The Surprise

by Alice Ward

  My eyes slid to Mindy, who was giving me a pleading look. My eyes slowly slid back to Mike. “Sexual intercourse…” I purposefully used the official name for doing it, just to see if it made him squirm — it did, “can help initiate labor, but Mindy is in active labor.” I glanced at her chart. “She’s seven centimeters dilated.” I made a fist, which was a little larger than what Mindy’s open cervix was when she was last checked. If I had a can of soda, I’d have used it for a better visual, but the exact measurement didn’t matter right now. “That means your penis was encountering this much of the baby’s head during penetration. You’re lucky her water hadn’t broken or we’d have an even more serious infection risk here.”

  And you’re lucky your pecker wasn’t longer or you’d given the kid a concussion, I wanted to add just before I kicked the asshole in the balls. I did neither.

  The guy paled and began kneading the back of his neck with his hand. “I’m sorry. I thought it might also, you know, distract her from the pain. I didn’t jizz. Only trying to help.”

  Jizz? What did this girl see in this man?

  As if to underscore his words, Mindy had a contraction and began to squeal as it hit her hard. Mike’s eyes opened wide and he gave me a see, it’s working look before turning to hold her hand, then nearly went to his knees as Mindy squeezed his knuckles into dust. Too bad she hadn’t gotten hold of his hairy balls.

  Behind me, the door opened, and I turned to find a tall blond man with a big nose coming in without knocking, and Mindy’s eyes widened in pure panic. A bead of sweat trailed down her temple as she panted through the pain.

  Oh, shit.

  I gripped the scissors harder as adrenaline sent a surge of its juicy chemicals through my blood stream, making my heart start pounding in return. I angled away, taking small steps toward Mindy’s head, and the call bell. Where the hell was the call bell?

  “Who the hell are you?” Big nose said, looking from me, to Mike, to Mindy and Mike again.

  Mike was still in hand recovery mode, shaking the injured appendage before sticking it in the tall guy’s direction. I winced as they shook, but then realized both men’s hands had been where Mike’s were most recently. “I’m Mike,” hairy guy said, “you the doctor?”

  Stunned at that assumption, I looked at big nose, who was wearing his jeans halfway down his ass, showing off his Fruit of the Loom underwear. Hairy guy — erm, Mike — wasn’t very bright, I assessed, if he thought this bozo was a physician. I desperately hoped he wasn’t the baby’s father, not that the alternate was much better. Poor kid was going to have a tough enough childhood as it was.

  “Out, please.” I finally made my mouth work enough to speak up, flapping my arms in a sweeping gesture to herd them toward the door. “I want both of you to head to the waiting area while I check Mom.”

  Once the two potential paternity candidates figured things out, I didn’t want the blowup to be in this room. And from the way they were eyeing each other, and from the still panicked look in Mindy’s eyes, it might happen soon. For big nose, certainly. He appeared to have more than a few brain cells working. It might take a little longer for Mike to figure things out.

  I shooed them out the door and moved back to the patient’s bedside. She fell backwards onto the pillow, both hands covering her eyes. I pried them away and gave her antibacterial wipes to clean them. Damn. What was wrong with these people?

  “So, what is the plan?” I asked her, desperately trying to keep my voice calm and sympathetic when all I really wanted to do was shake some common sense into the girl. “Do you know which is the father?”

  She blinked rapidly while her head did a slow side to side. “I… I was hoping I’d figure it out when the baby was born,” she confessed with a little sob. “You know, by the hair color.”

  I sighed, deciding this wasn’t the best time to get into a genetics conversation, then heard a small voice call out, “Can I help you?” Then it came again, barely audible. Realizing what it was, I followed the cord to the patient call box, which was wedged under a trembling Mindy. How she hadn’t felt the rigid plastic under her ass was a mystery. Well, at least I now knew why the buzzer had kept going off.

  Before I could answer, Lorie came into the room. I practically leaped at the primary nurse, filled her in on her patient’s delicate situation, and left her with the mess, promising to call security to come deal with the men if necessary.

