Page 77 of Jake and Conner
"What?" Mark and Bastian both looked at him in confusion.
I only laughed at the look of absolute wonder on Jake's face.
All because our child had finally decided to kick him.
He was going to be a fantastic dad, I was sure of it.
33
Conner
Ihad known that our baby was shy.
I'd had no idea that he was shy to the point of wanting to make his entry into the worldat homerather than at the hospital. Not even really at home. Jake and I had spent a night at the cabin. A last 'romantic getaway', Jake had called it, before we would be too busy as new parents.
We'd thought we had another week or so at least before we had to worry about any surprises.
It was a good thing that Jake--worried as ever--had taken precautions for exactly this sort of thing happening. Or at least, that was what he told me when I woke him to tell him the baby was coming.
To be honest, it wasn't the first thing he said. Thefirstthing he said, blearily staring up at me, was, "What are you talking about?"
In his defense, I'd woken him from a deep slumber and it was before coffee. Our baby was either a very early bird or a night owl. "I've been up for a while," I said. "At first I thought it was nothing." After all, I had been having cramps on and off for days now. "But I think we need to get to the hospital now."
Jake sat up, looking more alert by the second.
"The hospital?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "Wait, you mean..." He stared at me, and then his gaze shot to my belly. "Now?" he demanded with an expression of panic.
"Yes, now!" Or rather, an hour or two ago, but I hadn't wanted to bother him over nothing. How was I supposed to know that 'nothing' would turn into 'something' very quickly? I'd never given birth before and I'd read that it would take a long time for the 'practice contractions' my body was throwing at me to become real.
But they were coming every few minutes now and nothing about them felt like practice.
So I woke Jake, because Jake would know what to do.
It took him another couple of seconds and then his confusion cleared and he jumped out of bed to get dressed. He cursed under his breath as he threw on his shirt. "Okay, we got this," he said then, and it sounded as if he was trying to calm himself as much as he was trying to calm me.
And that was the moment I felt a rush of warm liquid flood my pants.
"I think my water just broke."
"Okay," Jake said. And then again, "Okay," as if nothing could faze him.
I tried to take a deep breath, but then another one of those goddamn contractions hit me and it was hard to breathe through that and I had no idea how Jake could stand there as if everything was all right.
But once the cramp let up, I realized that hewasn'tjust standing there. The gears were turning in his head. He was switching into work-mode now and analyzing the situation. "How far apart are your contractions?“ he asked.
"A couple of minutes," I said. I hadn't timed them. I knew I should have, but this whole situation was making it difficult to think straight, even for me. Later, I would be ashamed to admit it, but that moment, I wanted nothing more than for Jake to take charge and solve this problem for me.
And he did.
"Lay back on the bed," he told me. "Take your pants off."
"Shouldn't we be driving to the hospital?"
Jake hesitated only for a second before shaking his head. "We might not make it. I don't want to risk it." A look of determination settled on his features. "Don't worry. I didn'tthinkthis was going to happen, but I came prepared, anyway."
"How prepared?" Did he really want me to give birth to our baby here?
Did he want to be the one delivering it?
