Page 20 of Unbound
What seems like only seconds later, I’m pushing.
I don’t like the way they tell me to bear down. Like what? Like I’m taking a poop? It’s awful and so embarrassing having Red in here and I’m tempted to tell him to leave just in case I,I don’t know, poop.
“If I, you know, do anything embarrassing in here, or something comes out of me other than a baby, please don’t judge me,” I say between contractions and pushes.
Red laughs beside me like it’s no big deal, but to me it is. Technically speaking, he’s my boss and here he is in the delivery room with me because I forced him to stay.
As I’m pushing and feeling like he’s never coming out, Dr. Nells glances at his nurse, then the fetal monitor and gives the nurse beside me a nod.
Relaxed like everything is completely fine, she places an oxygen mask on me.
I rip it off, my arms resembling jelly as I attempt to move. This pushing is no joke. “Why’d you do that? What’s wrong?”
Dr. Nells doesn’t look at me. “Sophie, we need to get the baby out now. His heartrate it dropping.”
Bearing down as they call it, I shoot Dr. Nells a glare, sweat pouring down my face. “I’ve been in labor for three hours,” I say this as if I’ve been in labor for days, but in my mind, it’s felt like months based on my tolerance for pain. “You’renotdoing a C-section now.”
Red chuckles, seeing how his tough as nails girlfriend was in labor with Chevy for eighteen hours before he finally arrived. I’m not Lenny. I’m Sophie, the girl deathly afraid of pain and the fact that I’m having a baby naturally has to account for something in my mind.
“Okay, I’ll give you four more pushes but if we can’t get him out, I have to perform a C-section.”
Red takes my hand tighter, knowing I’m a second away from a breakdown. “You got this.
The doctor works quickly and tells me to push. There’s an intense pressure in my stomach and pelvis and then he stands and I feel like he reaches inside me to get the baby out.
The pressure increases slightly and then nothing. He’s out and I feel emptiness.
The doctor takes the baby in his hands and winks at me, cutting the cord himself in what seems like rushed motions. “It’s a boy.”
Time immediately slows down, a painful lump rising in my throat. I don’t hear anything. No crying, just piercing silence as he hands my limp baby off to the nurse beside him.
My stomach drops, my heart racing. “Why isn’t he crying? Shouldn’t he be crying? Is he breathing?”
I can’t see him. I try but five nurses are immediately surrounding my baby and two more rush through the door.
“Red, go look, is he okay?”
Red lets go of my hand and stands, trying to see. He and the doctor exchange a look and then he glances down at me. “He’s fine. They’re just warming him up.”
“That’s bullshit. I don’t hear anything. He should be crying!” My hysterical voice takes over and I’m crying, trying to wipe away tears to clear my blurry vision and get a better view, but I can’t. I can’t see him at all.
Red moves from beside me to where the nurses are but doesn’t interfere with what they’re doing.
It feels like hours before I hear a shrieking scream pierce through the room. I’ve never been so happy in my entire life to hear a baby crying.
The nurses hand the baby to Red and he brings him over, smiling down at me. “See, everything’s okay.”
“Oh my God,” is all I can say when I see him, pushing the white blanket away from his face. He’s tiny, so tiny and kind of tinted blue, but he’s breathing.
“He looks like Rawley did when he was a baby,” Red murmurs, stopping briefly to take a breath and then hands the baby to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
“He does,” I agree, taking him gently in my arms. Living at Mia’s house, I’m constantly surrounded by photographs of Rawley when he was younger, even ones where he was a newborn in his father’s arms and without a shred of doubt, my son looks like his father. His color’s still pale but the tiny scrunch to his brows, and the shape of his face, round with full lips and a distinct chin, he’s definitely a Walker boy. The only feature I find of mine on him is my nose. Cute little button nose.
I start crying, as if I wasn’t already. Only now it’s harder and I’m shaking.
Red rubs my arm. “You’re okay. He’s okay.” It’s reassuring, in a sense. In other ways, I don’t know if I am okay. I really don’t.
“He’s a pretty good size for being six weeks early,” Dr. Nells tells us, touching my arm. “Five pounds thirteen ounces… but we’re gonna put him in the special care nursery for a few days and see if we can’t get his lungs a little stronger.”
Staring down at him, a precious little person who reminds me so much of Rawley, I can’t help but miss him. He should be a part of this. The Rawley I loved would have wanted to be a part of it. He’s got Rawley’s chin but my nose. I can’t tell whose eyes he has as they’re closed. He seems perfectly content now, his breathing light and controlled.
I look at Red, a sadness swirling his eyes. Even though we don’t talk about it, he knows how much I wish it was Rawley here with me and not him. Though I’m thankful he was here for me today. He holds me close. “You’re gonna be fine.”
Tears spill from the corners of my eyes, the baby in my arms keeping me afloat. “I know,” I say with a whisper, struggling for air with the pinch those words bring. I didn’t want to do this alone, but it’s the reality I’m facing. And for this baby boy in my arms, I will do just that.
