“I WANT TO GO TO the hospital.”
Cameron sighed deeply and looked at her with a cautious expression. “What about Dylan?”
“He goes with, of course!”
“We might be there for a while, and I don’t know if babies are allowed.”
Lacey wanted to strangle him. Cutting him off before he came up with a half dozen more arguments against going, she crossed her arms and legs, started shaking her foot, and nailed him with a scathing look.
“Cameron Justice. You listen to me. That’s your brother and my sister at that hospital. We need to be there. As for Dylan, I know you weren’t paying attention when it was you and me there, but they’re in the obstetrics building in a private birthing suite. Little children are allowed and encouraged to be involved with the family. Don’t worry about our little man. He’ll be fine. We’ll pass him around when he’s awake, and he can snooze in the Pack ‘n Play. Give us a chance to break in some of this cool baby-on-the-go equipment we got.”
She had him over a barrel and could see him struggling with that fact in his expression. Doubling down on the foot shaking and cross expression, she waited for him to give in.
He surprised her, though, when he finally did.
“Thanks,” Cameron muttered. “I need to be there. Worried about Drae.”
She bolted from her chair and insinuated herself in his arms. “Aw, honey,” she cried with real concern. “If you felt that way, why didn’t you say something? What’s with all the foot-dragging?”
“Aw, fuck, I don’t know,” he groaned. “Some weird dad reflex, I think.”
Lacey shook her head and smiled. She covered his face with kisses. Cameron as a daddy was just the cutest damn thing she’d ever seen. They’d driven with Dylan in the car a couple of times. Mostly for pediatrician visits but that first time? With his miraculous infant son strapped like an astronaut into a car seat? He barely made it over twenty-five miles an hour.
“Sweetheart. That boy is a brawny little nugget. He’s under three months old by the hair of his chinny chin chin. And right now, he’s a breeze to lug around. In a couple of months when he’s all wiggly and getting ready to go mobile? Not so much.”
Cameron hugged her tight. Grabbed her ass, of course, in the process. “What would I do without you to reel me in, huh?”
“Oh…I think we both know the answer to that,” she laughed.
He kissed her sweetly and told her thank you again.
“Okay. I’ll text Alex and find out if anyone needs anything. You go figure out what we need to hang out at the hospital for a couple of hours. Let me know when Dylan’s able to take a road trip, and we’ll go join the rest of the family.”
SO MUCH EQUIPMENT HAD BEEN wheeled into the room that even with the balloons and flowers it really did seem quite clinical again. After a vitals check, they determined that she wasn’t taking in enough fluids. He hadn’t noticed, but once it was brought to his attention, he could have kicked himself. Victoria hadn’t asked for anything to drink and had been refusing when offered something. Or just taking a tiny sip then giving up. Why hadn’t he connected the dots?
Now, she was on an IV drip and strapped non-stop to a baby monitor, which only added to her discomfort. Medical personnel hovered nearby and every whispered conversation made her anxiety spike.
Drae blanked the sound coming from the fetal monitor. It was a skill and a habit he’d acquired when he’d been living in a country-sized battlefield. Consciously blocking extraneous noises and conversations—focusing on specific things. He simply ignored it.
But he could see it was making Victoria mental. All she could do was just lie there, stuck with an IV, attached to a blood pressure machine, and strapped to a monitor. The rhythmic sounds were the wrong soundtrack for her mood.
The hours crawled by—at one point she’d dozed off, and when the nurses came round, he pretty much told them if they woke her up they’d be dealing with him. Luckily, the lead nurse didn’t ruffle easily and had probably seen it all. She simply smiled, gave Victoria an intense visual inspection, touched him reassuringly on the arm, and drifted away.
THE LARGE OPEN WAITING ROOM on the birthing floor afforded Family Justice plenty of room to set up a command post. Alex had been speechless then overcome with laughter when Cam arrived looking like a Sherpa as he carried in the baby equipment. Lacey carried Dylan in a comfy looking baby sling that gave her a Madonna and Child look.
They set up a mini-nursery for Dylan with something called a Pack ‘n Play that had a changing station, storage bins, was a portable bassinette, and had a cushy napping lounger. The damn thing also played a variety of classical tunes or nature sounds. Alex knew all these details because Cam had launched into a fucking infomercial as he set it up and they all gathered round to watch and learn.
Once everyone was in one place, they sat around and discussed what was going on. But with no new information, they eventually drifted into two distinct groups—the ladies having a conclave over Dylan and his amazing baby-town, and the guys, sharking around the doorway with an eye on the hallway and nurse’s station.
“Alex, did you look this shit up and find out what’s probably going on back there?” Cam asked.
Bah. Of course, he had. Even viewed a few birthing videos until he got too emotional to watch anymore and Meghan had forced him to shut the laptop and go to bed.
“Yeah. Pregnancy complication, man—what else can I say? I did, however, check out the hospital and everyone working obstetrics. These guys are first rate. I mean, just look around at this birthing center,” he told them as he waved his hand to make the point. “It’s small, yeah, but this isn’t exactly the big city. But it’s brand new and I found out from a little digging that when they started fundraising to build it, a bunch of wealthy patrons ponied up at least five times an ass-load of cash to make it happen. That says a lot.”
