I thank her, pull the door open, and step inside.
Pippa
I’ve cried a few times, about Aiden not turning up, and flip-flopped between calling him every cuss word I can think of and trying to rationalize his absence, while Valerie has sat here with me, nodding and agreeing with whatever I say.
Now that she’s gone to get some drinks, I’m left to sit quietly on the propped-up hospital bed and think. I think I’ve managed to come to terms with what’s happening as best as I’ll be able to before it actually happens, so instead of thinking about labor and pushing and all of that imminent drama, I find myself thinking about Aiden.
Things would be so much easier if he were here with me. I imagine him standing over my bed, like he was earlier, looking protective, getting irritated when the nurses keep pestering me with the same questions over and over. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the bed, thinking back to the cabin and the carriage ride around Central Park.
It’s almost cruel, the way these most lovely memories are flooding into my mind, when he seems to have abandoned me in my hour of need. I feel a roll of anger bubbling up in my chest. I can even remember stupid, little things, like him placing his finger under my chin and telling me I’m beautiful, when I stood in the middle of a busy street in my work clothes, feeling anything but.
“Prick,” I say, out loud.
“I know.”
My eyes fly open and I sit bolt-upright in the bed.
Aiden is standing there holding a comically large teddy bear. To say he looks haggard would be an understatement. His hair is a mess, the bottoms of his jeans are damp and muddy, and he has a five-o’clock shadow under anxiety-riddled eyes.
“You left,” I say quickly, frowning the accusation at him, and I’m mortified as, yet again, I feel tears spring up to my eyes and my bottom lip begins to quiver.
“Yes,” he says, with real shame in his voice. “But not by choice. I got kicked out by security.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Pip. I froze. When the doctor came out and told me about the baby,” he glances down to my tummy, and I instinctively drop a hand onto it. “I just… it was shock. And hospitals,” he says, glancing around the room. “God, I hate hospitals. I was so worried when you were in such pain. I felt like I was right back there with…”
“Sophie,” I interject.
He nods, looking guilty, and despite the lingering anger, I want to reach out and hold him. But I don’t. I’m not quite ready to forgive him yet.
“By the time I got a grip of myself and came in, they’d moved you down here. And then this goddamn harridan receptionist wouldn’t let me in.”
I press my lips together, restraining the urge to laugh as I imagine him being dressed down by the sour-faced old woman who was at the desk when I was brought in.
“She called security, and they kicked me out and banned me for 24 hours.”
“But… you’re here.”
“Lexi and Dave pulled a stunt to get me in.”
“Lexi and Dave are here?” I ask. Everything is beginning to slot into place in my mind.
“Yeah,” he says, nodding. And then he shakes his head, looking a bit like a big, shaggy dog trying to shake off water. “Listen, Pip,” he says, straightening. He drops the teddy onto a chair and steps over to the bed, sitting down on the edge of it. There is a tiny, reluctant part of me that wants to push him away, but as soon as he reaches for my hand and I feel his warm skin, familiar against mine, I look up to him.
“Listen,” he says, looking deadly serious. “I love you.”
My heart performs some sort of somersault in my chest, and I swallow hard, staring at him.
“I know it was only a week in the cabin, but it was the best week of my life... until I found you again. I’d been so convinced for so long that I’d just live out my days alone, half-empty, throwing myself into work like my life depended on it, to fill the void. And I know you’re going through a lot right now, and this baby is a bigger shock to you than to anyone else, but, God, Pippa. I love you. I know it more clearly than I’ve ever known anything in my life.
“The world is turning upside-down, right now. For both of us. But the only thing I know for sure is that if I have to live upside-down, I want you right there with me, upside-down, too. And I know we didn’t plan this…” he says, and places his hand down over mine, over my tummy, where our baby is nestled quietly, oblivious to all their parents’ drama.
“But I want it. I want this Christmas to be the first of so, so many for us. And this doesn’t change a thing,” he says, glancing to my tummy.
I feel the first tear fall down my cheek, and Aiden uses his free hand to catch it before it reaches my chin, wiping it away.
