Page 111 of Muskoka Miracle
“You want me to get a nurse?”
He grabbed a towel and carefully helped her out, leading her to the toilet. She sat down heavily.
“Sar? You want me to get a nurse?”
She was breathing heavily now. “I don’t care.”
Uh oh. “I’ll be right back.”
He poked his head out the door, relieved to see their midwife walking back.
“How is she doing?”
“She’s on the toilet.”
The nurse looked at him wide-eyed before rushing in. “Sarah? Sarah, you need to get on the bed now.”
“I just need to finish…”
The nurse crouched down. “Sarah, that’s your baby trying to come out. We don’t want it born in the toilet, so come over to the bed.”
The nurse glanced up at him and Dan moved to help Sarah, holding her, encouraging her as she shakily moved over to the bed and climbed into a hospital gown. He stayed with her, smoothing her hair while the nurse checked on her dilation progress, then checked the baby’s heartbeat again.
“Well done, Sarah. It looks like you’ll be meeting your baby in the next hour.”
Dan could’ve cheered.
* * *
Sarah wanted to groan.Another hour of this? Why had she ever been excited about having a baby? This was ridiculous. The shower had helped a little, but the contractions had sped up, so she barely had time to breathe. She was so tired she felt wobbly. And Dan wasn’t helping. He reached out to touch her hair.
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped. She was so tired of being poked and prodded. Besides, all this was his fault. If he hadn’t made her fall in love with him, they’d never be in this predicament.
Oh God….She wanted to push, it was like she was constipated. How embarrassing to have total strangers see everything down there. She wished she’d shaved her legs.
She shut her eyes again. This pain was almost too much. She wanted to scream but didn’t want to scare Dan with the intensity of pain she was feeling.
“Sarah, you’re doing really well.” This midwife was nice. Thank God. “I’ve paged Dr. Feldman. She’ll be here any minute.”
“Good.” She wanted this baby out now. Yesterday.
The door opened and Dr. Feldman appeared. “Sarah, Dan, looks like things are almost there. Let’s have a check of you, and we’ll see if we need to call the neonatologist team in.”
Sarah grimaced. Sure, why not? Anyone else want to see? Dan had moved down to have a look too. Why not take pictures?
“Okay, Sarah, all those contractions have moved the baby down the birth canal, and he or she is just waiting to come out.”
“What about the head?”
“The head looks fine, the heartrate is perfect, so I’m not concerned. We’re going to need you to start pushing on the next contraction, but ease off when we tell you, to help your baby the best way. Okay?”
She nodded. Thank God they were at this stage. She couldn’t cope with much more.
“Dan, you go up and support your wife. We want gravity to help so get behind her, support her back.”
Sarah felt another contraction begin.
“Okay, Sarah, push.”
