by Laura Abbot
His father’s features relaxed and, with a sigh, he smiled. “Yes, son. We’ll try.”
“YOUR HUSBAND’S HERE,” Dr. Ellis announced, peeling off her rubber gloves. “I’d say he’s just in time. You’re dilated to eight.” When the doctor stood aside, Grant hastened to Pam’s bedside. She was so relieved when he returned. His presence soothed her in a way back rubs and foot massages never could.
He picked up her hand and held it against his chest. “How’re you doing?”
“I just want it over,” she moaned. “Why can’t this baby hurry up?”
“I guess he takes after his mother. Wants to make a grand entrance.”
She couldn’t hear the rest of what Grant said. She closed her eyes and screwed up her face. Through the red mist of a strong contraction, she made out his one word. “Breathe.”
From the foot of the bed, a nurse said, “It won’t be long, now, honey. But you’ve got to work with me.”
Her body felt as if a battering ram had taken up residence in her pelvis. No sooner would one wave crest and break than another would take its place. The only constants were Grant’s deep voice and his gentle hand tenderly wiping the damp hair off her forehead. “Please!” she heard herself call out.
Time stood still, yet rushed past with a fury, bringing with each movement of the clock hand another spasm.
“Don’t push,” the nurse admonished.
Dr. Ellis swept into the room, gowned and masked, her eyes dancing. “Show time, Mama.”
“Thank God,” Pam managed to say before becoming aware the room had suddenly been transformed into a brightly lit surgical theater.
“Breathe, then hold it,” the doctor said.
Pam felt herself lifted and cradled in Grant’s strong arms.
“Now—” the obstetrician’s voice was emphatic “—Push.”
Pam gripped the sheet and bore down with all her might. She felt tears on her cheeks as she slumped against Grant, helpless to deliver the massive weight pinning her to the bed.
“Rest.” The nurse sponged her face.
“One or two more,” the doctor intoned.
Again the cataclysm—cramping, exploding.
“Okay, okay,” Dr. Ellis murmured. “The head is crowning.”
Pam knew she couldn’t possibly do anything more. They’d just have to take the baby some other way. “I can’t.”
Suddenly Dr. Ellis stood over her. “Stay with me, Pam. Your baby wants to meet you.”
Then Pam was filled with a fierce urge, magical in its intensity, followed by a rapturous kind of pain.
“Push!” the doctor ordered.
Then, as if a huge hole had been blown in the dam of her body, she felt release, and almost before she could process the change, the doctor held up a tiny, perfect infant, bawling its head off in greeting.
“You have a beautiful baby girl,” Dr. Ellis said, beaming. “Would you like to hold her?”
Would I like to hold her? Pam held out her arms. “Thank you, thank you all.” Then she welcomed her daughter, wrapped loosely in a warm blanket. A miracle. Amazingly, the baby quit crying while Grant cut the umbilical cord, and then through unfocused deep blue eyes studied her mother.
The medical personnel were busy doing something at the other end of the bed, but Pam didn’t care. Her precious baby was here. Safe and sound.
Then she looked up at Grant, intending to thank him. The words died on her lips. He made no attempt to wipe away the tears streaming down his cheeks. “You’re so beautiful,” he said to her, his eyes awash with love. Then he looked at the baby. “You both are,” he whispered.
Holding her daughter, gazing at the man she loved—a man who’d stood by her even through this miracle—she knew that her dad was right. She could no longer risk the pain of not knowing.
She offered him her daughter. “Here, you take her.”
His eyes clouded with uncertainty. “You’re sure?”
“Oh, yes.” She placed the baby in Grant’s arm, tucking the blanket around the tiny form. Then she found his eyes. “I’m sure, because I love you so very much.”
For one heartbeat, she thought he was going to drop the baby, but he recovered, nestling her even closer to his chest. His voice caught. “Does this mean what I think it does?”
Her eyes never left his. “What do you think it means?”
Cradling the baby like a football, he reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. “I hope it means that I can tear this up.” It was their written agreement. “That we don’t have to wait till September to decide about the rest of our lives.”
Gently he placed the baby in her arms, catching one of her hands and kissing it reverently. “I love you, Pam. I’ve loved you from the beginning, all along, and most especially right now.”
She felt a warm glow radiating throughout her body. She sighed contentedly, pointed to their contract, and then smiled into his dear face. “Tear away, beloved.”
ANDY COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. They were letting him in the delivery room. Right away. “Is it a boy or a girl?” he asked the smiling nurse.
She winked. “Why don’t you come see?”
He opened the door carefully, peering around the edge. He didn’t wanna walk in on, well, yucky stuff.
“Son? Come in.”
His dad sat on the edge of the bed, his arm around Pam. Cradled in her arms was this round-faced baby with squinty eyes, rosy-red cheeks and lots of black hair. Andy edged closer. “Jeez, he’s kinda little.”