  Suddenly, Instagram Barbie didn’t seem so bad, and I nearly flung myself into her room, pumping out a double dose of sanitizing foam along the way, working it into my hands and almost up to my elbows, wishing I could use it to disinfect my brain as well.

  “It’s about time,” Mrs. Harlington-Worthington, the Fifth exclaimed with a huff that shot her bangs up into the air.

  Bangs?

  I blinked at her. “You’ve changed your hair.”

  And with that one comment, my tardiness was apparently forgiven. She beamed and stroked her fingers through the even longer mane of even brighter blonde curls. “Do you like? I think it showcases the tiara better, don’t you?”

  Poor, poor baby.

  “Absolutely,” I said with what I hoped was a warm smile. “You look beautiful.”

  She beamed even brighter, but what she didn’t know was that I’d tell that to any laboring mom, no matter how matted the hair or sweat-streaked the face.

  Labor was the epitome of vulnerable, and often, a kind word or two went a long way toward easing the stress of the constant pain.

  “Well, you still look terrible,” the social media brat said, and I immediately hated her again. “I don’t mean to be mean…” Sure she didn’t. “But you’d be really pretty if you just tried a little bit. Giselle and I were just talking about how good your skin is. A little pale, but it complements your auburn hair — which would be more attractive if you straightened it — and makes your blue eyes look even bluer. If I were you, I’d cover the freckles though. Have you seen the blending cremes on the market? They cover all kinds of deformities.”

  I inhaled deeply through my nose as I typed in her chart. Deformities? When did a few spots on the nose and cheeks become a terrible thing?

  Suddenly missing Mindy and the two-father dilemma two doors down the hallway, I ignored Mrs. Harlington-Worthington, the Fifth while I continued to chart and she went on about how best to contour my face.

  “Aren’t you going to check me?” she asked with a huff, rubbing her hands over her slight mound of belly. If I didn’t know she was past her due date, I would have thought she was closer to seven months along. Her bump was tiny. “I’m probably ready to push by now, you took so long to come back.”

  Inhaling another long, deep breath in through my nose, I let it out just as slowly. “Are you feeling any contractions yet?”

  A pained expression came across her face, and she lifted her phone to take a picture of it. She looked at the screen, was clearly not pleased with the result, made an even more agonized face, and snapped again.

  Oh, dear god.

  “Yes.” She fanned herself with her hand. “It’s agony.”

  Snatching up a pair of gloves, I snapped them on, thinking I could do this gently, or not so gently. I could even have thumb slippage and give her a little jolt in the ass.

  Mrs. HW5’s eyes widened just as I was about to ask her to let her knees fall to the side. “Oh…” She grabbed her belly. “Oooh!” I glanced at the monitor, and hurray, oh thank you god, she was having a contraction. A real damn one. Finally.

  The stylist surged forward and patted rice paper on her nose while my patient writhed on the bed. Dear heavens above. Calmly, I timed the contraction, encouraging her to breathe through the pain.

  “Epidural,” she screamed, and her husband’s head finally popped up from his laptop screen.

  He looked directly at me and snapped his freaking fingers. “Get on that.”

  I shot laser darts of hatred onto his head as he looked back down at his computer and began
tapping away, but ignored his command. I showed my teeth to my patient in what I hoped would pass as a smile. “I’ll check you as soon as this one ends.”

  She continued to writhe and scream, her camera forgotten for a moment. If this was how real labor with her was going to be, I’d put in the epidural myself. Maybe even a backup one, just in case.

  “Have you decorated the nursery yet?” I asked in way of a distraction as I felt her belly grow even tighter under my palms.

  She huffed and puffed, but managed to nod as the contraction wound its way down. “Yes,” she panted. “It’s beautiful. Better than Princess Charlotte’s, no doubt. It’s… oh… oh… auggh…” The last sound ended on a scream that jerked her husband’s head up again.

  He had a highbrow, annoying tone. “Do you plan on doing anything?”

