Page 51 of Christmas at the Movies
‘It’s happening!’ she shouted over the sound of the film. ‘James! The baby is coming.’
Someone in the next row leapt up and helped her out of the auditorium.
James met her in the lobby. ‘Let’s get you to the hospital,’ he said, helping her into her coat. He fumbled in his pocket, searching for his car keys.
‘Good luck,’ said Harry, holding the back door open for them. ‘I’ll lock everything up tonight.’
Once they were in the car, James began driving slowly to the hospital.
‘If you drive any slower, I’ll have the baby in the car,’ muttered Sarah, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Water was still leaking out of her.
‘I’m just nervous,’ said James.
‘You’re not the one about to push a baby out of your vagina,’ replied Sarah. That made her realise something – she didn’t have her birth plan. ‘Oh, no. I don’t have my hospital bag!’
‘Should we swing home and get it?’ asked James.
Sarah’s stomach went taut and a terrible cramp clenched her middle. Groaning, she gripped the dashboard and tried to take deep breaths, as the books said to do. Unfortunately, the stupid books had neglected to describe quite how painful a contraction felt. It was like a period pain times a hundred.
No, make that times a million. After what felt like an hour of agony – but was only a minute – she slumped back in her seat.
‘No – just drive!’ She moaned.
By the time they reached the hospital, Sarah’s contractions were coming every five minutes.
‘Am I ready to push?’ she asked the midwife, a no-nonsense woman named Angelica.
‘You’re only four centimetres dilated,’ said Angelica, after examining her.
Sarah spent the early hours of the morning pacing the maternity ward’s corridors. Every time a contraction came, she stopped and clutched James’s arm until it passed.
‘You’re doing brilliantly,’ he said.
‘If I knew it was going to take this long, I would have stayed to watch the end of the movie.’
Long after the sun had risen, Sarah was fully dilated. It was time to push, but the baby was in no rush to make an appearance.
‘Are you sure you don’t want an epidural?’ the midwife asked, after Sarah had been pushing for several hours.
Sarah shook her head, sucking down another lungful of gas and air.
When the baby still failed to make an appearance, Angelica called in a doctor. They listened to the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor and frowned.
‘Is something wrong?’ asked James.
‘The heart rate is too low,’ said the doctor. ‘Your baby is in distress – we need to move things along.’
‘Oh, God,’ whimpered Sarah. Fear gripped her more tightly than any contraction. ‘Please help my baby.’
‘Sarah, we’re going to use forceps,’ Angelica explained calmly. ‘Hopefully, this will help get baby out. If that doesn’t work, we’ll perform an emergency caesarean.’
Sarah nodded, her eyes wide with fear. She saw James’s lips moving silently and knew he was praying.
‘Push, Sarah,’ said the midwife when her next contraction started. ‘Push as hard as you can.’
Exhausted though she was, Sarah bore down with all her might. Then, she felt a searing pain, as if she had been sliced right open.
‘It hurts,’ she wailed.
