by A. D. Ryan
Nodding, Jensen supported me around the waist again, just in case I had another contraction—which was highly probable since they didn’t seem anywhere near consistent, making it hard for me to even judge when the next one would happen.
Just as Jensen predicted, upon hearing that we were headed to the hospital, Daddy said he’d take the dog over to Tom’s place and then meet us at the hospital. Even in his own frazzled state, he seemed to be more level–headed about what needed to be done.
After helping me into the passenger seat of the Edge, Jensen hopped behind the wheel, activating the BlueTooth and calling his parents to tell them what was happening.
“I’ll call everyone else, and we’ll meet you at the hospital,” Janet said before calling out for Henry and hanging up.
Rubbing my hands over my belly during that moment of rest before the next contraction, I laughed. “They realize this could take hours, right? I don’t want them all standing around in the waiting room if nothing is happening.”
Jensen reached across the console and placed his hand on my stomach, his thumb moving up and down. “You can’t really expect them to not be excited over meeting their first grandchild, can you?”
Smiling, I shook my head. “I suppose not.”
Jensen must have felt the minute my stomach tightened because he was quick to grab my hand, allowing me to squeeze his through the contraction. “Just breathe through it, baby,” he said soothingly as my hand all-but crushed his.
The pain vanished almost immediately, and I couldn’t help but think that no discomfort at all seemed almost worse. It was like you were in agony followed by absolutely nothing, which only gave you a false sense of security just to turn around in another five to ten minutes and catch you completely off-guard with another blinding contraction. At least if they were consistent I might have a little heads up.
“I think they’re getting closer together,” Jensen said, flexing his hand as soon as I let it go. “You’ve got quite a grip.”
“Sorry.”
Jensen laughed. “Don’t be, honey. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling, but I’d like to offer you any comfort or support that I can.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Even if that means I crush every single bone in your hand?”
“As much as I’d like for that not to happen, I’d learn to be okay with it,” he joked, shooting me a wink.
“You’re insane,” I told him with a weak laugh.
By the time we’d arrived at the hospital, Jensen had clocked my contractions at anywhere from five to seven minutes apart. They still weren’t entirely consistent, which I was told was a key indicator to when the baby was finally ready to make their debut, but they were getting there.
Like the last time we were here, someone in scrubs—this time a woman—brought a wheelchair to the admittance area and wheeled me upstairs. I hated the wheelchair, by the way. There was no logical reason I couldn’t walk, but due to liability reasons, I was forced into being pushed around like an invalid.
“Okay, Miss Landry, here’s your gown,” our new nurse said after showing us to our private room. “We paged Dr. Smith, and he should be here soon to check in on you.”
“Perfect,” I said, taking the gown from her. “Thank you so much.”
As soon as she left, closing the door behind her, I had Jensen help me out of my clothes and into the gown around me. I looked even more humongous in the unflattering cut of the drab, white gown.
“And I thought Willow was crazy for suggesting a custom made hospital gown,” I grumbled, tugging at the thin fabric.
Chuckling, Jensen shrugged out of his jacket before draping it over the back of a nearby chair before kissing my forehead. “You’re ridiculous,” he whispered against my head.
“In a moment like this, I am totally fine with that.”
In the time it took Dr. Smith to show up, I’d had three more contractions, still not any closer to being regularly spaced. “Okay, Madison, why don’t you hop up on the bed and we’ll see just how much progress we’ve made.”
My nose scrunched without my even realizing it at first because I didn’t like being examined like that at my last pre-natal appointment … and now that my body was prepping itself for delivery, I was certain I would like it even less. Regardless, I pulled myself up onto the bed and scooched down to the end while Dr. Smith did his thing. Jensen hated it, even though he knew it had to happen several times throughout the laboring process, and the scowl on his over-protective face was the only thing that made me smile through the discomfort.
