Page 85 of Decidedly With Baby
But I couldn’t focus on that. I needed to focus on the here and now. “Remember how you were going to sing to me while I was in labor?” I asked, sounding more like a little girl than a grownwoman.
“Yes.”
“Can you still do that, at least until you have to board yourflight?”
Instead of answering, he sang a soothing jazz song, and I relaxed a little more. His singing had that effect onme.
At least it did until another contractionhit.
Heehee.
Whoowhoo.
Kelsey took the phone from me again, but turned up the volume so I could focus on Josh’ssinging.
Heehee.
Whoowhoo.
Eventually Josh had to leave to catch his flight. “I’ll be there soon, babe. I—” He said something else, but I missed it as another contraction ripped throughme.
Bloody.Hell.
* * *
“Okay, Holly,”Dr. Perky said, having refilled on caffeine an hour ago. “I need you to give me another bigpush.”
Drenched with sweat, I flopped back onto the bed. Giving birth was definitely not a glamorous activity. I was positive Josh was less sweaty after a hockeygame.
“I can’t,” I whispered. That was the extent of myenergy.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” the grandmotherly nurse said from somewhere near where the resident was sitting, “you’re almostthere.”
“You can do it,” Kelsey said, the only person who had been able to keep me relatively sane during the past few hours. After what she had witnessed, I wouldn’t be surprised if she changed her mind about havingbabies.
Maybe she and Trent would adopt a puppyinstead.
Another contraction hit. With all the strength I had left—and some I had borrowed from who knows where—I pushed hard. People in the parking lot several floors down no doubt heard my inhuman scream.Luckythem.
Ever heard of “the ring of fire”? No, it wasn’t fromLord of The Rings—although it might as well have been. It was the burning sensation you experienced when the baby’s head pushed through an opening muchmuchsmaller than it. Except the term ring of fire didn’t even begin to describe the insurmountablepain.
It was misleading—falseadvertising.
And if you hadn’t already done so by now, this was the defining moment when you decided to never,ever, have sexagain.
I didn’t even have a chance to recover from the contraction. Another one hit with the same intensity as before. The cheerleaders in the room didn’t even have to tell me to push. I couldn’t havenotpushed even if I hadtried.
“Okay, Holly, you can do it,” someone said. The resident? My eyes were squeezed shut. “One more big push and he’sout.”
I did as I was told—with another round of noises that might’ve caused Noah to have second thoughts about beingborn.
“And here he is,” the residentsaid.
Then a momentlater.
“Or rather, heresheis.”
Huh?