Cam snorted in amusement. “Well fuck, Big Daddy, that’s sure as shit comforting to know after we’ve already given birth here!” Calder laughed.
He just shrugged and laughed it off. “Dude—Lacey never had so much as had a headache when she was pregnant. We weren’t thinking in terms of high-risk events and shit like that with you guys. This is uncharted territory.”
Cam threw a fake punch and danced around him jabbing playfully. “I know. Just fucking with you.”
Hours crawled by with no contact from Drae. Things must be pretty intense if he wasn’t leaving Tori’s side at all. Alex got more and more worried as time went by. Every so often, he’d look at Meghan, and she’d respond with a shake of her head and an uneasy frown.
It was getting late and the group was gathered in a tight circle deciding what to do when Drae finally appeared. He immediately went to Stephanie then did an emotional bro hug with him and Cam. Spying baby Dylan, he hung over the kid’s napper seat and played the dutiful uncle.
“How’s she doing?” Lacey asked.
Alex could see Drae was glad she was there. Lacey might be able to shed some light on what Victoria was experiencing.
“They inserted a line for IV fluids. Something about her being dehydrated, but I heard the nurses commenting that it was a good thing to have the line in place if they need it for anything else.”
Lacey frowned but said, “Okay.”
“And in addition to the ever present blood pressure equipment, she’s strapped to a fetal monitor.”
“I had that,” Lacey observed with firm assurance. “Not all the time, but every so often during my labor. It’s normal.”
“Do they think she’ll go into labor?” Meghan asked.
Stephanie groaned when the question hung in the air.
Drae looked like he was very close to crumbling. In a choked voice, he told them, “That is a possibility.”
“How many weeks along is she?” Calder asked.
“I don’t know—like thirty-three or thirty-four. This shit’s a wonky science of strange factors. Last period isn’t the same thing as date of conception.”
“Anything before thirty-seven weeks is considered premature,” Stephanie squeaked. Calder immediately put his arm about her.
Okay. That is enough, Alex thought. He couldn’t stand there and let them all, including Drae, get worked up.
“Tell Tori that we’re all here, rooting for her, and we send our love, okay?”
A nurse motioned to get Drae’s attention indicating that she needed him to sign something. He nodded then addressed the group.
“You might as well head out for home. This is a waiting game now. Pumping her full of fluids and getting the blood pressure under control will take some time. Hopefully, it’ll all resolve itself, and we can go home.”
“Call if you need anything or her situation changes.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Drae muttered with half a fake reassuring smile.
Calder asked, “Stephanie and I will grab a change of clothes for you from home? Anything else?”
While Drae conferred with those two over what to bring from the house, Alex helped Meghan and Lacey start to pack up Dylan’s gear.
“Lace,” he murmured so Drae wouldn’t hear. “He say anything that you think we should be worried about?”
“Only the premature labor thing, but even that isn’t a huge crisis. There are lots of babies delivered just fine at thirty-four, thirty-five weeks. And up till now, all signs indicate Bunny Cha Cha is healthy and has been chubbing up.”
After some hasty good-byes and a few last private words, once again there were a couple of carloads full of quiet, concerned people making the long drive home in the dark.
AND SO IT WENT FOR two more days. Drae was hanging by a thread. Victoria was coming unglued. Everyone else had spent long mind-numbing hours in the waiting room. Other couples came and went from the birthing center. Something had to give—one way or the other.
Their birthing suite included a private bathroom and small seating area with a long sofa where he’d been able to catch some z’s. Some of the luxury suites had large bathtubs that were called birth pools. He’d almost passed out when the nurse explained what a water birth was.
The support staff made quite a production of bringing them meals and snacks at regular intervals. He’d been able to get Victoria to nibble here and there and thankfully, they were less concerned about her fluids. Once she’d stabilized somewhat, they even removed the constant fetal monitoring.
It even seemed like the crisis was passing and things were calming down when she went into labor right after dinner. After a tense exchange with their doctor when they practically melted down, it was determined that she was far enough along to expect a normal, although slightly premature, delivery. The baby was showing no signs of stress. They’d been able to stabilize Victoria’s pressure so things looked good.
At first, in the early stages, the entire ordeal felt surreal. Every fifteen to twenty minutes, Victoria felt a twinge. They let her get up and move around and encouraged her to go to the bathroom often. One minute they were managing a health crisis—the next they were counting down to birthing their baby.
She made him leave her long enough to jog into the waiting room and announce that the baby was coming. Loud whoops of happiness and high fives broke out, Family Justice style. Everyone even huddled into a group for a hilarious photo op they insisted Drae snap with his phone to show Victoria.
Drae learned a lot about his wife over the next couple of hours once she’d transitioned into active labor. How her little body handled the longer and more intense contractions put him in his place and gave him a profound admiration for his spitfire wife. She might be small, but she was powerful when unleashed.
Because she wouldn’t have been able to handle two hours of driving once a week to attend a childbirth class, they’d used Lacey’s traveling doula to walk them through what to expect. Drae had also spent long hours searching the Internet and watching YouTube videos so he’d have a better handle on what was expected of him. Being the very best support for his brave and magnificent wife was uppermost in his mind.