“Okay, so you’re about two centimeters dilated—”
The smile fell from my face and my head shot up off the pillow, eyes wide and blazing. “That’s it?! Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
Having probably borne witness to a lot of crazy women in labor, Dr. Smith merely smiled, patted my knee twice and nodded once. “Just be patient, Madison. Things are progressing nicely.”
“Easy for him to say,” I muttered.
Jensen gave my hand a squeeze before addressing the doctor. “I don’t want to sound like a paranoid first-timer, here, but she’s only thirty-five weeks pregnant … isn’t that too soon?”
Dr. Smith nodded. “While it’s a little earlier, I’ve had no reason to believe there will be any complications. The baby might be a little on the small side, but there’s usually no need for concern.”
Jensen seemed marginally relieved, but I could tell he was still a little nervous. And if I was being completely honest, I was too. Dropping my chart into the slot at the end of my bed, Dr. Smith turned and left the room, and a nurse entered in his place.
“All righty.” Great, I had Little Miss Chipper. Super. “So, the doc says you’re sitting at two centimeters …”
My head fell back to the pillow, and Jensen snickered. “Don’t remind me!”
The nurse giggled, and I rolled my eyes. “Well, there is at least one thing we can try to get you moving along, if you’d like?”
“Oooh!” I cried out excitedly, lifting my head again and looking at her with pleading eyes. “Yes, please!”
Smiling at her success of making me happy, she nodded toward the door. “Well, walking around has proven to help speed things up. Since you’re not hooked up to anything, you’re good to walk the halls here on the maternity floor.”
Eager to try anything, I pulled myself off the bed and headed for the door with Jensen right beside me. We wandered the halls for a couple of hours, and it seemed like every other door we passed had a woman screaming her head off while some dude (her doctor or her husband, I’d never really know) kept telling her, “Just one more big push!” before more screaming commenced.
It freaked me the hell out, and I’m pretty sure Jensen almost passed out a few times too … even if he tried to mask his fear with the phoniest smile of reassurance I’d ever seen.
We’d circled the maternity floor for the fifth time when I felt the need to rest for a bit. In these few short hours, I’d had more contractions than I ever wanted to experience as they started to fall closer and closer together. Jensen was timing them somewhere between four and five minutes now, and they were definitely more regular and only getting stronger. So we decided to head back to our room for a little while, and as we got closer, I was surprised to see our friends and family waiting in the hall just outside of it.
Tears immediately sprung to my eyes when they approached, the sheer exhaustion of the last few hours weighing heavy on my emotional stability. The tears only flowed harder when Willow reached me first and wrapped me in her arms, stroking my hair until my sobbing quieted. “How exciting is this?” she asked quietly, pulling away from me and smiling. “And with the exception of that hideous gown, you look absolutely radiant.”
Brushing the tears away, I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, I know, right? I was just complaining about this thing to Jensen,” I told her, tugging at the unflattering tent I was wearing.
“Well, soon you’ll be able to change out
of it. You brought comfortable clothes to wear, right? Yoga pants and stuff? ‘Cause I can run back to the house …”
I laughed. “Thanks, Will. Yes, I brought extra clothes.”
“All right, well, let me know if there’s anything you need, okay? Oh! And you be sure to have that baby before midnight. Kyle and I have a bet going, and he seems skeptical of my predictions. No pressure.” With a wink, she moved aside for my dad and Jensen’s parents.
Of course, as soon as Dad wrapped me in his strong embrace I was a bubbling mess of sobs and tears again, clinging to him. “I don’t think I can do this, Daddy,” I whispered, pressing my face into his shoulder as he held me.
“Aw, honey,” he said with a light laugh. “Of course you can. You’re going to do great, and I’ll be right out here waiting for when that baby is born. You’re one of the strongest women I know, Mads. I love you, kiddo.”
Snot-sobbing into the old man’s jacket, I pulled out of his comforting embrace and hugged Janet and Henry next and then Lilah, Kyle, and Brandon.
