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“No.” She shook her head. “No.”
“Right now?” I asked, my stomach in knots. “She has to do it without anything for the pain?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes. The baby is ready now.”
I sank down next to Gemma, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “Okay. You can do this.”
“No, I can’t. It hurts.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and I couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears that formed in the corners.
“I know it does, but you can get through it.” I smoothed her hair back from her face. “You’re almost done.”
The nurse instructed Gemma to lean forward and hold the backs of her legs. I took hold of one for support as the doctor suited up with a mask and gown, a light shining down on her when she sat at the foot of the bed.
“Gemma, when you feel your next contraction, take a deep breath and bear down,” the doctor said. “Nice, deep breaths, you can do this.”
Mere seconds later, a contraction hit, and Gemma bore down, whatever that meant.
“Nice, Gemma. Great job,” the doctor said. “The head is right there. Give this next one a big push.”
“I can’t. I can’t. It hurts.” Gemma inhaled deeply with a wince, and then her breath caught. “I—ah!” She screamed and pushed and cried. “It’s burning!”
“Push, push, push, push, push,” the doctor chanted.
She screamed again, and I thought I might pass out.
“The head is out. You feel that?”
She shook her head, her whole body trembling. “I don’t feel anything but burning. I’m being ripped in two,” she whimpered, slanting her bloodshot eyes up to me, and I had never been so in love with her. “I can’t do it anymore.”
“Yes, you can,” I told her then leaned over, getting a glimpse of the wrinkly, circular thing poking out from between her legs. That wasourbaby. “Youaredoing this. I can see him.”
“How do you know it’s a him?” she said, her mouth curling up in momentary jest before twisting in pain.
“Push, Gemma,” the doctor ordered. “One more push.”
She breathed out a garbled cry, her face covered in a mixture of sweat and tears, and she had never been as beautiful than in this moment.
The doctor chanted again. “Good, good, good, good. Here it comes.”
“Holy shit,” I said, watching as the good doctor pulled out the rest of my baby’s body while Gemma sagged into the pillow. “That’s our baby.”
The doctor held up the bloody, mucus-covered, little alien. “Congratulations on your baby girl.”
I wheezed out a breath, overwhelmed with so much love I thought I might burst. A nurse took the baby to clean her off, and I cut the umbilical cord, a little dizzy, a lot in love.
My eyes glazed over with tears, and I knelt down next to Gemma, who smiled and cried, her hands still shaking as she held our baby in her arms. With the help of the nurse, they positioned her on Gemma’s chest, swaddled in a blanket and cap, still a little goopy and gross and utterly perfect.
The doctor started talking about placentas and stitches and other horrible things, but I could only focus on the two women in my life now.
“It’s a girl,” Gemma whispered, a content smile curving her lips, her hands gently patting the baby’s back. How she could have ever thought she’d mess this up was beyond me. “What do we call her?”
I propped my head next to Gemma’s shoulder, exactly in line with my daughter’s scrunched-up face, her tiny mouth wriggling up and down a bit. “You don’t like the name we had picked out?”
She flinched, and I glanced down to where the doctor worked on her, a medical student by her side. I spied a needle and thread and flinched too.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Seems a little plain now that I’ve seen her.”
“Okay, whatever you think. I’d call her Wednesday if you wanted,” I said, referring to the day of the week, but when Gemma’s eyes parked with interest, I backtracked. “I’m joking.”
