Arrive (8 page)

He leans over to grab the stopwatch from the drawer of his nightstand. “Hold on. Tell me when the next one starts.”

We wait. And wait. When I feel another one start, Dean times it to fifteen seconds. As it turns out, the next one is over half an hour later, so even Professor Neurotic realizes it makes no sense to time each one.

“Not yet, anyway,” he says.

Anxiety flutters inside me. I push back the bedcovers. Since I have no idea when we’ll need to leave for the hospital, I tell Dean I’m going to take a quick shower.

“Leave the bathroom door open.” He also gets out of bed. “Call if you need me. What time is it? Are you hungry? I’ll make sure everything’s ready for the hospital.”

I don’t bother reminding him that we’ve had everything ready for the past three weeks. Clearly the man needs something to do.

I stand under the shower for twenty minutes. The hot water pounding over my hair and skin dilutes some of my nervous tension. I put a hand over my belly when it starts to tighten again.

“Okay, baby,” I whisper. “Let’s do this.”

A thousands thoughts fly through my brain. How it seems like I’ve been waiting to meet this baby forever, and yet how quickly the past nine months have gone. I think about my childhood, remembering faces, names, places, emotions. For the first time in my life, those thoughts aren’t accompanied by bitterness or sorrow, but by a kind of complacency. A belonging.

“Five minutes.” Dean clicks the stopwatch. He’s been showered and dressed for the past two hours. “We should head for the hospital.”

It’s almost seven in the morning. My contractions hurt but not excessively so, and my water’s already broken. After an L&D triage check determines my membranes have ruptured and I’m two centimeters dilated, a nurse named Karen puts me into a birthing room and hooks me up to a fetal monitor. She consults with the doctor, who determines I should be admitted.

“There was a chance I could have been sent home?” I ask Karen.

“Well, sometimes people get a little anxious and come to the hospital too early,” she explains, then smiles at Dean. “You did the right thing.”

He beams back at her. “I have Liv’s birth plan all ready too.”

Oh, lord. The man is going to be a legend among Mirror Lake’s nurses before long.

Dean gets the plan out of my suitcase and shows it to Karen. They consult over it for a few minutes before she places it with my medical chart.

“So, uh, what do I do now?” I ask. I’ve changed into a hospital gown and am sitting propped up against the pillows.

“Relax and keep contracting,” Karen says cheerfully. “I’ll get all the forms from your file. Anything changed since your pre-admission interview?”

I shake my head.

“How’s the pain?”

“Bearable.” Of course, I have no idea how long it will stay that way.

“I’ll get an IV started, but you’ll still be able to move around,” Karen says. “Dr. Nolan is delivering twins down the hall. She’ll be in as soon as she’s available.”

After inserting the IV into my arm, she leaves. Dean pulls a chair up beside my bed and sits down. “You need anything?”

“Not yet.” I shift around to get comfortable and glance at him. He’s staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.” He reaches out to push my hair away from my face. “Just… you know.”

“Yeah.” I squeeze his hand. “I know.”

We sit for a while. I tighten my grip on his hand when another contraction clenches hard. The nurse comes in to ask questions, we fill out a few more forms and continue to wait.

After another hour, Dr. Nolan comes in to check on me. She announces that I’m still only three centimeters dilated, even though my first contractions started over five hours ago, and suggests that we do some walking to try and speed things along.

I’m not all that thrilled about walking up and down the hospital corridors, but Dean’s already helping me into a pair of slippers before I can protest. He holds my arm and we head out to walk. The hallways are surprisingly quiet—a few doctors and nurses go from room to room, family members returning with cups of coffee, but overall it’s calm.

I try and breathe through another contraction. Dean stops. I realize I’m gripping him so hard my fingernails are digging into his arm. He uses his shirtsleeve to wipe a sheen of sweat off my forehead.

“Want to go back?” he asks.

I suck in air and shake my head. I don’t think I’ll be able to walk much longer, so I might as well do what I can now. We make a few more laps up and down the hallway, pausing for another contraction, before returning to the room.

I’m not feeling good. I’m sweating, and nausea is starting to roil in the pit of my stomach.

Dr. Nolan comes in for another check. “Still only three centimeters,” she says.

The announcement makes me want to cry, especially when another contraction tightens around me like an iron band.

“Can you give her something for the pain?” Dean asks.

“I’ll try and get the anesthesiologist in here. Last I checked, he was in surgery.” Dr. Nolan glances at the birth plan, then nods. “Sit tight, both of you.”

She leaves. I grip the lifeline of my husband’s hand and breathe.

*

I can’t tell if tears or sweat are running down my face. I feel like I’m about to burst out of my own skin. My body is hard as stone, totally foreign. My spine is about to break in two. The hospital gown is sticky and heavy.

I’m vaguely aware of Dean prowling beside my bed. Aware of his hand smoothing my hair back, pressing a wet cloth to my forehead. Aware of the rumble of his voice, deep and soothing against my ear. Aware of the unbreakable grip of his fingers as I seize his hand through the pain. Aware of the fear he’s trying to keep contained.

I close my eyes and float on a wave of agony. I can’t even swallow. When another contraction yanks a scream from my throat, Dean lets me clutch at him until the pain eases, and then he pulls away and curves my fingers around the bedrail.

“I’m getting the doctor.” His tone is rough, but lined with that implacability I know so well. He brushes a kiss against my forehead. “Be right back.”

