Exposed: A Novel (28 page)

Chapter 66
Taylor

Every time Andy’s cop friend spoke, I imagined him pleasuring himself as he watched my videos. The thought disgusted me. I never said a word to him. I guess he knew why. He figured out my problem on his own and called for someone to bring gas.

“You’re not in labor, are you?” he said without looking at me. I could tell he was embarrassed. Probably wondered if it was Andy’s baby.

I ignored him as another contraction pulled my back into my stomach.

He got into his car and left seconds after an orange van pulled up.

“You the one that ran out of gas?” a man said through missing teeth.

I nodded and looked away, toward the passing cars, the passing Jesuses. He popped the gas tank lid, screwed the cap off, and poured some gasoline into my car’s thirsty tank. I hoped he’d fill it all the way up.

Another contraction. They were closer together now. And lasting longer.

“Thanks.” I walked right past him and got into my car.

He helped me start it and I drove off eager to see Lisa’s face. Then it hit me.

Layla.

My baby would soon be in the world. Alive. And I had no apartment, no family, no job, just a car without a car seat.

Daddy, oh Daddy, please, please, help me. Heeeeeelp me.

When I checked in at the front desk in the labor and delivery section of the hospital (thankfully Lisa gave me a tour earlier) the girl looked me up and down and said, “You don’t look like you are in labor.”

“Can I talk to Lisa?”

She ignored me and answered the phone, but I heard Lisa’s sweet voice around the corner. I walked into an empty waiting room with televisions and a bathroom.

“Excuse me,” the front desk girl said with the phone pressed into her neck. “You didn’t finish checking in.”

I ignored her and sat down in the waiting room. Soap operas flickered on the TV screen while the sun brightened the room through the cracks in the blinds. Another contraction clenched my insides. Not that bad, I thought. Still no big deal.

Lisa’s voice got closer, so I walked out of the waiting room. She saw me and rushed over, her arms reaching out toward me. I smiled when her palms rested against my cheeks.

“Oh, dear one,” she said. “Is it time?”

I loved her.

“Yes,” I said. “Well, I think so.”

“Let’s get you a room so we can see what’s going on.”

She waved at the front desk and led me through double doors and into a small room. For some reason I think she may had done something wrong, just by the way the girl at the desk rolled her eyes and another waiting pregnant lady gave me a dirty look. But I didn’t care. I liked being special for once, even it was at the cost of someone else.

Lisa helped me onto the table.

“On a scale from 1-10 what would you say the pain is like?”

“Um, I don’t know, maybe a four?”

She leaned me backward, checked my cervix, and said, “You’re six centimeters. Looks like it really is time. Do you have a high tolerance for pain?”

I shrugged and watched the contraction monitor rise with my next contraction. “I mean, it’s just not that bad yet.”

“Well if you do this naturally, you’re going to be clinging to the hospital bed in a few hours, so enjoy this while it lasts.”

Somehow I didn’t believe her. It didn’t hurt so far, there’s no way it could get that bad.

“Isn’t six centimeters close?” I said.

“Yes. But you could still be in labor for another day. It depends on the woman and the labor. You could give birth in two hours or twenty.” She picked up a folder and held it to her chest. “I’m going to make sure we get a delivery room set up for you. Stay right here.” She winked and left the room.

Another contraction. The line on the monitor peaked a little longer than last time. To my left, a cup of ice chips sat untouched. Lisa brought them in earlier, but I forgot about them. I sat up a little straighter and crunched until the ice smoothed down my throat.

The room, blank and sterile, didn’t make me feel hopeful. Instead, I felt as blank as the walls and sheets around me. As synthetic as the smell of plastic filling my nostrils. I wanted color. I wanted life. I wanted this baby. But none of those things seemed attainable or maintainable really.

More than anything—I crunched another ice chip—I wanted a Daddy or a man, someone who truly loved me, to be here while I gave birth to my first child.

Chapter 67
Ally

I analyzed passing trees and timed my contractions, while Jessie probably wondered what I was thinking about. Then I saw a couple zoom by on a motorcycle. The woman’s arms were wrapped around the man. So confident in his ability to keep her safe, she rested her chin on his shoulder. She trusted him with her life. She lived. Carefree.

I looked at Jess.

“Hey,” I said. “I want to get through this. I don’t know how, but I want to make this work. I want freedom.”

“Me too.” His eyes glazed over. “Thanks for that.”

The drive was short, thankfully. I feared I’d give birth to Avelina in the car.

We walked into the hospital, checked in, and waited in the waiting room while soap operas annoyed me from the television mounted on the wall in the corner of the room. Pretty faces and half-naked bodies made me want to spit, or turn off the TV, but I didn’t want Jessie to sense my insecurity. The fact that they even let women in underwear prance around on daytime television baffled me. I would not want my kids seeing that.

A nurse, finally, called my name. Jessie’s eyes were closed, his head down as though in prayer. I poked his shoulder. He looked up, glanced around the room then back to my eyes.

“You coming with me or what?” I said to him and looked back at the nurse.

Jessie stood and we followed the tall, manly female nurse through double doors, down a hallway, and into a room big enough to hold the examination table, a monitor, a sink, and perhaps a total of three people.

“This is where I give birth?” I looked at the nurse and back to the room. “This doesn’t look like the delivery rooms I saw.”

