September 2019

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“I told you, Luna, there’s no point in talking about it. I’m fine,” I said, and paged through my worn-out copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It was an oldie but a goodie, and even though I knew the process intimately, I still enjoyed reading it.

It was just part of the experience. I’d be a mom soon, and I wanted to experience that fully. Every aspect of it.

Luna perched on the edge of my sofa, shaking her long, crimson locks at me. “No, you’re not fine. I mean, I understand hormones to some degree, but this is just—” She cut off, searching for the correct term. “It’s just worrying.”

I sighed.

This past week, she’d taken to sleeping over at the house. I was due, well, yesterday, and she wanted to be there for every ache, pain, and vagina-splitting moment. Eugh, was that necessary?

Regardless, the fact that she’d been here meant that she’d heard me crying last night. And the night before. And the night before that. It wasn’t that I cried myself to sleep. It was that I woke up in the middle of the night, after a particularly vivid dream.

Of Noah. In his office. On the day I’d gone to tell him I was pregnant.

It was a replay of what’d happened. Him telling me that he wanted nothing to do with me, to get out, and me barely holding back tears at the fact that my baby wouldn’t have his or her daddy. I’d refused to find out what the sex was.

“It’s just a dream,” I said, for the umpteenth time. “A recurring dream. Vivid dreams are normal during pregnancy.”

“Not ones that make you cry like a friggin’… Oh, you know what I mean.” Luna reached for a piece of bread from the platter we’d placed in the middle of the table. It was a mixture of all the cravings and treats I’d eaten throughout the course of my pregnancy.

M&Ms, bread slices layered thick with butter, apples—the sour green kind—and chips in mounds. There were also black olives, which Luna had avoided like they were cursed, and Danish feta cheese, parmesan, and dried pasta.

The last one, neither of us had touched. It’d been Luna’s idea to celebrate the end of my pregnancy with a cravings smorgasbord. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but I didn’t have any cravings right now, except for pizza. Greasy, delicious pizza.

“You’ve got that weird look on your face again,” Luna said, between bites of bread.

“Which one?” I asked and surreptitiously cleaned a bit of drool off my lip with a paper napkin. I placed my hand on my distended belly and adjusted my body so my ribs didn’t ache quite as much.

“That faraway look, like you’re dreaming with your eyes open. Were you thinking about him?”

“No, actually. I was thinking about pizza,” I replied then grimaced. “And I’ve got to pee again.”

“Now, that’s a good combination. I’ll call for the pepperoni.”

“Extra anchovies.”

“If I didn’t love you so much, I swear…” Luna trailed off and hopped off the sofa, skedaddling through the tiny living room and toward the attached kitchen.

My apartment was small but big enough for me and for my coming baby. And it was home. It felt like the perfect first home to me. I heaved myself off the sofa, grunting and groaning like the cow I was—only in size—and mooed my way into the bathroom.

I finished my business as quick as a pregnant woman could, flushed, washed my hands, then checked my reflection in the mirror.

Holy crap. Look at the size of your nose. I’d never been particularly vain, but a woman had to marvel at how that sucker had stretched out. My entire face was doughy and looked like it had been stretched to cover my skull.

“Sheesh,” I muttered, and pressed my hand to my belly. “The things I do for love.”

Pain speared through me. The muscles in my abdomen tightened, and I gripped the edge of the sink. “Oh my. Oh my, oh my. Oh my.”

“Extra anchovies ordered,” Luna called from the living room. “The things I do for love.”

The pain abated, and I exhaled, slowly released my hold on the sink. I cleared my throat. “Luna?”

“Yeah? I told you, I got the anchovies.”

“Luna, can you come in here for a second?”

“I swear, if you need me to help you off the toilet again, I’m going to take a picture. Nobody at work believes that’s a thing.” Luna’s voice drifted through the door, clearly bemused.

“Luna,” I hissed.

She opened the door and took a step inside, then froze. My pale face and her pink one stared back at us in the mirror. “I’m leaking,” I said, just realizing it for the first time.

“What? What do you mean you’re leaking?” Luna asked, and it was as if she’d just spoken to me through a tunnel. “Huh? You peed your pants?”

“No, I think—Luna, I think my water just broke.” Another contraction came, right on cue. “Oh my, and the contractions are already close together. Oh my god. I need to get to the hospital. Like, now.”

“What? What? You’re joking. Are you joking? You’re—”

“Luna, snap out of it,” I said, gritting my teeth through the pain, and practicing my breathing. “Whoosh, okay, whoosh.”

“Whoosh?”

“Get the bag,” I said. “Whoosh.”

“Why are you saying whoosh?”

“I’m breathing! Get the bag!”

Luna rushed out of the bathroom, squeaking like a mouse that had been trodden on, and I followed her out. “OK, we’re fine. How far apart are they?” I muttered.

“I can hear you talking to yourself!” Luna called from the master bedroom. “And it’s freaking me out.”

“Shush!” The contraction had abated again. “Where’s my phone?” I muttered and waddled over to the kitchen counter. I swept it up and tapped through my apps until I reached the timer. “OK, start on the next one. Can’t be more than 5 centimeters, surely.” Unless I was about to have the quickest labor in history. “Whoosh,” I said.

“The whooshing thing too,” Luna cried and skidded into the kitchen, carrying my overnight bag, “is seriously freaking me out.”

“You know, for the person who’s not in labor between the two of us, you sure complain a lot.”

Luna laughed hysterically. “Oh my god, let’s go—”

Another contraction came, and I hit the timer with a shaking finger. I continued whooshing, gripping the underside of my belly. The pain was intense, and I squeezed my eyes shut, focused on my breathing.

“What are we doing?” Luna asked. “Why aren’t we moving?”

“Whoosh. We’re. Whoosh. Timing. Whoosh.” Finally, it abated and I hit the stop button on the timer, sweat beading on my forehead. “Sixty seconds.” I hit another timer. “Let’s see how long until the next one.”

We called a cab, hurried out of the apartment and down to it, and another contraction came. “Oh my god,” I screeched and clutched at my phone. I hit the lap button on my timer. “Five minutes. That’s way too close together. That’s... This baby is coming. It’s coming now.”

“The hospital is an hour away,” Luna replied, in a muted wail.

“Anything closer?” I asked.

She swallowed, nodded. “Yeah, but you’re not going to like it.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said.

Luna nodded again. “What do you want to do?”

The contraction subsided and I exhaled, glancing at the reflection of the cabbie’s wide eyes in his rearview mirror. A beat passed.

Just because he worked there didn’t mean he had a shift today. Maybe I’d get lucky. As if.

“Erika?”

I sucked in a breath. “What I want to do? What I want to do is have this baby. Fast.”

Luna squeezed my hand, then focused on the driver. “St. Katherine’s Hospital. On the double. Like put your foot flat against the pedal, aight?”

The taxi screeched off, just as another contraction took hold.