by Dex Bass
“But you can’t. So it’s an empty promise. Always your empty promises.” Oscar didn’t even know where that accusation had come from. Adam hadn’t actually made any empty promises to him. Adam was always a man of his word. Oscar broke down crying even harder at what a jerk he was being to Adam.
“Oscar.” Adam was using his most supportive, professional, loving, helpful-doctor tone of voice. “I want to help you however I physically can. I want to always be the best husband I can be. I’m sorry if sometimes that’s not so obvious from your point of view.”
“I know.” Oscar held the comforter over his face, sobbing into it. “It feels like I’m just the passenger in my body sometimes. The pregnancy making me hurt and throw up. And the hormones making me throw tantrums. Like I just did to you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” Adam gently lifted the comforter off of Oscar’s face and kissed Oscar’s forehead, then his nose, then his mouth. “Hormones are natural. I know it can feel like they’re taking over. Just remember that I always understand. I love you and I always understand.”
“I think some people at the station though — I think I might be making enemies there. Because of my temper with these hormones.”
“Have you tried explaining to them?” Adam was gathering up his phone, his keys, and a fresh lab coat. It was 8:25 A.M. and even if he was giving Oscar all his patience and attention, Oscar knew full well that Adam had to rush to work soon.
“I’ve tried. But it’s kind of, you know. Too little, too late. I mean I’ve been really being an asshole to Vilma, to some of the other newsroom people. Maybe you can tell them I’m sorry.”
“Come on, Oscar. I can’t give you a note from your husband. Or a note from your doctor. But next time I meet them, I can definitely reiterate to them all the difficult hormonal stuff you’re going through. I can even go down there today if you want and help you talk to them.”
“That would help a lot.” Oscar nodded, and with his finger wiped a tear from his cheek. He tasted it. Even his own tears tasted weird. The only thing that tasted good the past couple of weeks was ice.
“Have you considered taking leave? Just for a bit? You’re due very soon.” Adam leaned down and kissed Oscar’s pregnant belly. “Maybe you really should take pregnancy leave. Just for a month or so, until you recover. It’s not easy for you to walk around. It’s not easy for you to even stay standing for long periods.”
“Thanks for reminding me again that I can’t walk.” The tears came back to Oscar’s eyes. They rained in drips this time, not in gushes. But still. Oscar felt terrible and guilty and indignant and everything bad all at once. “Being pregnant isn’t easy,” he told Adam. He only hoped Adam would understand. But Adam would always understand. It’s just that Oscar’s pregnancy hormones sometimes made it feel like nobody understood.
“I don’t think I need to watch News 9 to find out that pregnancy is hard.” Adam gently put his hand on Oscar’s very pregnant belly. “It’s definitely not easy. I have so much respect for men and women who choose to go through it. And of course so much respect for you.”
“You won’t think less of me if I take pregnancy leave?”
“Of course not.” Adam held Oscar’s hand, then squeezed it. Everything felt different, worse, to Oscar’s senses when he was pregnant — everything except Adam’s hand. Adam’s hand felt loving, reassuring, and secure just as it always had.
“I’d just feel like a hypocrite. Telling you all the time to get back to your patients, and then taking pregnancy leave myself.” Oscar shook his head. He was ashamed of his selfishness.
“Oscar. Let’s recap a bit.” Adam smiled. “First, I’m not pregnant. You are. Second, as good a reporter you are, you’re not the only person who can keep Springville’s pregnant omegas alive. I am.”
“I guess so.” Oscar at first forced himself to smile to his husband. He didn’t want to be a downer. Then, thinking more about his situation, he was really smiling. He could really take pregnancy leave and it would be totally reasonable, nothing to feel guilty about.
“Don’t be so harsh on yourself. Being harsh on yourself — another classic pregnancy symptom, of course.” Adam showed off his MPreg Hospital badge to Oscar and smiled at him.
“That’s the correct diagnosis, Doctor Albright. I’m not joking when I say I love how you understand my hormones.”
“Maybe you’re just lucky that you married a doctor.” Adam flashed a self-effacing grin.