A contraction, this time deeper inside of me, felt like it ripped apart my insides as it tugged at my muscles. I bent over and leaned on the table to breathe through it.

“Did you get a tour?” the nurse asked, her voice as manly as her looks.

“No.”

She rolled her eyes and walked out of the room without saying another word. Guess it wasn’t her best day of the week. Jessie opened the door after the nurse closed it and peeked around the corner.

“Want me to go get someone?” he said.

“I’m sure a doctor will be here soon.”

Three contractions later, Lisa walked in the room. I was so happy to see her I nearly jumped into her arms, but a contraction hit me as she smiled and greeted us, so I breathed through it then looked back to her.

“Getting stronger contractions now, aren’t we?” She put on rubber gloves and snapped them at her wrists.

I nodded.

“Go ahead and lay back on this table here. I’m going to check your cervix then we’ll put these monitors on to keep an eye on the baby’s heartbeat and your contractions.”

I leaned back and let her do her thing.

“You are seven centimeters. Getting into the nitty gritty now. This transitional phase is going to be tough, but you’ll make it if you’ve gotten this far.”

I smiled. She made me feel like natural childbirth was possible. Painful, but possible.

She wrapped two straps around my stomach, but seemed to have trouble with the second one.

“Your baby always has been a tough one to get a good heartbeat from. Always moving around.” She moved the strap over so the monitor was a little higher on my stomach.

Jessie looked at me.

I looked away and watched Lisa’s lips, waiting for them to smile, but they pursed more and more as time went on. She moved the strap up, down, left, right, but never felt satisfied enough to leave it.

The white room closed in on me, making the walls feel black.

“I think this strap might be broken.” She tried to smile, but I heard seriousness in her tone. Unusual for her. And I didn’t like it. “I’m going to get a new one and try that.”

“What’s wrong?” Jessie asked.

I shrugged. “She’s always had trouble getting the heartbeat from Avelina. Either she moves too much or she’s just in a weird position. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

I tried to believe my own words, but underneath them my heart raced so loud and fast that it hurt me and distracted me from the contractions that should’ve pained me worse.

Jessie asked me a bunch of questions, but I didn’t listen.

Lisa came back in the room with a new strap and an ultrasound monitor.

“I’m going to get a quick ultrasound.” Lisa wheeled the machine over to me. “Just want to see where that kid is so I can get this strap on right.”

Jessie paced the room and finally settled, arms crossed, in a chair across from the ultrasound screen.

Lisa gelled my stomach and rolled the cold device over it. She rolled and rolled and rolled, then looked at me and said. “I think your baby might be in a really funky position. I’m going to get another nurse in here to see if I’m just going nuts.”

She left the room and Jessie’s scrunched brow taunted me.

Everything’s okay, I thought. Everything’s fine.

Chapter 68
Taylor

Boy, was Lisa right. The contractions got way worse within a few hours of being in my delivery room. I’ll tell you what annoyed me the most. I had Group B Strep, so they attached a wheeling antibiotic bag to my arm via a tube and needle, and they never, ever let me get unhooked from the thing.

When a super painful contraction lurched me forward I imagined the needle ripping from my arm. And don’t even get me started on all the monitors they hooked up to me. I felt like a prisoner and ached for an epidural so I could lay still.

But I had to do this. I had to do something on my own with no help. Something good, something meaningful.

I rocked back and forth on a large ball as the contractions split apart my insides. The only thing that helped was when I focused on the room. I took in every detail from the flower patterns in the brown curtains, to the way the streetlight lit the room, which I asked to have dimly lit. And I made sure to soak in everything I could so I could tell Layla everything. I wanted her to feel special, like she mattered.

Unlike me.

Lisa came back in to check on me. “You’re almost there.”

She pressed her hand into my lower back. The pain hurt so much I didn’t mind her hands on me. And it seemed to help.

I wanted her to stay the entire time and make the nurses go away. Only one of the nurses was nice, but her shift ended. The other ones didn’t seem to care about me or anything about birth. They just checked the monitors and went on their merry way. I wanted to scream at them and beg Lisa to stay every time she left the room, but she had to keep checking on another patient.

A strong, splitting contraction gashed my mental complaints. I leaned forward onto the bed and pulled the sheets into my fists.

“I can’t do this anymore.” Before I could finish my words another contraction began its upward climb to the peak of torment. I squeezed the sheets again and held my breath.

“Relax and breathe.” Lisa came in the room and knelt beside me. “You’re almost there. You can do it.”

I inhaled and exhaled, doing my best to relax amidst the worse pain of my life. But another one started, grabbed my insides, and squeezed as tight as possible.

I looked up at the ceiling. “Daddy.” My voice, high and loud, rose beyond the ceiling.

A tear soaked into the sheet as another contraction peaked.

“Pressure,” I said. “Lots of pressure down there.”

“I think it’s time to push.” Lisa stood and helped me onto the bed. Sit back, and pull your legs up so your knees are as high as you can get them. I want to see where the head is and then we’ll start pushing.”

“I can’t,” I cried.

“Yes, you can.” She looked at the ceiling. “Your Daddy is up there.” She pointed. “And He’s here for you. Lean on Him for strength. He’ll get you through.”

I sat back, pictured Daddy’s face just before he died, and then reached under my thighs and pulled my knees toward me as much as I could.

“The head is right here, Taylor. You’re going to see your baby soon.”