* * *
Eventually, a new nurse stirs me from sleep.
“Do you mind if I see how far you are?”
She seems friendlier than the other nurses I’ve encountered today. She has skin the color of cinnamon and has one of the warmest smiles I’ve ever seen.
I spread my legs again, inviting her to do her job, and wince at the pressure.
“Are you ready to have your baby? Because you’re at a ten! I’ll go get the doctor, but take a few moments to yourselves and get ready, because it’s time.”
The realization of what is about to happen hits and I completely panic. “Oh my God. I’m not ready for this, Jeff. I can’t do it. Make it stop! I’m not ready to be a mom. I won’t be good at it. There’s no way anyone here at the hospital is going to allow me to take home a baby.”
Jeff wipes a rogue tear from my cheek, then grabs both of my hands in his and leans in so he’s only inches away from my face.
“First of all, there’s no way that this amazing woman before me is incapable of being a bad mother. You’re incredible and selfless and kind and giving. You are all of the things that it takes to be an awesome mom.” His words melt my insides, and his eyes are zeroed in on mine. He’s being completely serious. “And besides, they are absolutely going to send this kid home with us. Babies are built to withstand first-time parents. You’ve got this. We’ve got this.”
His words bring me serenity and confidence. “Do you always know the right thing to say?”
He beams down at me and kisses my lips gently. “Yep, and all the wrong things, too.”
Everything moves in slow motion around us in preparation. I’m caught off guard when another familiar voice calls to me from the doorway, breaking me away from the last pre-baby moment I’m sharing with Jeff. It’s a voice that I never thought I’d hear again … or rather, wanted to hear again.
“Oh my God … Fire Crotch! Is that you?”
My head snaps to see Leo in mint green scrubs, looking at my file as he walks in. You have got to be kidding me. The universe has a sick sense of humor. If I wasn’t already a nervous wreck, I certainly was now.
“Leo … wha … what are you doing here?”
“It’s Dr. Wallace, actually. I’m an obstetrician,” he says, clarifying the obvious.
“I thought you were a podiatrist or something out in California.”
He gives me a smirk and a pointed eyebrow raise as if to say, Nope!
“You two know each other?” the nurse asks. She continues checking information on the computer without missing a beat.
Leo approaches the side of my bed and gives me a hug. “We do! Henley’s my girl!”
“Was,” I snap at him then look to Jeff. “I … uh … dated Leo many moons ago. And really, it wasn’t even dating. Leo was a small speed bump on the way to finding you.” This isn’t awkward or anything. I give him a reassuring smile.
“Wait. How do you know my fiancee?”
“Oh? You’re engaged to Henley?” Leo looks down at my bare hand and smirks. My hands have been so swollen that I haven’t worn the engagement ring in weeks.
“Yeah.” Jeff stands a little taller and squeezes my hand.
“Right. Sure.” The clip in Leo’s voice confirms disbelief.
Jeff looks from me to Leo and back to me again as he’s trying to put the pieces of the puzzle in place.
“Leo was a boyfriend of mine in college,” I reiterate.
“Wait a minute! Is this the sleeping dorm dude? Mr. Three Minute Wonder Pants?”
Leo whips his head to look at Jeff. “What’d you say?”
Of all the embarrassing and awkward moments I’ve ever endured, this one surely tops the list.
“I said, Mr. Three Min—“
“Both of you … STOP IT!” I snap, wishing for the peace and quiet after the anesthesiologist left.
Leo seems on board with effectively shutting down that conversation. “Fine. We can talk about this later. Because right now, it’s time to have a baby.”
“Wait … you’re going to deliver my baby?” Jeff says, slow to add the pieces together. He’s clearly uneasy with my ex being elbows deep in my lady bits—and he should be!
“Our baby,” I correct him.
Jeff’s expression turns nervous as if he isn’t sure if he wants to pee on my leg to stake his claim or cower down to whatever the doctor says. He wrestles his thoughts before speaking again.