“I don’t think it’s your medical training that makes you understand me so well.”
“So what do you think the reason is?” Adam was teasing. Oscar hadn’t even noticed it, but his own mood was greatly improving just from bantering with Adam like that while he was still in bed and Adam was ready to step out and go to work.
“Umm, just as a guess: the reason is that you love me?” Oscar giggled. Sometimes he acted like a stereotypical cute omega even when he didn’t mean to. In front of the cameras, he watched himself not to make any cute-omega gestures that would get him dismissed by the viewers as “not a serious journalist.” But with Adam, especially at home, especially in the bedroom, Oscar let that bit of omega cuteness out sometimes.
“Ding ding ding, bing bing bing! I have to go to work now. See ya around 6 or 7. I’ll bring home a few anchovy pizzas for you.”
“You really know how to treat a pregnant man.” It was true. Adam did. And Oscar always hated anchovies before he was pregnant. Now, pregnant, some days anchovy pizza was all he could stand to eat, when he wasn’t craving for peanut butter or just plain old ice cubes.
Adam stepped out. The house front door opened, then shut. After a few seconds more, Adam’s car started. Oscar imagined him: gorgeous, muscled, wavy-haired Doctor Adam Albright, warming up his black BMW 7-series, probably listening to a male pregnancy podcast. Oscar sometimes felt unworthy of a man of that grade. Oscar was just a small-time news reporter, didn’t have Adam’s brains or looks or fame or personality — and yet he was Adam’s only one, Adam’s beloved, Adam’s husband, the soon-to-be father of Adam’s child.
He wanted one last look at Adam as Adam would be pulling out of the driveway. He wanted to wave goodbye to him just one more time that morning, to wordlessly remind him that he loved him, that he was always thinking of him, that every second of his life, Oscar Oliphant was grateful for having the chance to love Adam Albright.
Oscar supported himself on his arms as he sat up in bed. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed to the floor. Then he got up, up, to stand — and there was a sound like a walnut cracking. Not an unpleasant sound, but a crank or a snap, loud enough to make Oscar jump in surprise.
Warm brownish water poured on Oscar’s legs, then on the hardwood floor. He started to jog out to catch Adam before he left and he slipped on the water, almost falling down again. He resumed his jog-walk, despite a painful cramp and the warm water that was still pouring out of him.
Adam was just starting to back up out of the carport parking spot. Oscar waved out the house window in the direction of the car, but Adam didn’t see him.
“Adam!” Oscar yelled out. “Adam!”
Adam looked at Oscar, smiled, and gave a small, polite wave. He looked like the Queen of England waving from a parade, and that was exactly what Oscar didn’t want in that moment. He felt his anger — hormonal anger — rise up in him again, and he knew well enough not to let it take over.
“Adam! Wait! Come back!” Oscar yelled as loud as he could. Their house had enough room in the yard and surroundings, but that that volume, the neighbors certainly hard. They probably thought the picture-perfect doctor-reporter alpha-omega couple down the street was having a lovers’ spat.
Adam slid down the window a little bit. Oscar gestured wildly for Adam to come back. Adam slid down his window more.
“My water broke!” Oscar screamed out. It felt like an extremely indiscreet thing to scream out, even though when Oscar thought about it, it must’ve been the usual way to announc
e that news.
Shouting “Ohmygod! We’re fathers!” was Adam’s first reaction. Slightly premature, but still the right spirit.
“Hey it’s take your husband to work day!” Oscar screamed out to Adam again. Adam left the car running and came back to the house, where Oscar was standing.
“Let’s just go now,” Adam said while obviously visually estimating whether he could carry Oscar. “If you need anything from home, I can come back for it later.”
“Sounds good,” Oscar said. He just wanted to get to the hospital. He felt like a burst balloon, and a cramp was taking over his entire body.
Adam squatted down in front of Oscar. Oscar stopped himself from making a joke about there being no time for BJs now. Then Adam extended his arms. One arm under Oscar’s thighs, the other arm under the small of Oscar’s back, Adam cradled six-foot-tall-grown-man Oscar and lifted him up, then carried him to his car.
