Page 95 of This Love
A doctor in blue sat between my legs. He told me to push, but I didn’t know what he meant. But there was weird pressure down below. I felt thick where I wasn’t thick before.
The pain returned. “You said it wouldn’t hurt!” I wailed.
Kenisha gripped my hand. “We need you to be able to feel a few things so you can push the baby out.”
Tucker stayed near my head. “Do you want to hold my hand?”
“No,” I cried. “I want to go back to sleep!”
The pain came in waves with almost no breaks. I wanted to run away from this awful sensation, push it back up so it wouldn’t be down there. Kenisha stayed beside me and told me this was all normal. The baby was coming.
I began to understand about pushing. It was happening even when I didn’t try. It wanted the fat feeling to go down and down. I held onto the rails and pushed with it.
Then came a sound like nothing I could have ever imagined. I heard it with my whole body. My belly quivered. My chest tingled. My eyes must have heard it, too, because they started making tears.
“It’s a boy,” the doctor said and lifted something I didn’t recognize. It was wet and red and white. A strange, fat cord came out of it.
Then he turned it, and I saw it was a baby. The sound was his rough, jagged cry.
I couldn’t take it. Everything in me hurt from hearing that sound. “Help him!”
Kenisha lowered the front of my gown, and the baby was placed on my chest. I pressed my hand against his back. He quieted immediately, his face against my skin.
He was upset.
And now, he was not.
Because of me.
He knew something about me that I didn’t. Something that helped him.
“We have some bleeding,” the doctor said. “Nurse?” Jennifer moved near him.
Kenisha pressed her hand on top of mine where it held the baby. “You did great. He’s beautiful.” But then a beeping made her look away. She glanced at the monitor near my head. “Doctor? Her BP?”
He focused on the space between my knees. “Did you talk to neurology?”
“Yes,” Jennifer said. “They’re going to do an EEG once labor is over.”
“We have an abruption.” His voice sounded different, harder edged. “Get that baby. Call OR to prep a room.”
Kenisha covered the baby with a blanket and started to take him away. I wanted to protest, hold on to him, but my arm wouldn’t do what I told it. I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t work.
Zigzags of light took over my vision. The room lost color.
“Doctor, she’s seizing.” Alarm bells sounded in the room.
I saw flowers for a moment, bending in a breeze. They were yellow, bright, and cocked to the side, as if they were turning their ears to me. They wanted to listen, to hear me speak.
I reached out for them but touched nothing.
The baby started to cry.
And then I heard nothing at all.
Chapter 37
Tucker
