Page 89 of Whispers of My Skin

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“I can’t do this anymore,” I moaned once the pain receded. I was exhausted, and didn’t want to carry on.

We’d been at the hospital all day. No exaggeration, we’d come to the hospital more than twenty hours previously and still the baby refused to come out.

Joel brushed the hair off my face and kissed my forehead, looking into my eyes with such tenderness that I almost forgot it was his fault I was in this predicament.

“You can do it, baby. You’re my warrior, so let’s go. One more time,” he encouraged.

He hadn’t even finished speaking before the next big contraction hit, taking my breath away.

Where the fuck did I get the stupid idea that I didn’t want an epidural? Remind me again why natural births are preferable?

But it was too late now, and there was only one way out of this, so I took a deep breath and got ready to push, push, and push again.

“The head’s crowning,” the doctor calmly informed us. “Your baby’s coming, Tara, it’s nearly here, you’re so close now.”

Thank fuck for that, because this mama to be was about ready to throw in the towel.

“Come on, my love, you can do it,” Joel urged. I looked at him and I wanted to slap him very hard, I really did. It was so fucking easy for him to keep saying that, but he wasn’t the one trying to push something the size of a watermelon out of his hoo-haa. “Breathe, just take a big breath. Here we go again, one final big push.”

Tara, breathe! Tara, push! Tara, Tara, Tara!

I put everything I had into getting this baby out. I felt pressure, a lot of pressure like I was about to split in half, and then suddenly a great relief.

Finally, we heard our baby crying.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor happily announced. “You have a perfect, healthy, baby girl.”

Joel kissed me on the lips again and again, before he looked over to see the little pink bundle that was our daughter.

“Here you go, Mommy,” the nurse said, placing her on my chest. At first she screamed loudly, proving she had a decent pair of lungs, but she soon settled down and just looked around her in wonder.

The touch of her skin on mine was like a healing balm. Gone, already forgotten were the hours of pain, discomfort and anguish I’d endured before she’d made her entrance.

The sheer perfection of our daughter took my breath away. All I could concentrate on was her. My baby girl.

“She looks just like you,” Joel whispered, as he stared at her in fascination, already deeply in love with his daughter. “She definitely takes after her mommy.”

“Ah, but I think she’s inherited her daddy’s charm,” I smiled as I stroked her head and studied her screwed up little face, while Joel wrapped her tiny fingers around his huge thumb.

Until that moment, I didn’t think I could love him anymore than I already did, but as he put his arm around me, around our baby, protecting his family from the world, I thought my heart might burst with happiness.

“So, tell me, husband dearest, what are we going to name our daughter?” I turned to ask him.

This was the sixty-million-dollar question. We’d agreed that if it was a boy, I’d choose the name, but if it turned out to be a girl, he got to choose.

He studied our little girl for a few minutes in silence, before finally announcing his choice. “Scarlett. She’ll be named Scarlett Sadger.”

Wow. I thought it was perfect, a really beautiful name for our baby girl.

“I love it,” I smiled happily. “I think it really suits her. It’s a name that’ll grow with her, cute when she’s a little girl, sexy when she’s grownup.”

Joel’s face was a picture, like he’d just sucked on lemons.

“Please do not use the term ‘sexy’ in the context of our daughter,” he growled. “She’s going to devote herself to science, to studying, not to boys. Trust me,I’ll be making damn sure of that.”

That didn’t take long—my overprotective husband had already become an overprotective father, and I wanted to laugh, I really did, despite the discomfort I felt having just given birth. At that moment, I thought Joel would seriously consider converting to Catholicism, just to be able to send our daughter to a convent when she was a teenager.

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