“Shit, didn’t expect to be carrying you while wearing these fucking Crocs,” Adam muttered while stepping through the wet backyard and almost slipping a few times.
“Just a few more steps. And now you’ll know how it feels carrying pregnancy weight.” Oscar smiled, looking down to watch his husband carry him. He hadn’t been carried like that since he was a baby. He wished he could’ve video-recorded that moment, as a memento of how perfect a husband Adam was. But he knew that there would be many more such moments, especially now that he and Adam were to become parents.
Adam plopped Oscar into the car’s front seat and buckled him up, carefully dragging the lap belt across Oscar’s pregnant belly. Adam fussed with setting the air conditioning vents just right for Oscar until Oscar told him to just get with the program of getting him to the hospital.
“I’m not supposed to use the emergency lights unless I’m headed to a birth,” Adam said. He pushed a button on the control panel and flashing red strips of LED lights illuminated at the front and rear of the car, at the tops of the windows. “But I guess I’m headed to a birth.” Adam patted Oscar’s pregnant belly.
“I’ve never been in the car when you’ve had the Kojak lights on.” Oscar did his best to smile through his cramps, his water still dripping out of him, his general pregnancy pain, and the pure terror he felt at the pain of the impending birth of his child.
“Well, I usually don’t take my husband to work.” Adam pulled the car halfway out of the driveway, clicked the controller to open the electric gate, and drove out, red lights flashing. Enough of Springville knew Adam already that they immediately yielded to him. They knew he was on an emergency call. The license plates reading AO DOC were obvious enough. Onlookers knew he was America’s most famous male pregnancy physician on his way to an emergency call. They didn’t know that this emergency call was the birth of his own child.
“Ow. Ow. It hurts like hell.” Oscar grimaced as Adam sped through traffic. It was worse than any pregnancy pain he’d had before. It was the worst pain he’d ever experienced. Oscar had always expected that, but still, it was bad.
“I recommend an epidural for the delivery,” Adam said while accelerating onto the highway, flashing red lights moving traffic out of the way.
“Oh yeah. Those are good, right?” Oscar tried to talk calmly through the pain.
“Especially for a male pregnancy situation. It’s always more painful for men. We’re just not adjusted for pregnancy. An epidural takes away most of the pain. Most, not all.”
“You can’t give me one now while you’re driving, can you?” Oscar whimpered.
“Unfortunately not. I wish” Adam looked over and tried to gently pat Oscar’s pregnant tummy. Oscar shrieked in pain. He definitely didn’t want to be touched, especially there.
“It fucking hurts like hell.”
“I know, Oscar. I know. We’ll be there soon and I’ll administer the epidural as soon as we’re in the hospital.”
“Don’t I have to sign a consent form?” Oscar grinned at adam.
“Yeah. You do. Otherwise you might sue me. Yeah, you’ll have to sign something as soon as we arrive. Then it’s epidural time. And you’ll be in la-la land, kind of.”
“God, Adam, I love you.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh fuck fuck fuck, contra, ow! Contraction, ow!”
“Breathe deeply. Don’t hyperventilate. Just breathe deeply. Groan like a pervert if you have to.”
“You saw that to all the pregnant boys, don’t you?” Oscar half groaned, half laughed. “Oh fuck, there it goes again. Fuck fuck fuck.”
“It’s fucking that got us into this situation in the first place,” Adam said. Oscar had to laugh. “Just try to breathe slowly, deeply, don’t stress yourself out, don’t hyperventilate. We’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes. Then it’ll be epidural time.”
“And the epidural — literally, la la land? Am I gonna be high?”
“A bit. It’s an anesthetic mixed with a narcotic. You’ll feel that narcotic.”
“Cheech and Chong?”
“Well, cannabis isn’t a narcotic, but yeah, close enough.”
“Sounds good. That’s about all I want now, just to zone out.” Oscar whimpered as the pregnancy pains shot through his body. At that moment, it was almost impossible for him to believe that he was voluntarily putting himself through this pregnancy thing. Totally voluntarily. He’d totally wanted to be pregnant. What a total nutcase.
