She’d hugged her mom and thanked her for her insight and wisdom.
Now, they walked down the hall three doors, through the empty waiting room connected to her room, and into Valerie’s room. She lay in her bed, monitors strapped to her belly and an IV in her arm. Brad stood next to the window, his hands in his pockets. “Hey, guys,” she said with a smile. “I’m happy to see you. You just missed Auntie Rose and Uncle Phillip. They went to check on Alex. Did you hear she had a girl?”
“Mom told us.” Ken gestured toward her. “Everything okay? What’s with all the monitors?”
“Oh, this? I had an epidural. I don’t want to feel a thing.” She patted her stomach. “I know I’m having a contraction because the machine tells me so.”
Daisy walked over and looked at the printout that showed lines on graph paper. While she watched, the lines got larger and more frantic. “Is this a contraction?”
Valerie glanced over. “Yep. Looks like a good one, too.”
Her sister-in-law hadn’t even broken a sweat. Her hair was beautifully brushed, and her lip gloss gleamed. For the briefest moment, Daisy considered whether she should have asked for an epidural, but then she remembered the birth plan she and Ken had worked out. She’d made him promise to remind her she didn’t want one.
“Valerie’s had enough pain to last a lifetime,” Brad said.
Daisy knew he alluded to an abusive relationship that ended with Valerie thrown from a second-story window. “Right. I don’t blame her.” She felt the tightening of her muscles and looked at Ken. “We better go… oh!”
She gripped the footboard of the bed and breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Ken immediately came to her side and put his hands on her hips. Somehow, his touch actually made things better, helped her cope.
As soon as the contraction eased, she straightened and said, “I think we better go back to our room.”
“Can’t wait to get together with all of us tonight,” Valerie said with a grin. “Three babies on the same day. I wonder what those odds are?”
Brad walked over to the side of her bed and picked up her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “God is not limited by odds,” he said gruffly.
Kendidn’t know how much more he could take. Every time Daisy cried out, he wanted to make it stop. He wanted to make the person hurting her regret doing so, but he had no one to blame. He had to passively accept her pain, and he did not like that.
She stayed out of bed as long as she could. She felt better standing and bending and then walking off the contraction after it ended. At one point, hours after they arrived, her water broke. That’s when the nurse put her in bed.
Doctor Reynolds came in and confirmed that she was close. “I’ve just left Valerie. I’m sure you’ll hear her news soon,” she said, stripping off her gloves and going to the door. “I’m going to grab a coffee, but I will be right back. It won’t be long now.”
As the doctor left and the door shut behind her, his mother came in. “Valerie had a girl. She’s doing great. Both of them are.”
“Another girl!” Daisy exclaimed.
Ken stood and slipped his hands in his pockets. “Valerie’s okay? No hip issues?”
Rosaline shook her head. “No. I think they’ll know more once she gets up and moves around.”
Ken checked his watch and paced to the window, staring out onto the parking lot. Daisy had started labor six hours ago. “Can’t believe you all went into labor on the same day.”
Daisy turned her head and smiled at him. “Kind of speaks more to God’s hand, doesn’t it?” She spoke in a rough, exhausted voice.
The emotion that filled him at that thought took his breath away. He nodded but did not speak. Instead, he looked from his wife to his mother and then back out the window and thought about thirty-three years ago and his mom giving birth to three baby boys in one day. He wondered if they would have a girl, making it three girls today.
A nurse came in, very chipper and loud. Ken hadn’t seen her yet. She had a singsong voice that made the muscles in his neck tense. “How are we doing?”
Daisy smiled at her, always gracious. “They said I’m close.”
The nurse nodded. “I know your birth plan says no epidural, but you’re getting close to the point where it will be too late to have one if you don’t get one now. Is that still your wish?”
Ken turned and avoided saying anything. He had promised to help talk her out of getting one if she claimed to want one, but he didn’t realize how much pain she would actually experience. He also had not anticipated how he would react to seeing her in pain. Why not? Why had he not taken that into account ahead of time? He waited to see what she would say.
“Maybe,” Daisy looked at Ken with pleading eyes. “No. No, I don’t think so. I don’t want one.”
The nurse patted her pocket and said, “Then I guess you don’t need this IV. I’m going to leave it in here just case we need to get to a vein.” She set it on a silver tray that already had some medical implements laid out.
The way Daisy cried and moaned during the contractions, he knew they had grown in intensity and, with that, pain. Ken didn’t understand her desire to experience the pain, but he had to respect it. The helplessness and impotence he experienced with each contraction frustrated him like nothing he had ever known.
