Epilogue – Katy

Eighteen months later…

“Mom!” Liam calls loudly to me as he stomps through the front door, slamming it hard behind him. “Mommy, are you here? School is finished now so I’m home.”

“I’m just in the kitchen!” I call back with a smile on my face. “Everything okay, Liam?”

“Yeah, just wanted to check that you’re here and not in the hospital.” As he makes it to the kitchen, his eyes flick down to my swollen belly. “No, still got a baby in your tummy.”

I run my hand over my stomach, immediately feeling a kick. “Yep, shouldn’t be for too much longer though. I think the baby will come soon. You looking forward to being a big brother?”

“Yep, I sure am. It’s going to be so much fun.”

“Maybe, but be prepared for me and your dad to be very tired for a while with all the sleepless nights. You’re lucky to have a bedroom far away so you won’t get woken up so much.”

“Yeah.” He screws up his nose. “I think you are right, but I still want to help you when I can.”

Liam is so mature these days, he’s grown up so much over the last year and I think that’s down to having his dad around a lot more. Starting school has probably had an impact as well. Evan now completely mixes his time up between work and his home life and he’s managed to achieve the perfect balance. I was working on it, but at the moment I’m all about family since I’m about to have a new born baby. That can’t be helped, but the foundation of my company is there. I certainly have something to go back to when the time is right. I’m much more suited to being a lawyer in my own way anyway. I didn’t realize how little I liked the rules of working for Harrison and Associates, all the unnecessary hoops I had to jump through to get anywhere.

Still, it hardly matters now, that I left it far behind me.

“Daddy is just getting some stuff from the car,” Liam tells me as he grabs something to eat from the fridge. “He won’t be more than a minute.”

“Sure, sure. How was your day…” All of a sudden, a hot pain radiates through my stomach. I clutch onto myself and bend over double. Well, as double as I can bend with a massive stomach rolled out in front of me. “Oh, my God, that hurts.” I breathe deeply, but it doesn’t help at all. If anything, it makes it worse. “That hurts so badly. It’s agony.”

Liam doesn’t even ask me what I need, he races from the room yelling his father the whole time. This must be my daughter being born, she was due yesterday. I’ve been expecting something like this to happen all day long, but I didn’t think it would feel like this. I’ve been to all the baby classes that I can get to, and I’ve listened intently to all the lessons, but none of them could have prepared me for this. This must be my first contraction, and it’s killing me. It’s horrible. It’s the worst thing that I’ve ever experienced in my life. If this is just the first part, the easiest part, then I don’t know how I’m going to cope. How am I going to give birth when it feels like my body is already being torn apart?

“Oh my goodness, Katy, are you okay?” Evan races to my side and he wraps his arms around me. His touch comforts me a little, but it isn’t enough today to calm me down. “Is it starting?”

“I think so,” I gulp down some loud breaths. “I think this is my contractions starting.”

“Do we need to go to the hospital now? Shall I call Nancy to come and watch Liam?”

“I don’t think we can go right away… argh!” I yell as more pain tears through me, but this time I seem to recover a lot quicker. “But yes, it might be a good idea to call Nancy in just in case. She’s been on standby since yesterday, hasn’t she?”

“Yep, yeah, sure.” Evan tugs his cell phone out of his pocket. “Okay, I’ll call Nancy. You take a seat and relax… well, relax as much as you can until it gets too much.”

I stagger into the living room and fall onto the couch with Liam by my side. He immediately flicks the television on and switches it to something he thinks I might like to watch.

“Shall I get you a drink or something to eat?”

The thought of food makes me feel sick right now, but I’m not going to say that to Liam. He’s only being nice. “A drink sounds awesome,” I gasp through the pain. “Water please.”

Once I’m alone in the room, I rub my belly and I talk to my baby girl like I have done constantly since I found out that I was pregnant – that happy little surprise that I’ve been excited about for nine long months.

“Hey, little Delia. How are you doing in there?” Admittedly my tone isn’t as soft as it’s been for the last nine months. The sheer pain is bursting through my tone. “I can’t wait to meet you, me, your dad, and your big brother are very excited.” I rub her, hoping that I can soothe her. “Now I’m a little scared too because it’s going to be a painful journey to get you here. Don’t hurt me too much? Please?” A contraction bursts through me again. “Okay, okay, I get it. It’s going to have to hurt. It’s probably not going to be the nicest time for you either. But you’re already very loved, you know that, right? We all love you dearly, you’re being born into a very loving family.”

Evan dives into the room with a pale, panicked and very stressed face. “Okay, that’s it. Nancy is on the way, she said that she should be here in about ten minutes, is that long enough? How are you doing? Do you need anything? What can I do for you?”

“I’m okay at the moment, I think. I just need your hand to hold…”

Then Liam runs in the room too, clutching onto my glass of water like it’s the holy grail. “Here, I have your drink. Is this okay? Do you need anything else?”

“I need your hand too. I have to hold on to both of you to stop the pain.”

As I hold onto both of these two, I know that I’m not going through this alone. The birth part is scary, but I can get through it with the support of this pair, and I know it’ll be totally worth it when Delia arrives and our awesome family expands even more. This journey is an amazing one, I love being with my husband, my son, and soon to be my daughter. I don’t ever have any doubts about where I am, I don’t wonder what it would be like if I’d taken that partner job and continued with my career dreams.

This right now, my happy ever after, is exactly where I’m supposed to be.