“Now,” Kyle said, half-pulling out of our hug and keeping his left arm secure around my shoulders, “I’ve done some reading, and the key to having an eleven-pounder—”
Using my left arm, I brought it around and punched the shoulder he was resting against mine. “Shut up,” I said with a laugh before wiping my tears away with the back of my hand. If I could count on anyone to lift my spirits, it was Kyle. “Besides, I’m five weeks early. Chances are slim this kid will weigh that much.”
“Okay, dear,” Janet said, interrupting the playful banter, “we’ll be in the waiting room, anxiously awaiting the news.”
Even though it meant the world to me, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty that they could be there a while. “You guys, I’m barely even there, you could be waiting forever. You should go … grab coffee, go home and sleep in real beds. We’ll call when the baby’s here, I promise.”
Each and every one of them brushed off what I’d said, telling me quite adamantly that they would do no such thing before heading down the hall toward the waiting room. I’d call them out on their stubbornness if it wasn’t a flaw of my own.
Jensen and I had barely stepped into the room before Dr. Smith came back into to check on my progress. “Well, you’re almost at seven.” He turned to look at the clock on my room’s wall. “It’s just about nine o’clock now, looks like you’re in the home stretch and you could be having a baby in the next couple of hours.”
I looked up at Jensen as Dr. Smith left and shook my head. “Friggin’ Willow,” I said in disbelief, even though I should know better. “How does she do that?”
Laughing, Jensen shrugged his right shoulder. “Not sure, love. You up for another walk?”
Pulling myself off the bed, I shook my head. “Not right now. Maybe in a bit.” My body chose right then to feel like it was ripping in half from the inside out, forcing me to bend forward as every inch of my skin prickled with sweat. Jensen reached out for me to take his hand as I tried to focus on breathing through the pain. This one seemed to last a lot longer than the others, and Jensen helped me over to the bed until I was leaning over it. I wasn’t sure what it was he was trying to do, but this position wasn’t helping to alleviate anyth—
“Oooooh,” I moaned when Jensen’s fingers dug into the small of my back, moving in a smooth, circular motion. “That feels soooooo gooooood.”
This went on for another hour and a half: contraction, back rub, walk, contraction, back rub … My entire body was exhausted, and I honestly just wanted to sleep. Sure, I could have taken the epidural, but I really wanted to experience childbirth as naturally as possible.
I was beginning to realize just how masochistic I was.
It was almost eleven o’clock when Dr. Smith came back in, and I was mid-contraction while Jensen worked that magical backrub voodoo he seemed to have perfected. “Doc, you’ve gotta tell me some good news here,” I said, lazily turning my head to face him.
With a laugh, Dr. Smith spoke. “Well, let’s see. I’d say judging how regular your contractions are, you’re probably pretty close.”
“Thank, God.” I stood up and positioned myself for the umpteenth exam of the day. It sucked, but I was too damn exhausted to even think about it or really care. And dignity? What the hell was that?
The next words that left his mouth were both music to my ears and my worst nightmare merging into one. “All right. Who’s ready to have a baby?”
Jensen looked about as conflicted as I did, some of the color draining from his face, but his eyes still sparkled with excitement. Smiling, he turned to me and leaned forward to kiss the top of my head. “Okay, let’s have a baby,” he whispered.
Dr. Smith excused himself to change, and when he returned, he had a couple of nurses with him—one of them being Little Miss Chipper from earlier. I’d like to say that what happened next was beautiful and magical, but the truth was, it hurt and only served to make me even more exhausted.
With every contraction, Dr. Smith had me pushing; both Jensen and Nurse Chipper were on either side of me, helping me into what I was told was the best position for this. Honestly, I must have been a little naïve, thinking that once I hit ten centimeters I’d have to push a maximum of two times before the baby would be in my arms and the credits would roll … Okay, so it was possible that I was basing this entirely on one too many movies; I kind of hoped that was how it happened in real life; it would have been so much easier.