“This is usually when you, the patient, are wondering how you got the stupid idea to get pregnant anyway. Maybe even some regret. Just letting you know so you know when those feelings come.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking a second ago. But then I just think about our baby. And it’s still — well, it still hurts like a motherfucker, but like a bit less of a motherfucker.”
“Did you notice that I never looked at the sonograms of our baby?”
“Yeah. Still trying to keep the boy/girl thing a surprise from ourselves?” Oscar smiled as much as he could.
“Correct. It’ll be a nice surprise when we find out today.” Adam pulled off of the highway, onto the main road, and then immediately into the parking lot of MPreg Hospital.“Should I park in physicians’ parking or emergency patients parking? Since we’re both?” Adam asked with a grin.
“I don’t give a fuck. I just want that epidural.” Oscar was shouting. He covered his mouth slightly when he realized how loudly he’d just spoken. This was exactly how men in labor acted on TV.
“ETE, five minutes. ETE, that’s estimated time to epidural.”
“Hardest five minutes of my life, but sure, I’ll wait.”
Rather than parking, Adam pulled his car directly up to the emergency double doors. The staff recognized Adam’s car and ran out. Adam grabbed a gurney himself and parked the gurney in front of the car’s front passenger door.
He opened the passenger door and looked Oscar up and down again. It would be time to lift again. And now there was everyone from the hospital watching.
Adam squatted next to the car and extended his arms. He was trying to position them under Oscar to lift him up onto the stretcher. “Let me help you,” a hospital orderly mumbled and came up behind Adam, putting his arm where Adam was trying to lift Oscar’s legs.
“I can do it myself. I’m his husband.” Adam smiled proudly.
“You and every other husband.” The orderly shook his head and shrugged.
“Well, not every other husband is chief of medicine here.”
“Oh! Doctor Albright! I thought it was just someone who looked like you!”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Adam used his best safe-lifting posture and supported Oscar from underneath while squatting down, lifted up with his legs, and carried Oscar up onto the gurney. He lay Oscar down slowly, gently, then adjusted a pillow behind his head. “You never knew Doctor Albright has such good bedside manner, did you?” Adam asked the orderly.
“Actually, we all knew that already.” The two orderlies smiled with admiration at Oscar’s husband. Even in the
middle of birth contractions, Oscar loved seeing that.
“Delivery room.” Adam was nearly barking instructions. “I’ll take care of sign-in and bring him the consent forms.”
“Consent forms and sign-in are all electronic now. Change since you left. Progress.” One of the orderlies smiled.
“Oh! Progress indeed.” Adam smiled. “Ok, let’s book it to the delivery room.” On the walk to the delivery room, Adam continued coaching Oscar on breathing slowly and deeply and not letting the contractions take over his breathing. Much easier said than done, of course.
As Adam led the gurney procession down the hall, hospital staff saw that something very important must have been happening. The procession snowballed with various staff joining in, like revelers joining a parade — but it was hospital staff joining Oscar’s journey to the delivery room. The contractions kept coming, and Oscar could have done without a dozen or so simultaneous voices giving him advice on how best to breathe and how best to relax and how it will be ok, but he knew they were all well intended. And anyway, Oscar was there as Adam Albright’s husband. Of course he was attracting attention.
“Can you guys call over Ollie Oswald please?” Adam asked the nurses, orderlies, and other doctors following him down the hallway. “My former assistant. I want him to assist here. Just tell him it’s me, it’s my husband, it’s important.”
“Yes, Doctor Albright.”
“Get the epidural set up for me so I can start placing it when we get to the delivery room.” It was Oscar’s first time seeing Adam actually doing his duties as a doctor, other than the time they’d first met and Adam had given Oscar an initial look-over. Now he got to see Adam in all his professional glory. An incredibly painful delivery and hellish contractions were what had gotten Oscar to seeing it, but he still enjoyed watching the sight, and imagining how this was Adam’s day, every day, having an entire medical staff following his every word. And yet Adam was willing to give up all of it just to be Oscar’s husband and mate.
“Roger, Doctor Albright. They’ve got the epidural ready.”