I sink against the pillows and concentrate on breathing. A palpable relief curls through me because I sense some sort of end to this. I know my husband won’t let up until he gets someone in here who can ease this horrible pain.

I’ve lost track of how much time has passed. I hear faint music in the background, but the sound grates against my ears.

Dean’s hand touches my hair. “Liv, the anesthesiologist is here.”

Oh, thank God.

There’s a flurry of activity around me as the anesthesiologist introduces himself, explains the procedure, and instructs me to sit up and hunch over a pillow. Another contraction clutches me. I bury my face in the pillow and breathe through it.

I’m able to answer the anesthesiologist’s questions as he preps my back and inserts the needle. The procedure is quick and painless. After the catheter is in place and the medicine given, the nurse and Dean help me lie back down. Already a delicious numbness spreads through me.

“There’s another one.” Karen consults the monitor after another few minutes. “How do you feel?”

“Okay.” There’s still a mild pain, but nothing like what it was before. The relief gives me a renewed burst of courage.

“Try and rest now,” Karen suggests. “You’ll need your strength when it’s time to push.”

I close my eyes. My chest feels looser, making it easier to breathe, and my body no longer feels like something alien.

“Is that better?” Dean looks at the monitor as he pulls a chair back up beside my bed.

“Yes. God.” I push a swath of damp hair away from my forehead. “This is insane.”

“Now maybe it’ll be a little easier.” He looks more stressed out than I’ve ever seen him before, but when he catches me watching him, he manages a smile. “I’d offer you ice cream, but you’re not supposed to eat anything.”

“Yeah. That sucks. I think I’m hungry.”

I know I’m exhausted. I slip my hand into Dean’s, for comfort this time rather than the back-breaking need to get through the pain, and lean against the pillows.

I spend the next few hours dozing, but I’m unable to sink into a deep sleep. The nurse lowers the lights. I sense her and another nurse coming in and out, the beeping of the machine, the remnants of pain.

Fuzzy images that make no sense cascade through my mind—green apples, a needle and thread, the towers of a cathedral, a spiral staircase, an ant and a grasshopper. I remember that I was supposed to finish the café payroll. I have the irrational thought that we left the coffeepot on. I’m worried that Dean has to get to the university for office hours.

I drag my eyes open. The room is quiet, dim. Dean is still beside my bed, his dark gaze on my face. He shifts, leans closer.

“Hey,” he whispers. “How are you?”

“Will I ever have this baby?”

He strokes my hair. “You will. I promise.”

I let my eyes close again. He never tells me something unless he means it. Unless he knows it.

I doze again. When I wake, my mouth is parched, and I have a horrible combination of hunger and nausea. I suck on ice chips and imagine a chocolate milkshake.

Dean sits beside the bed, paces the floor, and only leaves the room to get a cup of coffee. Dr. Nolan stops by intermittently to check on my progress. Twelve hours after I was first admitted, she looks up from another dilation check and smiles.

“Are you ready to have your baby, Liv?”

Dean is at my side in a flash. I tighten my hand on his and nod.

“I’m ready.”

*

Our son comes into the world after both months and a second. One minute ago, our family was me and Dean, and then—despite the months of pregnancy, the hours of labor that seemed endless, and the final flurry of activity—our boy arrives in what seems like no time at all.

The epidural continues to work its magic as I do everything I’m supposed to do. Even though I obey the nurses’ instructions about when to push, when to stop, when to breathe, it feels like part of me is floating above the bed, separate from the mechanics of giving birth but utterly secure in the knowledge that I’m doing everything right.

As always, Dean is a constant, steady presence at my side, his deep voice a stream of love and encouragement in my ear. He leaves me only to check on the progress of things between my legs, and he is as fascinated with that event as he has been with everything else.

My body strains with pressure, work, tension. I strain and sweat and grit my teeth and push, push, push. Then, when I can hardly inhale another breath, Dr. Nolan looks up at me.

“One more, Liv,” she says. “That should do it.”

I close my eyes and push. My heart pounds. The pressure releases, a sudden lifting, and then a baby’s cry fills the air, my heart, my soul.

I open my eyes. Dr. Nolan holds up a damp, squirming baby boy, the umbilical cord still attaching him to me, and my breath stops in my throat. I stare at the baby, stunned, and then my son opens his eyes and looks right at me with eyes as black as night.

In that instant, I’m both lost and forever found.

I sink back against the pillows. Dr. Nolan hands the baby to one of the nurses, who says something about me needing to breastfeed right away, and there’s another bustle of activity and movement before Nicholas is wrapped in a blanket and placed in my arms.

He’s both weightless and heavy, like an anchor securing me to the earth. A brilliant, golden streamer of love and hope unfurls, hugging us both in a warm, protective embrace. Not until this moment have I more clearly understood the meaning of the word
wonder.

“Shift him a little toward you.” Karen moves to my side, helping me get Nicholas to latch onto my breast. When he does, his eyes drift closed.

There’s a movement at my side. I turn to where Dean is sitting beside the bed, his gaze on Nicholas’s face. For a moment, I stare at my husband. His eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot, stubble covers his jaw, and his hair is a mess. He has never looked more beautiful.

Dean shifts his gaze to mine.

“Hi,” I whisper past the tighteness in my throat.

He leans forward and puts a gentle hand on my head, pressing his lips to my forehead.