My legs were trembling as I let my head fall back onto the pillow in the very brief moment of rest I knew I was going to get, and my eyes fell closed out of sheer exhaustion. It wasn’t until I let my head loll to the right that I saw the time was eleven forty-seven in the morning; I’d been at this for over an hour already, and I was starting to feel like this kid was never going to arrive.
Tears fell from my eyes, alarming Jensen immediately. “Baby? What is it?” he asked, taking my hand in his and smoothing the hair off my sweaty forehead.
“I’m just so tired, and this is taking so long,” I said through my sobs.
Smiling sweetly, he cupped my face in his and nodded. “I know, sweetheart, I know. You’re doing so great, and I’m sure it’ll be over soon.”
He barely finished his sentence before I felt the next contraction start. As before, I pushed myself up, had Jensen and the nurse help me hold my position, and I did the one thing my body wanted to do to alleviate the pain: I pushed.
There was pain and pressure and then, all of a sudden, there was relief.
“She’s here, love,” Jensen said proudly as I let myself fall back to the bed while keeping my head propped to catch a glimpse of her. “You did it.”
“She?” I asked, craning my neck to try and see our baby.
A loud cry filled the room, and my heart swelled, tears falling from my eyes as our baby girl took her first breaths. Looking up at Jensen, I saw his eyes moving between our baby girl and me, glistening with his own tears, before he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my sweat-dampened forehead. It wasn’t often I saw him this emotional.
“She’s perfect,” he whispered against my head as I tried craning my neck to see for myself.
Suddenly, it was like all of the commotion in the room quieted the minute Dr. Smith placed our sweet little girl on my chest. I didn’t get a chance to really hold or get a good look at her that very second as the nurse got in there and started wiping her skin clean.
She had ten tiny fingers, ten perfect little toes and a head full of dark brown hair. As soon as the nurse finished wiping her soft pink body, I used the blanket and wrapped it around my sweet little bundle, not even really aware of anything else that was going on around the three of us. In fact, I was so caught up in the fact that we were a family that when a stray piece of hair fell in my eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to remove it. Instead, I tried blowing it away to no avail.
Having seen my failed attempts, Jensen chuckled and brushed it away, tucking it se
curely behind my ear for me.
“Thanks,” I whispered, my eyes locked on the baby’s plump top lip before it disappeared into her mouth in a suckling motion; she was the sweetest little thing. I’d dare anyone to contest that.
Suddenly, the nurses were taking her from me, and I whimpered as I tried to see where it was that she was going. I watched as they took her over to a little table and weighed her before bundling her up in a cozy looking blanket and putting the smallest pink knitted beanie on her.
When all was said and done, the nurse brought our sweet little girl back over and put her in my arms. Her eyes were closed, and she was still suckling on that upper lip of hers contentedly.
This moment couldn’t have been any better.
“Madison,” Jensen said softly, drawing my focus to him. The minute our eyes locked, I knew my previous thought was wrong. It could be better, and it would be. The hairs on my body prickled as I awaited his next words.
“Marry me.”
Chapter 26. Third Time’s a Charm
My previous attempts at proposing may have turned out less than ideally, but I was starting to see that it really was for the best. I had just witnessed the birth of our first child—a daughter. It really didn’t get better than that. My entire world changed in that moment, my priorities shifting until they focused on Madison and the baby alone.
They were my life now.
Madison’s eyes sparkled, and her lips turned up into a smile as she started to nod slowly, and my heart swelled with so much happiness, I thought it would burst. “Yes. Of course I’ll marry you,” she whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek.
“We’ll give you two a few minutes with the little one,” Dr. Smith said. “Congratulations to you both.”
The minute the doctor and the nurses were gone, I ran over to the chair I’d draped my jacket on earlier and grabbed the ring from the pocket. Madison inhaled sharply as I sat tenderly on the very edge of the bed and opened the box and took the ring out.