  I hated him.

  I checked the monitor, touched the belly that was growing tighter again. Sure enough, she was having another. Labor could be weird like that sometimes. Hours of nothing, then everything happened at warp speed. Maybe her doctor was secretly a genius, and I should bow down and worship by his crystal ball.

  “It’s been a couple hours since you went to the bathroom,” I said, knowing that a full bladder often increased contractions. I pulled up her gown to release the monitors she — and her freaking doctor — insisted be kept in place. “Let’s get you up. You can use the bathroom and walk around a little bit.”

  She gave a dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes. “I suppose. It is tiring just lying here. I’m so used to being active. Just a second.” She raised her camera, took a picture, and I watched in astonishment as she typed, “Last pee break before baby!!” across the screen.

  Lowering the bedrail, I helped her to her feet. It really was amazing how small her baby bump was for forty-one weeks. “How much do you work out?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  Her hand went to her belly as she leaned heavily onto me. You’d have thought she’d just had major surgery from how slowly she moved. “At least twice a day, about two hours each session.”

  I gasped. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, and that was just in the past few weeks. I didn’t want the baby to get too big, create those atrocious stretch marks.”

  Of course, stretch marks would be her primary worry.

  More concerned now, I asked, “And what do you eat to stay so slim?”

  We finally made it to the toilet. She sighed as a loud stream of urine hit the water. “Mostly green vegetables, a little fruit, but not too much. I have to get back into shape immediately, you know. Don’t want hubby turning me in for a younger model.”

  I stared at her, and for the first time, saw something close to real emotion cross her face. It was there and gone in an instant, but it caused a flood of compassion to hit me. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do that. You’re perfect, and you’re giving him a baby to love.”

  She blinked rapidly and yanked at the toilet paper, pulling off nearly a quarter of the roll. She wiped, and I helped her stand and get to the sink to wash her hands. I checked the color of her urine before flushing it all away, then snapped on new gloves as she stood and looked at herself in the mirror.

  “You think I’m ridiculous, don’t you?” she asked softly but continued to stare at her reflection.

  Yes. Yes, I did.

  “No, not at all,” I said and went to stand behind her, my gaze meeting hers in the mirror. “I think you live a very different lifestyle than I do, with a different set of pressures.”

  “I’m scared,” she whispered and began blinking hard again.

  My heart squeezed a little. “Scared of what?”

  “Carl’s never seen me without makeup,” she confessed, and I blinked. I’d expected her to talk about the pain of childbirth, being a good mom, being able to breastfeed with DDD implants.

  “Never?”

  Looking miserable, she shook her head. “And I don’t want him to, you know, watch the birth. I don’t want him to see me look bad… down there. I—” Her eyes widened, and she groaned as another contraction hit her.

  After it had passed, I suggested we go for a walk, maybe finish our conversation as I tried to figure out the relationship dynamics and how best to care for my patient’s emotional needs as well as the physical ones.

  She shook her head. “I just want to lie down again. I’m feeling a bit dizzy.”

  Holding onto her tighter, I asked, “When did you last eat? A real meal?”

  She glanced up at me and sighed. “A couple days ago.” She lowered her voice. “I heard rumors of women, you know, pooping during labor. I wanted to clean out my system so it didn’t happen to me.”

  It also explained why her full-term baby was so small. I gritted my teeth, wanting to kick her doctor and her husband in the balls. She’d probably been dieting the entire time in addition to working out like a fiend.

  “Well, let’s get you back into bed, and I’ll talk to your doctor about adding some additional nourishment intravenously. You can’t eat right now, but some glucose could help. I’ll check your blood sugar once you’re settled.”

  Once she was back in bed and I’d placed the monitors back on, I checked and she sure enough was hypoglycemic. Knowing her asshole doctor would want to know her delivery status, I lowered the head of the bed and warned the other two people in the room that I was ready to check her. The husband turned away, his eyes never leaving the computer monitor while the stylist looked on curiously.

