Page 147 of Call You Mine
My mom pats me twice on the back. “Now, go,” she whispers. “Go take care of your wife.” And I’m out the door without another word.
CHAPTER 54
AVA
You knowwhat’s really cool?
Preparing for labor—doing the stretches, practicing the breathing, rehearsing the different positions, or whatever the fuck the doula blogs say to do—just for it all to have been a complete waste of time.
“Damn it,” I grit through my teeth.
I’m sitting on the edge of my hospital bed. My hair falls over my face as I keel over while a contraction continues to funnel through me.
Whoever said to prepare for a natural birth by visualizing a contraction like a magnificent mountain or a majestic wave didn’t warn me that some people have contractions that don’t last for a minute or two before subsiding and actually do whatever the fuck they want.
This one has been going for at least three minutes, and I feel it deep in my pelvis. Not in my midsection, not in my stomach, not in my back, like I prepared for.
Every hour that has passed, the contractions have gotten worse and worse.
When I got here around six o’clock this morning, I thoughtmaybe I could be one of those lucky ones who barely feel their contractions and pop out their baby with a push or two.
That wasbeyondwishful thinking.
It was pure delusion.
“Do you need the puke bag?” Georgie asks as Emerson holds my hands, letting me squeeze as tightly as I need to as we wait for the contraction to subside—not pass, becausemycontractions seem to just linger, never actually ending.
I shake my head, pissed and frustrated that this pain is so intense that it’s making me nauseous, and I can barely walk around and find some relief because of all the stupid cords and machines connected to me.
“I know your birth plan didn’t include an epidural, but Av, these positions aren’t working with where you’re feeling the pain,” Emerson says, just as the contraction fades to something tolerable, allowing me to sit up and take a breath.
We’ve tried different positions on the bed, the pregnancy ball, standing, walking, even sitting on the goddamn toilet, and none of them help with the pain—not when it’s moved deep into my hips and down my legs.
“Yeah, and mystupidbirth plan included the support of mystupidhusband, and yourstupidbrother still isn’t back yet. I thought he was calling the chief since Anderson isn’t answering,” I say, shaking my head as Rumi offers some water to me.
“Jack will be back any minute.” Rumi tucks some hair behind my ears, her touch gentle.
“Do you want to try another position?” Emerson asks. “We can try the ball again.”
“No,” I say, defeated. I feel tears building in my eyes as I squint them closed. I try to breathe, but it feels like my pelvis is being pulled apart inch by inch, the pain radiating throughout my entire body.
The door opens and closes, and I find the strength to lookup, hopeful that it’s Anderson, or at least Jack coming to tell me where the fuck my husband is.
“How are we doing?” one of my nurses asks, and my head falls back down toward my lap as another contraction builds, intense enough to have me asking Georgie for that fucking puke bag.
“Can you give her something for the nausea?” I hear Emerson ask the nurse. Within a few minutes, she’s administering something into my IV, pushing the medicine through. The nausea subsides almost instantly, but it doesn’t help with the pain.
The nurses warned me that the contractions could intensify once they put me on medication to help speed up the labor, since I have been moving back and forth between two and three centimeters dilated.
But this wasn’t part of the plan.
I didn’t want Pitocin or the pill that has to dissolve under my tongue, or Benadryl, or whatever else they keep giving me in hopes of softening my cervix.
I didn’t want my labor to feel rushed and chaotic because my water broke, and the risk of infection goes up with every hour that goes by that my body doesn’t do theonething I need it to.
The one thing it’ssupposedto know how to do.
And I wanted my husband here.
