Page 7 of Open Net

The nurse turned to us. “Contractions are steady, as I’m sure you’re aware.” Emma grunted. “At this point we’d expect you to be progressing more. Let me check again.”

She went to the end of the bed and Emma lay back. I tried not to feel uncomfortable as the nurse sat on a stool picked up my wife’s gown.

Emma flinched just before the nurse sat back. “Still right at six centimeters and no progress in effacement.”

“What should she be at?” I asked as if I understood what was going on.

“There’s no exact number. Every labor is different, but I was hoping she’d get to ten a bit faster.” She peered down at my wife. “Emma, would you like to try walking around?”

I stared at the nurse. Was she serious? She expected Emma to get up and move right now? She would end up collapsing in the hall after a few steps. There was no way she was getting up.

“Yeah that would be good.” Emma was already moving to the side of the bed, dropping her legs.

I rushed to her side and offered my hands. “Are you sure?”

She nodded and used me to pull herself up. “It’s supposed to help speed things up.”

“You’re the boss.”

Kelly watched us while backing out of the room. “Just walking along this hall back and forth. You can stop whenever you’d like but try to do it a few times.”

Emma nodded, looking determined. I blew out a breath and pulled her arm around mine so she could lean on me. We made it a few steps before another contraction came. Emma froze, grabbing her stomach and leaning over. “Oh.”

“That’s it. Where going back.” I leaned into pick her up, but she stopped me.

“Give me a second.” She breathed out through her mouth, once, twice, three, four times then nodded. “Okay, keep going.”

I couldn’t understand. It felt like I was forcing her to complete a marathon. She didn’t need to do this but as I watched her face grow more focused, I knew there was no talking her out of it. Maybe some weird mom super power was taking over. Soon she’d turn green and bust out of her clothes like the Hulk.

Distracting her was all I could think to do. “I think I came up with a good boy name.”

She huffed, almost a laugh. “I thought we had our boy name picked out.”

“Nope. This one is better.”

“Well, let me have it.”

“Festus.”

She laughed then clutched her stomach. “Ouch. Don’t make me laugh.”

“Why would you laugh at that? It’s a great name.”

She shook her head. “It sure is, but not for our son.”

That made me smile. Our son. I would never say it out loud, but I was hoping it was a boy. Emma had asked me at least a hundred times what I wanted, but I didn’t want her to think I’d be disappointed if it ended up being a girl. I also didn’t want to jinx it.

I’d be ecstatic for either, but I wanted a son I could one day play hockey with. Of course, girls play too, but I doubted Emma would let our baby girl do something so dangerous.

We made it to the end of the hall and turned as another contraction started.

I rubbed her back and we waited it out. The contractions seemed to be happening at even intervals. Not getting closer together like they were earlier. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t dilating. Did that mean she was stuck here at a six for a while?

“What’s your girl name?” Her voice was strained. She must like my game though. If it was helping, I could come up with off the wall names all night.

“Beulah.”

“Interesting.” She finally straightened and started walking again. “I think that’s a great name for someone in the country.”