Page 126 of The Doctors Will See You Now

Intimacy is one thing, but this is a whole other kettle of insanity.

At that very moment, Will made his entrance back into the room. He’d changed out of his jeans and T-shirt and into a fresh pair of navy scrubs.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“How are you feeling, baby?”

“No,” I retorted and pointed a finger in his direction. “If you’re here for delivery purposes, you need to turn back around and move your ridiculous ass back out that door.”

He completely ignored my demands, and I was too numb to get out of the bed to enforce them.

The bastard. Using this goddamn epidural against me.

Will chuckled and sat on the bed near my hip. “Has the pressure gotten more intense?”

“No,” I said through gritted teeth, another contraction wreaking havoc on my body. If the pressure I was feeling was any indication of where the baby was, I’d say my little bundle of joy was about one minute away from peeking out and saying hello.

He quirked a questioning brow. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” I lied. I knew the baby was probably crowning at this point. What I didn’t know was how long I could hold out until Will just gave up on the whole “I’m going to deliver our baby” thing…

Will ignored my response and grabbed a sterile glove from the supply cabinet by the monitors. Two seconds later, he was gloved up and trying to pull the sheet down with this free hand.

“No.” I gripped the sheets and held them close to my chest.

“Melody,” he chastised and flashed me a determined look.

“No, Will.”

“We need to check you,” he said in a tender voice. “You and I both know it’s probably about time that you started pushing.”

I ignored him. I was on the “No push until Will puts his street clothes back on” plan. It wasn’t a traditional birth plan, but it was mine all the same.

“We can check me,” I responded. “We, being any other physician on this floor that is not you.”

“You really want Dr. Elders to come in here and check your cervix?”

Ugh. No.

I didn’t respond, and he took that as a green light, pulling the sheets down and instructing me to relax my legs.

His eyes lit up before he’d even touched me. “It’s time, Mel,” he said and hopped off the bed to push the nurse call button.

“What?” I questioned with wide eyes. “What are you doing?”

He ignored me and pulled the sterile delivery table toward the bed.

“Will, you’re not delivering our baby.”

He came over to me and sat at the edge of the bed. “Melody, I need to be the one to deliver my beautiful daughter or son. I want to make sure that everything goes smoothly and that our baby enters this world healthy and happy.”

The earnest look in his eyes had me folding like a house of cards. “Okay.” I found myself agreeing before I could even think twice about it.

Even though my husband was exasperating and a bit of a weirdo for being so hands-on during my pregnancy, I didn’t want anyone else to guide our baby into the world. Sometimes, deliveries didn’t go smoothly. Sometimes, emergent situations happened when you least expected them. And I knew, without a doubt, that Will would make sure our baby was okay.

A nurse came into the room to assist, putting my legs in stirrups while Will got his instruments ready at the foot of the bed.

But I didn’t have time to watch what was happening around me. Another contraction hit me harder than a Mack truck. “Oh, holy hell and tomato sauce,” I groaned as the pressure had reached the point where the urge to push was unavoidable. “I gotta push, Will,” I exclaimed. “I gotta push right now.” Even though I was most likely already pushing. The body has a way of forcing that shit.