“Well, alright,” he goes on, with a little smirk on his mouth that pits his cheek with a dimple. “It’s probably going to change quite a lot of things…”
A laugh bursts out of my mouth, and I feel a huge wave of relief. The tears are flowing freely down my cheeks, now.
“But it doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” He moves, getting up from the bed, and I feel my face pull into a puzzled little frown as I wipe the tears away with my hands.
“So. What do you say?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box, turning it toward me. He opens it and drops down out of sight. I lean over a little to see him, down beside the bed... on one knee.
Realization starts to settle in and I gasp as I see the ring, holding a hand over my mouth in perhaps the most ridiculous, stereotypically girly reaction I’ve ever had to anything.
“Want to live upside-down with me, forever?” he asks, looking up.
Every emotion in the known universe seems to hit me at once. I feel almost light-headed with relief, and suddenly, without having to think about it, I know that I can face anything the world throws at me if I’m with Aiden. I don’t trust myself to say anything without ugly-crying all over him—again—so I nod. I nod so much I feel like my head might fall off.
“Not bad, boss,” I hear. I look up to see Valerie in the door, smiling, and Lexi and Dave crowding both her shoulders to see in. Dave is giving me a big thumbs up and grinning, and Lexi has tears in her eyes and gives me a happy little wave. Before I can return it, Aiden is on his feet with his arms around me.
He kisses me, and I melt into it, feeling all the pressure and worry and anxiety I’ve been feeling all day just melt right out of me. He cups my face in his hands, the ring box held awkwardly between his thumb and forefinger, and then pulls back to look at me.
“The ring definitely doesn’t fit,” he says, and I laugh as Valerie, Lexi and Dave crowd into the room. Aiden pushes the far-too-big ring onto my finger, and I’m suddenly receiving hugs and kisses from everywhere. I see Valerie hugging Aiden and Dave hugging the giant teddy bear, and Lexi is thumbing away on her phone to god-knows-who. I feel like a ton-weight has been lifted from my shoulders—so much so, that I’ve quite forgotten I’m in the middle of a stalled labor.
“Pippa,” says the doctor I saw just a short while ago, walking back through the door. He stops dead, a clipboard in his hand, and his brows go up as his gaze flicks from Aiden to Dave and the teddy bear, to Valerie and then Lexi, who is now holding my hand and admiring the temporary ring as it dangles on my finger. The doctor smiles.
Everyone turns to look at him, and the room is suddenly silent.
“We have a birthing room available,” he says, quietly. He’s a small, neat man with an efficient air about him and an amiable smile. “Ready?”
My heart is hammering again, pounding away in my chest so hard I’m surprised I’m not being thrown around the bed. I swallow hard and shake my head. “Not really.”
“You are,” says Val, gently, leaning down to give me a hug. “You’ll be great.”
“Yeah,” says Dave, putting the teddy back down on the chair. He comes over and gives me a hug, too. “And if you’re not, Aiden will be right there with you
for you to punch.”
“Hey!” says Aiden. He looks a little tense again, but he’s grinning. Dave pulls him into a bear hug with a lot of manly back-slapping, and I could swear that the big mountain-man is getting a little teary-eyed.
“We’re not going anywhere, either,” Lexi says, leaning down to kiss me on the cheek. “We’ll see you soon.”
“Alright, then,” I say, and blow out a big sigh. I gather every ounce of inner strength I can muster and look up to the doctor. “Ready.”
Aiden
“HnngggyaaaAAAAAAH!”
What in the ever-living fuck possessed me to think this would be plain sailing?!? I think I was picturing a jaunt to the maternity unit, some clean little medical procedure, and then we’d head home with our baby in time to catch the evening news. I must have somehow, down the years, convinced myself that the movies exaggerate childbirth for the sake of drama. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.
Pippa has been writhing in pain every few minutes since they injected her with something called Pitocin to “get things moving”. Thinking back on the happy, reassuring smile on the doctor’s face when he said those words, I am now convinced that he might actually be the world’s most sadistic villain.