“You know what, Dr. Wallace? I don’t think it’s really appropriate for you to be the one here delivering our baby. Isn’t there anyone else available?”
Leo folds his arms defensively and gives me a glare that is somehow still laced with kindness and humor. It’s almost reminiscent of the man I once dated.
Almost.
The pair bicker back and forth for a few minutes as I grow increasingly more uncomfortable. I push the epidural button a few times, trying to numb me from this reality, but there’s no escaping it. It’s clear …
If I’m going to have this baby, I’m stuck with Leo.
“Look, if you like, Henley can simply cross her legs and wait for her primary obstetrician to be out of surgery, but that could take a while. Or, you can buck up, be a man, and let me deliver this baby safely. Your call, champ!”
Jeff knows he’s been outmatched. “Fine.” he grits begrudgingly through his teeth.
And then it happens.
In a snap, the entire room transforms. The number of nurses has doubled, part of the bed drops out, and the stirrups are hoisted up into sight. And just as I swallow hard to brace myself, a blinding light is turned on. It’s bad enough that my goodies are about to be on display for my ex-boyfriend to see, but now we have a spotlight shining down upon it. You know, just in case he didn’t get a close enough look all those years ago and wants to commit every fold, nook and cranny to memory.
I take a deep breath and silently hope that the last time I blindly shaved down there didn’t leave any ridiculous patches because Lord knows I felt like Helen Keller in the shower trying to shave by feel.
Leo has thoroughly washed his hands and sports a stoic, professional expression. I’m relieved to see he means business now. I can’t help but feel nervous as I watch him position himself between my legs, and just before he falls out of sight to help deliver this baby, he has the audacity to wink at me.
The fucker.
“There she is!” Leo sing-songs from my nether regions. Clearly nothing ever changes. I fight the urge to drive the heel of my foot right through his nose. I’m half tempted to cross my legs and wait for another doctor to become available, just as he suggested. I mean, it can’t be that long of a wait, can it?
“Hey! Keep it professional, Doc!” Jeff snaps.
“Eh, there’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Here, come and grab a leg, old sport!”
I can only hope the ‘nothing I haven’t seen before’ comment was a testament to his medical background and not a cheap dig at our former sex life.
Just as I feel Jeff’s hand on my shin, I panic. If he’s holding me leg, he’s going to see everything.
Everything.
And some things should remain sacred.
My mind wanders to the inevitable poop talk I had with Tara, and I’m eager to keep Jeff up toward my head and shoulders. “No! Stay up here … with me … please!” I cry out desperately.
His eyes dart to mine with concern. “Henley, I’m right here.”
“No, I want you to hold my hand.”
“Babe, I thought you were okay with me watching the birth of our child. “
“I know … it’s just that … I’ve changed my mind.” I bite my lip nervously, willing him to simply read my thoughts and hightail his tush back up here with me.
“Ah! I know what this is about …” Leo interrupts, looking at me over my stomach.
“You do?” Jeff’s head whips back to the base of the hospital bed.
“Yep. Fire Crotch here is afraid she’s going to defecate on the table. Classic paranoia. I see it in labor and delivery all the time.”
I cringe at his word. So clinical. So gross. And so right on the money.
“That happens?” Jeff tries to hide his mortification.
“Yes, sir.” Leo looks back toward me with a serious expression on his face. “Did you have Mexican last night?”
“No.”
“Did you eat Chinese food? I remember how that would often upset your stomach.”
“No!” I shout, getting angrier by the moment. Surely there is some doctor code where you can’t stare down the vagina of a former lover to deliver her baby. It seems like this would be simple, medical law. You know, if that were actually a thing.
“Then stop being so ridiculous,” Leo commands. “Jeff, you stay right here and be my right stirrup.”
Jeff obeys, and I open my mouth to plead with him one last time, but he speaks before I can even form the word.
