Page 64 of Because of Them

Michael closes his fist around my fingers. With his free hand he holds my stomach. Both babies go to town kicking, like they always do when he is close. A satisfied sigh escapes him.

“So, she won’t,” he says. “We’ll get them new stuff.”

The babies’ kicking stops, replaced by an intense pressure through my belly, like they are pushing out in every direction. I suck in air through gritted teeth, waiting for the pressure to release. Pain shoots up my spine.

And then, almost as fast as it came, it goes. All of it, the pain, the pressure, the tightness. My hand loosens its death grip on Michael’s fingers. Concern is laced all over his face as he climbs onto the couch to sit beside me.

“You okay?”

“I think so.” I breathe slowly, still catching my breath. My heart still races because that wasdefinitelya contraction.

With her head inside the box, completely oblivious to my current state, Maisie squeals. Her voice somehow more high pitched than it has ever been, she reappears holding a greying teddy pressed against her face.

“Oh, oh, oh.” She jumps around with each sound. “My teddy! I can’t believe he was in here! I waslookingfor him!”

She disappears into her room.

“She definitely has not been looking for that teddy.”

Michael kicks off his sneakers and curls his body onto the couch. He stretches out until he is laying with his head against my stomach.

“Do we need to call the hospital?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet. But I think I should call Callum to come get Maisie just in case.”

“It’s too early.”

My palms are sweaty, my heart squeezes. “I know.”

AUDREY

The afternoon passes in a blur, time counting not with the hours but with each new contraction.

Trying to hide my panic while Maisie complained because she only just got to see Michael again and it was supposed to be her weekend with mummy, not daddy. Callum’s large hand on my shoulder, his calm smile and a promise it’ll be okay—even though he can’t possibly know that—before he whisked her into the back seat.

Michael pacing the living room, calling the hospital as soon as they left, and again when the contractions started getting longer, instead of shorter. And again when I started to bleed. Only a little, but enough. Packing a rushed bag for the hospital and crouching over the bed as I tried to catch my breath. A particularly painful contraction in the car, and another in thecarpark. Michael standing behind me to hold me up when I couldn’t stand from the pain.

I find myself disassociating as I’m led to a consultation room. As though I’m watching the nightmare unfold on a TV screen. It’s not happening to me. Only it is, and I’m terrified. My hand clutches Michael’s and I refuse to let go as a polite midwife talks through preterm birth and how the babies will have to go to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Michael, guiding me to the bed as I break down at the news, only to have another contraction tear me apart from the inside out. I make him stay as I’m strapped to the monitor, and he wipes my tears after each new wave of terror and pain.

Two panicked midwives huddle over the read out from the machine, whispering. One races off, returning with an obstetrician. The ultrasound gel is cool on my stomach, but the pressure from the wand brings a new kind of pain, this one in my chest. My heart is breaking because I know things are going terribly wrong, they don’t need to tell me.

I’m rushed into a delivery room despite my protests that it’s too early, and I can’t shake the feeling that no one is listening. Not the doctor, not the midwives, not Michael, not my body.

Not yet, I try to tell them all.Not yet.

And then, time starts to drag and rush by somehow all at once. And everything is a million times worse. Worse than it was before, worse than it should be—I’m certain. Contraction after contraction feeling like daggers in my stomach, my back. Until now, I have no idea how long it’s been, what day it is, when it will end. There’s a drip of antibiotics in my wrist. A dose of something that should have stopped the contractions and then a dose of steroids when it didn’t work. A thick, painful needle in my butt that stings and aches but is nothing like the searing pain of the contractions. And all the while, the pain that rushes through my body every few minutes.

Michael stands, sits, paces. He lays his head on my shoulder, he stands behind me while I bounce on the ball, he carries me around the room when the pain is too much and I can’t move for myself. He ties my hair back, lets his hair down, runs his hands through its lengths and pulls at the ends. I doze and wake in searing pain, over and over until I can’t take it anymore.

Wires are spread across my stomach, pads are changed, hands are shoved inside me to check progress. My water breaks in a gush of liquid and Michael holds me on the armchair while the sheets are changed in a rush. A deep stain forms on Michael’s pants and he pretends not to notice even though the dark red stands out against his pale jeans.

Every moment comes and goes but everything stays the same. The same pressure, the same pain, the same feeling like I could die, and nothing at all like my memories of Maisie’s birth.

Was it easier because she was full term, or because it was only her? Had I just forgotten all of this because then she was here and it all seemed worth it?

No.

I would have remembered if it was this bad, I would have decided one was enough. But then, I had, hadn’t I?

---