  “Heels together,” I instructed Mrs. HW5. “Let your knees drop to the bed.”

  And… gush.

  Amniotic fluid burst out in a sudden flood, the color darkened with the baby’s meconium. Shit. Literally.

  Worse, a section of the umbilical cord presented itself from her vagina. Just like that, we’d gone from prima donna labor to full-scale emergency in an instant. I glanced at the monitor, and damn, the baby’s heart rate plummeted.

  I made a promise to never criticize a doctor again, even though I knew that promise would last about half a minute.

  Jumping on the bed, I jammed two fingers into the writhing, screaming woman, found the baby’s head where it was pressing on the cord and gently lifted, taking pressure off the life-giving cord. The heart rate increased, giving us some time.

  “What are you doing?” the husband shouted, launching himself to his feet so fast his precious laptop crashed to the floor.

  Ignoring him, I twisted around and jammed my other hand on the call button, then began lowering the head of the bed even farther, putting Mrs. Harlington-Worthington, the Fifth into the Trendelenburg position, hoping to decrease the pressure on the cord.

  I needed to give her oxygen but couldn’t risk removing my fingers to reach for it, and because of the silk sheets, I kept sliding around, making my precarious perch even more precarious. I felt Mr. Worthington, the Fifth’s tight fingers on my shoulder. “Get off of her. I’ll have your job on a silver platter.”

  I winced at the pain in my shoulder but didn’t stop holding the baby’s head off the cord. Carefully arranging my face into my calmest expression, I explained the emergency in simple terms. “The umbilical cord has prolapsed, meaning it has slipped out of the cervix ahead of the baby.” Mr. W5’s face went milky white, and he swayed a little to the side. With my free hand, I clutched at him, not needing a bleeding or concussed father to worry with too. “The baby’s head is compressing the cord. I’m holding the baby’s head up. We’re okay for the moment, but we’ll—”

  “Can I help you?”

  Relief flooded through me as I recognized Olivia’s voice float into the room. “UPC. Prep OR. Need O2. Stat.”

  In seconds, the door burst open, and I yelled for someone to get Dad. Within a minute, the entire bed, me included, was being pushed down the hallway, my fingers growing numb from holding the baby’s head up as my knees slipped and slid on the sheets.

  “What’s happening?” Mrs. HW5 cried out, and I gave her a gentle smile as I hovered above her
. I explained the situation again as we raced down the hall.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I soothed. “I can feel your baby’s head. I think little Marie Claire’s got lots of hair.” With the gloves on, I didn’t know that at all, but it gave me something to talk about during one of her most terrifying moments. “I bet she’ll be as beautiful as you.”

  Mrs. HW5 smiled, just a little, tears shining in her eyes. “Do I look okay?” she asked and it didn’t even piss me off. I laughed and promised that she did.

  We were lucky. An OR had just been cleared and cleaned after one of the traffic accident victims, so we were wheeled in immediately. I held my position as we moved to the operating table and the OR nurses covered me with blue sterile sheets.

  Covered as I was, I couldn’t see anything, just listened as the anesthesiologist gave the go ahead, indicating she was asleep. The sound of the scalpel slicing through skin was shiver inducing, but still, I held my position, knowing my fingers were the only thing saving this precious little human at the moment.

  Within minutes, the weight of the baby’s head was lifted from my fingers, and I could finally remove my hand, although it took a few moments to uncramp from the position it had been in for so long. I crawled off the table, my legs shaky beneath me as sweat dripped down every part of my body, and pulled off the gloves, tossing them in the trash.

  Then, there was the cry, the sweetest sound in the entire world. It started out small, then grew stronger with each breath. I deeply hoped the meconium didn’t affect her too badly.

  That sound was one of the reasons I loved this job so much.

  “Great job, Scarlett,” Dr. Edmond said, glancing up from where he was delivering the placenta before going through the process of sewing the patient back up. Mrs. HW5 would probably have a hissy fit about the vertical scar, but it couldn’t be helped, and I hoped she would find beauty in it one day.