Diner Girl(35)

Fiddling with the pawn, she wondered if she should take his rook or if he’d laid a trap. “I just don’t see where I can move—” She stopped. Pain cut through her middle, not the same as her previous contractions; this was ten times stronger. More immediate. She looked to Mark.

“Okay, no faking labor to get out of your turn.”

She clenched her teeth and cried out as a strong contraction ripped through her abdomen. “I’m not faking.” She held her belly as she tried to pull herself out of the bed. “This really hurts!”

“Wait! Seriously? Okay, that’s just one, so we should wait and see how far apart they are.”

She glowered in his direction. “You wait, I’m going to the hospital.”

“It’s time? Really?” He looked down at his watch. “Let’s get going, I don’t want to have us stuck in traffic and you delivering a baby in the back of my car.”

“At least there’d be a doctor there,” she quipped.

Hours passed and Jennifer felt exhausted from the strain on her body. She closed her eyes and rested a few moments between contractions, but her mind wouldn’t stop worrying over one nagging truth. This had gone on too long, and there had been too much pain.

She clenched her teeth tightly as she held Mark’s hand. “I just want it to be over. God, it just hurts so much.”

“I’m here.” He stroked hair away from her sweaty brow. As soon as her contraction passed, he pulled his hand away and shook it. “Dr. Simmons will be back in just a few minutes. She’ll let you know how you’re doing. Just keep breathing.”

Mark knew things weren’t right. The baby showed signs of distress, and Jennifer couldn’t keep this up for much longer. She’d dilated quickly and then stagnated. At eight centimeters, things hadn’t progressed any farther for several hours.

“Okay, folks,” the doctor said as she came back into the room, “we need to go ahead and deliver this baby. Jennifer, we’re going to have to do a C-section. We talked about this earlier. Do you remember?”

Alarm rose in Jennifer’s voice as she asked, “Is my baby okay? Please don’t let anything happen to my baby!”

Mark grasped her hand again.

“The baby is showing signs of distress. We just don’t want to wait too long. Your blood pressure has gone higher than I would have liked, and I don’t want to risk something happening to either of you. Are you okay with this?”

Jennifer nodded but could not speak.

“Okay, Mom and Dad. Let’s go have a baby.”

“Jennifer,” Mark said a few minutes later as they headed to the OR, “Ethan or Emma, I like those names.”

Jennifer laughed even as she cringed. “You picked a great time to decide.”

Trying to distract her, he said, “Well, your mom was Elizabeth, my father was Eric. I like the idea that our baby should have part of them as the name. Maybe her middle name could be after my mother, Isabel. Actually, Isabel means Elizabeth in Spanish. What do you think?”

“I think it’s great. I think Ethan will be sad in gym class as Ethan Isabel, but we should go with it.”

Dr. Simmons directed the nurses and staff around the OR, preparing them for the tasks they’d have to perform. She then patted Jennifer on the hand and looked at Mark. “Okay, we’re going to get started in just a few minutes. Dad, you know the drill.”

Mark felt exhausted and stressed. He’d been on the other side of this before. He’d performed Csections during his internship, but nothing could have prepared him for this. He suddenly felt a new respect for all the fathers who held things together so well. Personally, he felt as if he would fall over at any moment. Thoughts of Jennifer, of their baby, were the only things keeping him on his feet.

He could tell from the quickness of the doctor’s movements that things weren’t as easy as she said. Normally C-sections went quickly, but not like this. Unnamed dread formed in the pit of his belly, but he did his best to sound positive so Jennifer wouldn’t know how terrified he really was.

“Jennifer, you’re going to feel a pressure, and then we’ll have a baby. Are you ready?” They’d placed a curtain between Jennifer and her belly to prevent her from seeing the actual cutting. The doctor looked over it and waited for her patient’s confirmation.

Jennifer nodded then focused on Mark.

He stroked her cheek. “It’s going to be wonderful, just a few more minutes, and we’ll hold our beautiful baby.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Okay, I know you have all these what-ifs going through your head right now...” Mark looked back and forth between the procedure and Jennifer. “But I can see everything that’s happening, and it all looks great. Okay. She’s done cutting now.”