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She was forty weeks and one day. I was all but glued to her side. She kept rolling her eyes and muttering about ‘protective alphas not knowing about a woman’s strength and capability.’ I’d had the misfortune of replying, “tough talk from someone who can’t touch their toes.”
I’d paid for that.
She went in labor that night but urged me not to take her to the hospital until the last minute. She didn’t want to be in there any longer than she had to.
I understood that.
We’d already fought over her even giving birth in a hospital. She wanted a birthing center. Which might’ve been okay if hers wasn’t considered a high-risk pregnancy.
But she was.
Doctors had no idea how she got pregnant in the first place. It was little more than a miracle. They warned us that Wren might not carry to term. To prepare for a loss.
Demons swirled in her eyes when they delivered that news. Then her chin tilted up in defiance.
“Fuck that noise,” she’d scoffed once the doctor left. She decided modern medicine would not tell her shit. And whether or not it was fate, Wren’s sheer force of will or a little of both, our baby grew without incident. Wren grew. I saw ghosts in her eyes, though. Sometimes I found her on the floor of the closet. Roaming around the house in the middle of the night, trying to escape the past.
The worst didn’t happen.
But the doctors stressed the fact that she needed close monitoring.
I needed her in a hospital.
I told her that.
There was yelling.
She drove off.
But thankfully came back a couple of hours later, agreeing on the proviso we go at five minutes apart. “None of this dramatic male shit, gathering me in your arms and rushing me to the hospital at the first sign of a contraction,” she ordered.
I’d happily agreed to that.
So we drove to the hospital at five minutes apart. She cursed me and my “entire line” every five minutes.
I gritted my teeth, seeing her in pain.
We were shown to her private birthing suite. Her parents were called, friends were called. It was all very calm. Wren was ordering PostMates.
Until she wasn’t.
Until she went very fucking pale, monitors started going off and my whole world began to fall apart.
People rushed into the room. I watched, helpless as they started to work on Wren, urgently trying to push me from her side.
At some point, a doctor yanked me out of the way, staring at me.
“Sir, both of their heart rates are going down,” the doctor said. “I need to know who we are going to focus our attention on if the worst happens.”
I stared at him, everything quiet inside me. Everything still. “You need to stop dancing around the fucking point and tell me what in the fuck you mean by that.”
The doctor’s lips formed a firm line before he opened his mouth and sighed. “Right now, both your wife and the baby’s are in decelerations. You need to choose. If it comes down to saving one, which do you want to save?”
I stared at the man, unaware of the danger he was currently in. Everything sharpened, time slowing.
“Do you have a wife, children?” I asked.
He blinked, rattled out of his detached state. “I don’t think that—”