Their doctor was all smiles and full of encouraging banter when he checked on her progress. Drae tried not to think too much about cervical dilation and what that meant because only an idiot wouldn’t realize that a dilating cervix had to hurt like a mother.
Around two in the morning, shit got fucking real. The contractions got stronger and stronger until eventually talking became too difficult. But still his little woman soldiered on.
They breathed together. He rubbed her back and fed her a constant stream of ice chips. When the contractions seized her, Drae talked her through the worst of it then praised her efforts. The fetal monitor was back, but it was intermittent. For the most part, everything was going like clockwork.
After Victoria had been in active labor for two and a half hours, her water finally broke. When the medical team saw green in the amniotic fluid, a call went out for the delivering obstetrician to return, stat. Right then and there, Drae lost control of the situation.
Following a quick evaluation, the doctor informed them in brisk, no-nonsense terms that meconium was present in the fluid. In a nutshell, what this meant was that the baby had a recent bowel movement. Long story short, this put the fetus in danger of meconium aspiration if they were to continue with a vaginal delivery. Because they were facing a preterm birth when the development of the baby’s lungs was a major issue, they were advising an immediate Cesarean to avoid complications.
Next thing Drae knew, he was whisked away and told to wash up and don scrubs while Victoria was prepped for the surgery. He went through the motions aware the entire time of his rapid breathing and the thunderous beating of his heart. An emergency C-section. Jesus Christ.
He didn’t settle down until he was taken back into the OR and given a seat at Victoria’s head. An epidural had already been administered so when she clutched his hand and he saw her wide, frightened eyes, he knew she was unnerved by how quickly things were moving.
Having not prepared for what a C-section would be like, they were silent when the medical team raised a birthing screen side to side along Victoria’s chest.
“That’s to keep the area sterile,” a nurse murmured. It was also to keep the anxious expectant parents from having a visual of the incision being made, something he realized when the word “scalpel” made its way into his brain followed by a request for clamps. He swallowed hard and kissed Victoria’s hand.
He was stunned by how fast everything moved. The amount of blood that ended up on the floor shook him up. He was very, very glad that Victoria was unable to see it.
Next thing he knew, the doctor told him if he stood up and glanced over the screen, he’d be able to witness the moment the baby emerged. On shaking legs, the battle-hardened Special Forces vet stood like a weak-limbed colt and watched awestruck as their baby was lifted from Victoria’s body. He looked down at his wife as tears filled his eyes.
“Congratulations, you two. It’s a boy for the St. Johns,” the doctor announced to all present. Very quickly, he held the newborn above the screen for Victoria to see then the baby was quickly whisked away by the nursing staff to be cleaned up, weighed, and evaluated.
Almost immediately, the lusty cries of their son resonated around the room and the nurse called Drae over to help cut the baby’s cord.
The doctor reassured Victoria that things looked good, excellent in fact, and let her know she’d remain on the operating table for another half hour while they stitched her up and closed the incision. After that, she could hold her baby and see if he wanted to nurse.
Watching the nurse wrap his newborn son up and put a little cap on his head, Drae could barely hold it together. When she handed him the baby to hold, a paradigm shift happened inside him. This was his son. His and Victoria’s. They’d made a baby together and now after a shitload of drama he was safe in his daddy’s arms.
The nurse led him gently back to his wife. He was thankful for her intervention because at the moment he wasn’t entirely sure if he remembered how to walk.
Drae lowered their son onto Victoria’s chest so she could get a good luck at him.
“Oh, my God,” she cried. “He’s so beautiful. Draegyn! Look. He has such sweet lips and a nose. He has a nose!”
He bent over, kissed her tenderly, and enjoyed those first few moments of absolute wonder as they bonded with their firstborn.
Before long the nurse came and took the baby away with a brief explanation that there were a series of tests they needed to run. A wristband was attached to the baby’s leg and one to his and Victoria’s wrist identifying them as a family. Baby St. John was now an actual thing.
An hour later, after Victoria was wheeled back to her room and they’d had a brief time to put their son to the breast, she’d been shaking so violently from the epidural that they had to let Victoria recover fully before they tried again. A nurse stayed close by in the suite, walking them through everything that had and was happening and what to expect for her recovery following the C-section.
She also rattled off a string of stats that they’d both remember for the rest of their lives.
Time of birth: 5:15 am
Weight: 7 lbs. 5 oz.
Length: 19.5 inches
It was his wife who reminded him that he needed to let the family know that a new Family Justice member had come into the world. He and Victoria already knew what his name would be—something they’d decided unanimously just recently. But she didn’t want him to announce it just yet because she wanted to be the one to tell her mom.
Drae looked at his beautiful son sleeping quietly in the bassinette, then at his magnificent wife, and choked up. He bent over and kissed her tenderly.
“Thank you, my sweet, sweet love. He’s amazing and so are you.”
She smiled and caressed the side of his face. “I love you, Draegyn Henry St. John.”
“And I adore you, Victoria Bennett St. John.”