A few seconds later, Philip informed me that I was only three centimeters dilated. I went back to pacing. This time I stayed inside the bedroom turned den, but I couldn’t sit still. Each time a contraction hit me, I squatted down and rested my head against Beryl who magically appeared in front of me. Twice I bit his arm, but the sweetheart that he was, he didn’t even complain.
“I’m glad you ate before you laid down,” Philip said. “You’re going to need the energy.”
Time took on a surreal feeling. Minutes rushed by or slowed down depending on whether or not I was having a contraction. My parents arrived and so did Doctor Lawngry. Most carriers wouldn’t want one doctor, much less two, in the room, but I didn’t mind. I grew up knowing both of them and knowing that if something went wrong the baby and I would each have a healer around to focus on us soothed something inside me.
My carrier took over Beryl’s spot of pacing beside me. Whenever it all hurt too much and I was about to flop over and just cry, he whispered to me about the baby. How she’d be here soon and how’d she look so much like me.
“She’ll grow up and give Evie a run for her money in the bossy department,” he teased after a particularly bad contraction.
It felt as if days had passed, but only two hours had gone by since my water broke, and I was only at four centimeters. Everyone had warned me that sometimes the first baby takes a long time, but it seemed as if nothing was changing except how much everything hurt. There were options for pain relief, but Ididn’t want to risk making my lion loopy. That was the reason a lot of shifters opted out of pain meds during labor.
In between contractions, I started laying down, leaning against Beryl. He held me tight and pressed on my back in all the right places.
“If I die, take care of Jondi,” I said.
And everyone spoke at once until Philip cleared his throat.
“He’s not in danger. He’s in pain! He’s not the first carrier to say something like that and he won’t be the last. How about we give them some time on their own to talk?” Philip stood up.
Everyone looked at me and through the blur of the world I just nodded. It wasn’t like the baby was coming any time soon. She had been in the right position for days. She was just taking her sweet time.
“Look at me,” Beryl said and held my face in his hands. “You’re going to be okay but in this hypothetical scenario, Jondi would be taken care of. He’d stay with me. He’s our kid.”
I nodded, trying to make out his face through the blur.
“It’s so blurry in here,” I said and a second later, he wiped my eyes with his shirt. “Am I crying?” I wiped at my face. “I thought..”
“It’s okay,” he said and kissed my forehead. “It’s all okay.”
Another contraction slammed into me, and I wanted to call him a liar. Only another contraction meant things were on the right track. I wanted to push. Only it couldn’t be time to push yet. I couldn’t push at five centimeters. Philip came back in and said I was at nine. I was nearly there!
“Just hold on a little longer,” Philip said and squeezed my hand.
I panted like my cat would just to keep myself breathing and then Beryl started doing all these breathing exercises he researched after we found out I was pregnant. They made me feel silly and it was hard to do them without laughing, but Beryl was a sweet coach.
Things blurred from there as if time had wadded itself up into a ball. It was finally time to push. The room was full of people. I tried to count them but lost track. So I named them off, checking for extra people. There weren’t any, but the room felt smaller.
“We have a head,” Philip said and I thought I mumbled something about she better have a head but later wouldn’t remember if I thought it or said it aloud.
Two hours of pushing with contractions later, Philip stole my mate to cut the cord. Was Baby Lavender okay? She wasn’t crying! She wasn’t making any noise at all. Why was no one doing anything? When the cord was cut, Philip placed her on my chest. Her little back rose and fell and she curled her little fingers up. She was the most beautiful goop-covered thing I’d ever seen. This was part of my birth plan too. I wanted those first few minutes of her life to be with me and Beryl. Everything else could wait a minute. Philip listened to her back while she was on my chest and half-cleaned her up. There were vaccinations and I nearly bit him because that’s when she cried. He caught my chin in his free hand without even looking at me.
Slowly, I came back to myself, morphing back from whatever primal version of myself took over to get through labor and birth. Once the placenta was delivered and we were bothcleaned up, I held her to my chest and stared at her in our bed. Beryl sat behind me with his arms wrapped around mine and his chin resting on my shoulder.
“She’s so beautiful,” Beryl whispered.
“She’s so tiny. It took a year to get her out and she’s so tiny,” I said, still in awe that somehow I managed to produce a whole life from my body. “So tiny. So much hair.”
Soon we’d let my parents hold her and call Jondi home to meet his baby sister but for just a little while she was all ours. I needed a little bit of sleep before we let the world into our lives again. My parents were still at the house but as always they were the buffer between me and the world.
“Dragon Dad?”Jondi whispered over the family link as I dozed off.
“Yeah, Jondi?” Beryl answered him.
“Is my baby sister asleep?”Jondi whispered.
“She is and your dad is taking a nap too. I might take one in a minute too,”he yawned.
“Will you let me know when she wakes up? I want to show her my rock!”