“Calm down, Henley. You’re going to be fine. This is the birth of our child. So stop focusing on poop because we’re both going to be up to our elbows in it the next few years. Shit happens. I’ll deal with it, but you need to find a way to get over it.”
And with the next contraction about to overtake my body, I do.
* * *
After close to thirty minutes of pushing, I feel like we’ve gotten nowhere. But according to everyone standing south of my equator, I’m making “excellent progress.”
They lie.
Because if my progress was so excellent, I’d have a kid in my arms and I’d be blissfully resting without my muff on display like it was the winning prize purse in the Showcase Showdown.
I’ve been watching Jeff intently and he’s given nothing away. So if I have, indeed, pooped I am none the wiser. But let’s just say that hopefully hasn’t been a problem because there are some places that couples simply should not go.
“Okay. This next contraction, I want you to give me a really big push, Henley.”
He’s joking, right?
“Haven’t all of these pushes been really big?”
Leo says nothing, but gives me a pointed look and then up at the monitor to gauge the next contraction. “And, push!”
And I oblige.
I close my eyes and push with all of my might. It doesn’t hurt as much as I was expecting, but holy crap, this is a lot of uncomfortable pressure. A nurse counts down backward from ten. I wish she’d count faster so I can stop pushing.
“Go, baby, go, baby, go, baby, go!” Jeff cheers me on exactly like he has with every push. It’s quite endearing. Though I’m not sure if he’s calling me baby, or trying to convince the baby to crawl out of my body.
“I can see your baby’s head! You’re crowning.” Leo explains. “It has a full head of hair. Do you want to reach down and feel?”
I shake my head.
“Come on, Henley. It’s really quite amazing,” he coaxes.
“Oh … my … god …” I feel Jeff’s fingertips digging harder and harder into the skin of my calves with each word. He’s no longer looking me in the eyes, and the next thing I know, he’s on the floor and my leg flops down onto the table as dead weight. It’s a damn good thing I’m numb from the waist down because that probably would have hurt a lot. What else could possibly happen to make this day more eventful?
“Man down!” Leo shouts a little too enthusiastically. I half expect him to make fun of my fiance for hitting the floor, but he’s focused on the task at hand, so a nurse rushes the room to tend a passed out Jeff.
“Really, Henley? You couldn’t find a real man to be with?”
There it is!
And now he’s just being cruel.
Jeff quickly comes to with his arms flailing around. Then he’s in my face, kissing my cheeks and apologizing profusely for missing the birth.
“We’re still in labor and delivery, sweetie.” I laugh, thankful he was only out for a moment.
A nurse brings him a chair and encourages him to take it easy. He pulls it right up next to my bed and grabs my hand tightly. I’m glad he’s okay, but secretly I’m relieved he’s relinquished his front row seat. Maybe that was Karma’s way of paying him back for that pastrami sandwich from earlier?
“So glad you could join us,” Leo quips.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” I offer him a soft smile as I relax before the next wave of pushing.
“Henley, stop pussyfooting around. Another contraction is coming, and I need you to push like you mean it.”
And when the moment comes, I do.
And not because he told me to, but because I need this whole ordeal over and a baby in my arms. Just as the nurse begins her countdown again, Leo clears his throat dramatically.
“Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies … for amber waves of grain!”
I grit my teeth, clench my eyes shut, and push with every fiber of my being. The longer he sings, the more anger takes over and every muscle in my body tenses. And if I ever hated Leo before, I loathe him now. There is a special circle of hell waiting for this man. I take a mental note to Google voodoo doll curses when I get home. I want to make sure I give this ass a receding hairline and take sick pleasure as I stab the doll’s canvas crotch with tiny pins. Anything to make his dick shrivel up and fall off.
“Keep going! The baby is almost out!” the nurse holding my left leg says.
“Good, good! This is good, Henley!”
“Puh-push it real good!” Jeff sings in my ear.
Tears streak the corners of my eyes, and I know that this is both my best work and my hardest work. A sudden wave of pressure relief is met with the glorious cry of a red-faced child.