“HNGYAAAH!”
Pippa’s nails dig into my arm as she dips her head and pants along with the nurse, waiting for the contraction to ease off. I’ve never felt so completely helpless as I do right now, standing beside her, rubbing my hand firmly across the lower back to try to ease the pain. We’ve been up and down in and out of the bed, into the shower, onto some huge beach-ball-looking thing, into a pool for God’s sake, and now we’re back here for the nurse to check how she’s doing. The contractions are coming thick and fast, and this one hit just as Pippa lay back down.
“Okay, it’s stopped,” she says, breathing purposefully through pursed lips and nodding. She looks exhausted. Apart from screaming when the contractions peak, she’s barely complained at all.
“Right, let’s have a check,” says the nurse, pulling on a pair of gloves and dipping down between Pippa’s legs.
“Drink?” I ask, holding out a cup of water to her. The straw dangles about in front of her face. Pippa looks up at me and manages a wry little smile, shaking her head.
I can’t blame her. I’ve probably offered her water a hundred times in the last hour, it being one of the only useful things I can actually do. I have an entire new vocabulary now than I did when I walked in. I now know exactly what a contraction is, I know that they have peaks, I know what crowning is, what dilation is and the numbers we’re going for. The nurses are probably sick of answering my questions.
“Alright, we’re at ten,” says the nurse.
I didn’t think it was possible for Pippa to squeeze my hand any harder, but she manages it.
“Ten centimeters?” I ask. The panic is probably writ large all over my face, and when I look down, I see the same thing on Pippa’s.
I have to get a grip. I’m supposed to be here for her, supporting and helping her, not worrying and panicking and making her think something’s wrong. I even out my features, manage to smile at her, and nod.
“Here we go, babe,” I say. She seems to find my act convincing, because she fixes her big, beautiful blue eyes on me and nods, squeezing my arm even harder.
Time seems to have moved so slowly all day, but now that the moment has arrived, everything kicks into overdrive. More nurses enter the room, and the doctor makes an appearance for the first time since approving the Pitocin.
The contractions keep coming, and then, suddenly, Pippa is screaming about needing to push. A nurse on the other side of her is coaching her through breathing, and the doctor is at the end of the birthing bed, giving us updates on what’s happening. It seems like there are only seconds between contractions now, and Pippa listens to every instruction she’s given. She’s a warrior. She pushes, stops, breathes, pushes, stops, breathes. I rub her back, pull her hair back from where it’s stuck to her forehead.
“One last push!” calls the doctor.
Just as the clock ticks over to Christmas Day, Pippa takes a couple of deep breaths and bears down, her face going deep red as she squeezes my hand, half-crushing my fingers in the process. There’s a delighted murmur around the room, and then, a second later, the unmistakable cry of an infant fills the air.
My head snaps up from Pippa, and I see the doctor holding a tiny human attached to a long, purple-grey… tube. A baby. My baby. Our baby, I realize, as I look back to Pippa.
She is overcome with emotion, wearing a huge, exhausted smile with tears streaming down her cheeks. I lean down to kiss her and then wipe her tears away with my thumbs.
“Congratulations!” says the doctor. “A beautiful baby girl.”
It’s only when Pippa reaches up and swipes her thumb under my left eye that I realize I’ve shed a tear, too.
“Here she is,” says the nurse, laying our cleaned up, bundled up daughter down on Pippa’s chest.
There are some moments in life that you instantly know you’ll remember forever. Seeing Pippa’s face in the restaurant window was one. Looking down at my daughter and my future wife for the very first time is another. I feel a tear leak from my eye and swipe it away, leaning in to kiss the top of Pippa’s head and get a better look at our daughter.
“She has your mouth,” Pippa says, looking up at me. She’s still a little flushed, but she’s beaming a smile brighter than I’ve ever seen. She’s never been so beautiful.
“Poor kid,” I try to joke, but my voice wavers around the lump in my throat.
