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“That’s easy for you to say,” Zoey replied, her breath catching as she fought back tears. “You’re not the one whose body has thunder and lightning erupting inside of it.”
She turned back to me and pleaded, “I want to go home. Please, let me go home.” Then she tried another tactic and said, “We have to go feed the dog.”
“Zoey, honey,” Gabe said softly, “We don’t have a dog.”
Zoey started crying at that and said, “But I want a dog…”
Gabe looked adorably out of his element, and I could tell he was about to promise her a dog when his worried eyes caught mine. I shook my head, silently warning him that having a new dog and a new baby at the same time would not be a good idea.
“Don’t you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?” Gabe asked, trying to change the subject.
Zoey was crying and shaking her head, another contraction hitting her, when the nurse came back in.
“Let’s go ahead and see how things are going, shall we?” she asked as she positioned herself at the bottom of the bed.
“Can I go home?” Zoey begged, but the nurse just smiled gently at her and said, “Not yet, honey, but soon you and your baby will get to go home.”
“Is it too late for the epidural?” Zoey asked, her head popping up, and I passed her a tissue for her face.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that; you’re at ten centimeters. I’m going to go get the doctor and be right back.”
“Oh no!” Zoey wailed, and I could see that the contractions were coming stronger and sooner now. “Chloe, you could get into bed and pretend to be me. I’ll sneak out down the stairwell.”
“Maybe you can write that into your next book,” I said happily as the doctor and nurse came back in. “But I can’t be a substitute for the miracle that’s about to happen.”
“Oh, shove your miracle,” Zoey said, but I just smiled and held on.
“All right, Zoey, don’t push until I tell you,” the doctor said.
“I have to push,” Zoey said suddenly, her breaths coming in shallow and sharp.
“Breathe,” I urged, then showed her how.
“It’s like I have no control; this baby is ready…”
“Okay, push.”
Zoey was right; her baby was ready, and after three pushes, I heard the beautiful cries of a newborn babe.
“She’s a girl!”
Suddenly we were all laughing and crying. Even Gabe had tears in his eyes as he cut the cord and their new daughter was laid across Zoey’s chest.
“She’s beautiful,” Zoey said, all thoughts of leaving and dogs gone.
“We’ll just get her cleaned up and bring her right back,” the nurse said.
Zoey started reaching out to snatch her baby back, when her face screwed up and she said, “Oh!”
“It’s just the afterbirth,” the doctor said. “Can you give me one more push?”
Gabe looked like he was about to throw up or pass out when he saw what the doctor pulled out, then his eyes hit mine and he said, “They didn’t say anything about that in the childbirth class.”
I laughed and turned to my sister.
“You did so great; she’s amazing.”
“Dad, would you like to come with us to give your daughter her first bath?”