“It’s a girl!” Leo proclaims as he holds our daughter up in the air for us to see.
“What?” Jeff is genuinely shocked. I’ll never understand how or why he convinced himself that he was having a boy. It’s always been a fifty-fifty chance.
“It’s a little girl — congratulations! Would you like to come and cut the umbilical cord, Dad?”
I wipe the tears from my cheeks and watch as Jeff cuts the cord with a shaky hand. He reaches out to her, and this little human we created wraps her hand around his pinky finger.
“Hi, there. I’m your daddy.” It’s clear he’s smitten.
She doesn’t wail inconsolably like newborn babies do in the movies. Her initial cries turn quickly into soft, sweet murmurs, letting us know she’s here … that she’s okay. That’s she’s perfect.
They whisk her away to clean her up, weigh her, and run the APGAR tests. I watch as a nurse swaddles her in a soft pink blanket.
And that’s the moment before.
That single split second before everything in my entire life changes.
The nurse places her into my arms and instinct takes over. I shower her in kisses and soft whispers of love and savor the feeling of her skin upon mine. Whoever says they don’t believe in love at first sight, has never held their own newborn child in their arms. Because in an instant, I am enamored, and life revolves around her.
Jeff kisses my temple. “I am so proud of you,” he whispers before turning his attention to his daughter. “And you … you are absolutely beautiful. And I’m sorry that I’m going to have to lock you up until you’re forty.”
We’re all smiles in our own little bubble until Leo gives a not so subtle interrupting cough.
“Okay, the fun’s over, Mom and Dad.”
“We’re not done?”
“Nope! Now it’s time to deliver the placenta.”
Oh, shit.
9. THE AFTERMATH
Not long after the nurses have cleaned everything up, they transfer us to a private recovery room. That’s when the reality of our new normal set in.
Jeff and I haven’t so much as put her down for a second. I want her to know how loved and wanted she is. I know these days are numbered, and each one
is a gift I want to commit to memory.
My upper body naturally starts to sway as I cradle her in my arms. “What do you think we should name her?” I emphasize the last word as my subtle way of saying, you were wrong!
“Just so you know, I’m still holding out hope that this baby will grow a penis.”
“You are utterly ridiculous, Jeff.” I shake my head at him and deeply inhale the delicious new baby smell, savoring every moment of it. “What about Spencer? I’ve always loved the name Spencer for a little girl.”
“Hmm … Spencer.” The name rolls off his tongue gracefully, but I can tell he doesn’t love it as much as I do. “That’s a fine name and all, but what about something a little more girly? Lillian, perhaps? That was your grandmother’s name, right?”
The suggestion steals my breath and makes me smile. “Lillian is perfect. Lillian Elisabeth. For your grandmother, too.”
He leans down and kisses Lillian delicately on the forehead so he doesn’t stir her, then presses his lips to mine. Ever so gingerly, I pass Lillian to her father and melt as he softly begins to sing to her. Jeff wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know any lullabies, but I take great amusement in the fact he’s changing the words to the Jay-Z song and singing “I got ninety-nine problems but a baby ain’t one.” It’s impossible not to fall even further in love with Jeff, watching him dote over his daughter.
“Thank you …” I say softly, fighting the building tears in my eyes.
“For what?” His forehead creases and his eyes turn curious as he looks at me for a quick moment before diverting his attention back to Lillian.
“For everything. You’ve been so incredibly supportive throughout all of this.”
Everything is such a vague word, but it’s the only one I’ve got. He could have ran when he learned I was pregnant. But he didn’t. He gave me everything. And therefore he is my everything.
“Well, you’re my girl. Er … my girls. I’d do anything for you two.” He beams with genuineness.
“About that …”
Jeff cocks his eyebrow.
“You know how I’ve always said that I wanted to get married after I had the baby, right?”
“Yeah …” the word lingers in the space between us with uncertainty.
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