Both his dad and Pam chuckled like they were in on some big joke. “What’s so funny?” He didn’t know crap about babies. Had he said something wrong?
“She, Andy, she,” Pam said with one of those laughs like warm butter.
“You mean it’s a girl?” That was weird. He’d all along figured it was a boy. He hung his head for a minute, remembering all that energy he’d wasted being jealous of a brother.
His dad’s eyes danced. “Do you need to check the equipment?”
“That’s okay.” He took another step closer. “She’s got lotsa hair, doesn’t she?”
“She’ll lose most of it,” Pam told him. “The main thing is she’s eight healthy pounds of baby.” She motioned toward a chair. “Pull that over here and sit down. Then I’ll let you hold her.”
“That’s all right. I don’t know any thing about—”
His dad muscled the chair into position. “Nonsense. Every man’s got to do it sometime. She won’t bite.”
The next thing he knew he was sitting there with this warm, squirming baby in his arms. She smelled good, like talcum powder or something. And she kept moving these rosebud lips and making little kissing noises. A girl. He still couldn’t get over it. Just let any creeps try going out on a date with her. He’d show ’em. “She’s awesome. It feels kinda like she’s our baby, you know, Dad?”
“Yes, son, I do know.”
“What’s her name?”
Dad looked at Pam like he didn’t have a clue. But she didn’t seem perturbed at all. “She doesn’t have one yet.” Andy watched Pam gaze up at his dad with these really goo-goo eyes. Then she reached over and held his dad’s hand. Andy might as well not have been in the room. Finally she turned back toward him. “That’s your job.”
For a minute he thought the baby would slip through his fingers. He held her tight. “My job? Whaddya mean?”
There it came again. The laugh that made him feel warm all the way through. “I want you to name your sister.”
Sister. How could that be? This wasn’t Dad’s child. Maybe she’d made a mistake. But then like the sun rising after a stormy night, it came to him. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“What?” His dad seemed really interested in what he was going to say.
“It’s not biology that does it. It’s love.”
“That does what?”
Andy leaned down and nuzzled the baby’s cheek. When he raised up, he had the answer. “That makes us a family.”
/> “YEAH, GRAMPS, she’s got all this fat, wrinkly skin and waves her hands kinda funny, like she’s lookin’ for something she can’t find.”
Pam lay back in her bed, gazing fondly at Andy, who stood at the foot of the bassinet, the phone at his ear while he studied his sister. She was exhausted, but she’d never been so happy in her entire life. Grant had already made a list of the people at school they needed to call and you’d have thought Andy had, in a matter of hours, become an expert on infants.
“It was really cool to be at the hospital. I drove Pam here, you know.”
There was no mistaking the pride in Andy’s voice. “You prob’ly wanna talk to her.”
Andy handed her the phone. “Hi, Dad.”
“A girl, huh? You hornswoggled me. I just knew it was a boy. But if she’s half the little girl you were, you’ve got a genuine winner.”
“She’s a miracle, Daddy.”
“How’s Grant doing?”
She turned her gaze to her strong, handsome husband. “He’s quite a man.”
“Are you tryin’ to tell me somethin’?”
“I sure am.”
He chortled. “Got yourself a reg’lar little family there, then?”
“As regular as love can make it.”
“Goldurn, dumplin’, I couldn’t be happier.”
“Me, either.”
“Say, I got the full physical description from Andy. But you’ve gotta register a name for that foal, don’t you?”
“That’s up to Andy.”
“Andy? Put that young ’un back on the line.”
Pam held out the phone. “I don’t think Gramps is going to let you off the hook. It’s name time.”
Grant looked first at her, then at Andy. “This is special,” he said as he moved to the bassinet and picked up his daughter, who grabbed his finger in her fist and held on tight.
Andy took the receiver. “It’s me again…. Her name? That’s easy.”
Pam held her breath. Anything was possible with Andy.
“Ready?” Andy was playing the moment for all it was worth. “I figured she needed a name from both our families, since she’s kinda the, whaddya call it—” he glanced at Pam as if for corroboration “—the symbol of our new family. My middle name is Paige. So I decided we could name her Pamela Paige Gilbert and call her Paige.”
Andy looked at Pam again, a question in his expression.
“It’s lovely, Andy. A beautiful…symbol.”
Andy expelled a sigh of relief. “I did good, Gramps. They like it.” Then he paused, before adding a comment. “But next time I’m gonna ask if they can try for a boy.”
Pam’s eyes welled with tears as she took in the scene, inscribing each one in her heart. Dear Andy. Precious Paige. Loving Grant.
Best of all, she knew that, at last, they were a family. A real one. The forever kind.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4070-4
YOU’RE MY BABY
Copyright © 2002 by Laura A. Shoffner.
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