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“If you tell me to fucking breathe again, I will remove your cock, shove it up your ass before cramming it down your throat,” the woman said as she shook him.
I had to cover the inappropriate laugh that burst out from my throat and hustled past the doorway before I was caught.
A nurse approached me. “You must be Natalie.”
I held out a hand to whom I assumed would be my boss for the day. “Yes. Natalie Peterson. You must be Ms. Allen.” That had been the name Human Resources had given me to seek out.
“I am. You’ll have to excuse that I can’t show you around. We are short-staffed: the attending called out sick. His replacement is coming from Long Island and hasn’t arrived yet. I’m the only CNM.” That meant she was a Certified Nurse Midwife and had the training to deliver babies.
A wail came from the room I’d just passed. “I think she’s ready,” Ms. Allen announced.
It was the same room I’d just passed. Now that I had time to look, I’d recognized the woman as being Liam’s brother’s wife. If she arrived yesterday, I was surprised she was still in Labor and Delivery, and not in recovery.
“How long has she been here?” I asked causally.
She stopped short of entering the room. “Far too long if you ask me. If she wasn’t a VIP,” she held up a hand to her mouth and whispered, “Their family donates a lot to the hospital. Otherwise, she would have been sent back home to wait there a few hours. Instead, she spent the night here. It’s been slow going. No one is close to delivering. That’s why the previous attending was sent down to bunk up. He’d been on over twenty-four hours, and we thought we had time. But let me see what’s what before calling him up. Why don’t you ask the desk nurse when Doctor Hough is expected to arrive?”
She rushed into the room while I went to the desk as told.
“Ms. Allen wants an ETA on Doctor Hough.”
“I just got off the phone with her. She said she’s fifteen minutes out.”
I rushed to the room to see Nurse Allen sitting on a stool between the legs of the blonde who looked ready to blow. She was flushed and veins were popped out on her forehead even though she wasn’t pushing.
Nurse Allen put the drape back in place and said, “I can see the head. There’s no time to call the doctor,” she said calmly.
“No time?” the blonde shouted.
“It’s going to be fine. I’ve delivered hundreds of babies. I’m a certified midwife and your delivery looks cut and dry. In fact, I say one or two good pushes and your baby will be here.”
“Did you hear that?” the woman cried. Poor Liam’s brother looked helpless. He was saved when she said, “I have to push.”
“Wait just a minute,” Nurse Allen said.
She went into action, directing me to help her. The other nurses on duty were with other patients. Once the warmer was there and a blanket ready, she had me hold up one leg and the husband hold the other when she told her to push. It took two times before a baby’s tiny cries filled the room. I took the baby from Nurse Allen and began cleaning him off when she came over and finished it up. I watched the parents as their baby boy was placed in his mother’s arms.
“I told you it was a boy,” she said.
He looked starry-eyed.
When other nurses came in to help, I was sent to take the vitals of an incoming patient. By the time the day was over, I was beat. I’d only had a few bites for lunch, so I went to the cafeteria for dinner. I hadn’t yet made up my mind if I should go back to Liam’s hotel room or not. We hadn’t exchanged numbers for me to call him. Though I did have my key card to the room.
There was also something else I needed to do. After getting food and finding a quiet corner, I called my mom.
“Natalie,” she said.
“Hey, Mom. How are you doing?”
She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, though she wasn’t a smoker. The doctor’s best guess was that it developed because of her asthma or she had an undiagnosed genetic disorder though there were possible other causes. It was progressively getting worse and if treatments didn’t help soon, it was possible she might need a lung transplant to survive. We just didn’t know yet.
Before I’d left for work in New York, Mom had developed a respiratory infection that required her to be on short-term oxygen therapy. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. We’d been through this before and she knew what to do. Still, she had to shoo me out the door to get me on my way. I felt guilty.