“We just need to take her for some checks,” says a nurse, coming to Pippa’s side after allowing us an appropriate amount of time to stare at her in dumbstruck wonder. “Perfectly routine. We won’t be long.”
Pippa lets our baby go, reluctantly, and I help her through the rest of her labor under the guidance of the most senior nurse. It isn’t long before we’re reunited with our little bundle, and we all move into a recovery ward.
Pippa and I are talking quietly while the baby sleeps on her chest, snickering about all the silly names we come up with, when the nurse comes into the room.
“Well, congratulations on your Christmas baby,” she says. “First one of the day, this year. Any names yet?” she asks.
We both shake our heads.
“Not yet,” says Pippa. “We didn’t know we were going to have to name a person until earlier today.”
“Ah, that’s right,” says the nurse. “Well, plenty of time. And you did so well, especially given the circumstances. You must be exhausted.”
“She should sleep, right?” I say. I’ve asked Pippa to get some rest every few minutes since we got into the ward, but she keeps telling me she will “in a few minutes”. She’s as smitten with our baby girl as I am.
Pippa nudges me with her free elbow, and the nurse smiles.
“You should try to get some rest, yes,” she tells Pippa, and I give my fiancée a smug little smile, earning me another dig in the ribs.
“It was an entirely uncomplicated birth, so the doctor says you can go home in the morning, after he’s seen you, and spend Christmas at home. As long as you make sure to get a checkup in a few days.”
“Great,” says Pippa. Her voice crackles a little and her eyelids are droopy. The nurse takes that as her cue to leave, congratulating us again.
“Do you want me to tell Lexi and Dave to go to Lexi’s place tomorrow instead of coming over to mine?” I ask Pippa, settling down in the chair beside her bed and running my finger over the back of our daughter’s tiny little hand.
“No!” she says, far more forcefully than I expect. “No, let’s all be together. I’d like that a lot. I mean, if that’s alright with you?” Even in her exhausted state, she manages puppy eyes that would melt the devil’s heart.
“Sure,” I say. “But only on the condition that you promise me you’ll rest now. And tomorrow if you need to.” I look down at the baby. “M
ind if I take her out to meet everyone?” I ask. “Or do you want me to wait?”
“Oh! No, I don’t mind at all,” she says. She hands our daughter over to me and I place her in the crib for a moment to give Pippa some attention. I lean down and pull the blankets up under her chin, and linger a slow kiss on her lips.
“You were a warrior, babe,” I say.
She smiles at me, sleepily, and I take the baby out of the crib again and hold her in my arms, sitting in the chair until I hear Pippa’s breathing even out to the low and steady rhythm of slumber. I kiss her on the forehead one last time, and then lean down to my gurgling daughter and whisper: “Come on, let’s go meet some people.”
Valerie and Lexi are both sleeping under Lexi’s coat, and Dave is lounging across three chairs, scrolling through his phone with one eye half-open and the other closed. I look up at the clock and it’s just after 1am.
“Hey!” says Dave, as soon as he spots me. He shoots to his feet and stumbles a step or two, coming over with his gaze fixed on the bundle in my arms.
“Holy shit,” he says. “I mean. Holy poop.” I grin at him and chuckle.
“Isn’t she the coolest thing?” I ask him.
“She?” he says. “Aww. Hey, Lex, look.”
I look over, and Lexi has stirred from her sleep. She gives Valerie a nudge, and they’re both over with us in seconds, all four of us looking down at this tiny bundle of perfection in my arms, all of us speaking in hushed voices.
“How’s Pippa?” asks Valerie.
“Tired,” I say. “She was amazing. She just fell asleep a few minutes ago. But she wanted you all to meet our daughter.”
“Can I hold her?” Lexi asks, holding out her arms.
I oblige her, ever so carefully passing the little bundle off to Lexi and watching as my sister meets her niece for the very first time.
“Nothing but the very best designer everything for you, little one,” she whispers, and Dave rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. He’s still smiling, though, and the four of us are still staring at the baby as Lexi holds her.
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