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“I love you, Lucas.”
Lucas kisses the side of my head. “Get some sleep. We’re practicing for the next kid.”
Epilogue
Ten months later
Lucas
I wasn’t here for Jadon’s untimely birth, but I am now.
Seventeen hours. We have been in this room for seventeen hours. She’s had every whine and moan about pain and some of it, I can’t fix for her. Okay, not some. All of it. I can’t cure her pains, but she seems to be less angry with me when she squeezes my hand enough to crumble the bones in it.
“One more, Allie. You’ve got this.”
The nurse holding her leg across from me nods and I’m too damn ready for this to be over. Just the labor part, really. I mean, I knew it wouldn’t be fun, but fuck. I didn’t think I would see her in misery. I almost feel bad, but seeing the top of the head coming out, I have to bite down on my lip so Allie doesn’t see me smiling while she screams.
I’m excited about our daughter, but hell, she couldn’t have made her grand entrance into the world a little less chaotic?
Allie has cried, slept, and she even cussed out one of the nurses. She declined an epidural multiple times and then, when she wanted it, they told her it was too late.
“Come on, Allie, you got this,” I say.
Sweat-covered forehead and hair stuck to her face. She’s so damn perfect. Her eyes soften while she waits for the next push. “This is harder this time.”
“Hey, no.” I push some of that damp hair back on her head. “You got this. You’ve done so good so far.”
“Deep breath, Allie,” one nurse says. “And three, two, push.”
Allie strains and squeezes my hand—the dominant one. I don’t need to write. There’s voice-to-text now. Writing is for losers, I guess. She’s forcing a tiny human out, and the least I can do is permanently give up some use of my hand.
Fuck, I think she broke it.
I lean to my side and catch a lot of nasty stuff coming out, but then everything changes and the world stops. My heart skips a beat—or just stops. I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter.
It all fades the second the midwife pulls our baby out.
Our daughter, Andrea Kennedy. Andy for short.
One nurse cleans off the baby while I shakily cut that cord. Everyone moves quickly, like cogs in a machine, while my wife and I watch every move.
“You did so great, Allie.”
I watch while they weigh her and wrap her up in a blanket. It feels longer than the actual pregnancy, waiting for them to bring her back over.
Skin to skin. That’s what the brochures and the birth plan packet all said. I remember, because I read about the golden hour.
“Um, are we going to get her back?”
No one answers me.
“Just wait, Lucas, it’s fine.”
How can she be so calm? What’s the matter with her? She clearly needs a nap.
“Just a minute, dad, and we’ll have baby girl over to you two, okay?”
Yeah, I want to cuss her out, too. Allie did enough already, but fuck this nurse. I want to see my daughter.
