major plot point is Wakka getting over himself enough to name the kid).
 * In the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2, if you romanced Liara in the first game and stayed faithful, you can suggest this as a possibility in the future (presumably after the Reapers are defeated).

Shepard: I don't know. Marriage, old age, and a lot of little blue children?"


 * Similarly, in the finale of Mass Effect 3, if Shepard romanced Garrus, one of the things he hopes for if they both survive is to see what a Turian-Human baby would look like. Considering that the two species are biologically incompatible, Shepard notes that they could always adopt.
 * In Agarest Senki, the true end of Generation 5 has a scene which shows
 * One of the paired endings of Star Ocean the Second Story shows with the latter mentioning that she's expecting a baby in about six months.
 * Regardless of which ending you get in Fahrenheit (2005 video game), Carla is pregnant with Lucas's child.
 * In the epilogue of Front Mission 5 which takes place several years later, the protagonist Walter and Lynn had a daughter who has grown up to a woman and greeted her father Colonel Walter (promoted) in front of Lynn's grave (Never disclose how she died).
 * The final scene of Tales of Graces shows

Visual Novels

 * The ending of in Family Project.
 * H2O Footprints in The Sand. What's unique about this is that one of the "girls" is the father.
 * G Senjou no Maou subverts a Bittersweet Ending in the epilogue by having the main character meet his 7 year old daughter after being imprisoned for 8 years.
 * In the Toradora! PSP game, Taiga will get pregnant with Ryuji's child if you choose to play her route.
 * In Oreimo PSP game, Ayase will be pregnant with Kyosuke's child if you choose to play her route and acquire the true ending.
 * Good Ending in Yume Miru Kusuri, though it's cruelly subverted in the Bad Ending.
 * Ever 17 technically ends this way.
 * Played very similarly with in Remember 11, although on much smaller time scale.
 * Implied in the best ending of, of all games, School Days.
 * Another PSP game Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai Portable have  pregnant in their respective route ending.

Web Comics

 * A Magical Roommate: this applies to most of the leads.

Web Original

 * In this video from Jib Jab video, they make up a new ending for Romeo and Juliet... specifically, they didn't really die, their families made up, and they had "ten million babies"!

Western Animation

 * Shaggy fantasizes this trope in Scooby Doo and the Alien Invaders, imagining himself and Crystal with Shaggy Jr. Scooby and Amber, Crystal's golden retriever, likewise have puppies.
 * In one animated short called Monkey Love, you see that a human sailor and his monkey princess are Happily Married, and their kids are Half-Human Hybrids at the end as a result of Interspecies Romance.
 * Wakfu
 * The season 1 Where Are They Now ending reveals that Miranda is pregnant with Kabrok's child.
 * In season 2, it is heavily implied.

Real Life

 * Some studies show that this is true for a lot of major conflicts. Some scholars even claim the ending of the biblical story of Cain and Abel, with Cain building a city and naming it after his newborn son, as an allegory for this phenomenon.
 * The Baby Boom after World War II.
 * Averted after World War I, though -- millions of European women died childless throughout the rest of the century due to a "deficit" of about 10 million husbands.
 * Happened after the Black Plague ended in Europe. After the epidemic, reports stated that one could look around and have a hard time seeing a woman of child bearing age who wasn't pregnant. At the time, a baby had a greater chance of dying at some point in its childhood than it did of surviving to adolescence. The Baby Factory model was likely the only way to ensure a stable population. Though the drastic reduction in population also meant there was plenty of food for the ones that survived.