Chapter Twenty-Nine

Noah

“Heee hhheee hoooo hooo heee heee hooo hooo. That’s it, just breathe through your nose, out through your mouth,” the nurse tells Kaleigh while her eyes are closed and she is focusing on the pain.

She is sitting in the middle of the hospital bed with her legs crossed, wearing a hospital gown. The contractions are every four minutes. I am kneeling behind her, rubbing her shoulders and her back when the contractions come again.

We are in the hospital finally after her water broke all over Austin’s shoes and he turned and almost yacked. We all got her into the car where I got us to the hospital. We went through lots of arguments over where to have the baby. Kaleigh wanted to have it in our bedroom, in a tub. I was almost in agreement when she took us to go watch another room do it. One look at the tub and I vetoed that. So we compromised. We’ll have it in the hospital if I bring all her Zen stuff. The room lights are dim, to almost off, the sound of the ocean and waves in the background softly playing along with some flutes and bells.

“Knock. Knock. Knock,” Dede says as she walks in with her balloons in one hand and flowers in the other hand, her hat still on her head. “What is that noise?” She scrunches up her nose.

“It’s Zen music, Mother.” Lauren walks into the room, pushing herself forward. Sneezing once, twice, three times. “Is that sage?” she asks and Kaleigh just grunts.

“Okay, time to do a check,” the nurse says as she gets off the bed. “Lie back, feet up,” she says, getting up and going to the side and grabbing a pair of gloves. “Okay,” she says, lifting up the gown. As soon as she does that Austin walks right in, his eyes going straight to Kaleigh on the bed. “Oh my God,” he says and looks to the side and then at the floor and then puts his hand to his mouth. “I’m going to be sick,” he says, looking pale.

Lauren goes to him, grabbing his face.

“Why does it look like that?” He looks like he is going to cry. “Why is it puffy?”

I put my head back and laugh. “Dude, the baby is almost crowning. You should come watch.”

“Are you fucking insane?” Austin says and walks out of the room while Lauren grins.

“He gets queasy.”

I look down to see that the nurse has her hand all inside Kaleigh.

“You’re at nine centimeters. This one is coming in fast.”

“It’s ’cause she played with her nipples and we had sex before the shower.” I look at Lauren. “Sorry about that. I just couldn’t resist. She needed the sperm.”

The nurse gets up, throws her gloves in the trash, and calls someone on the phone. “Okay, the doctor is on his way up. We are going to get everything ready,” she says, going to the corner of the room and turning a light on in one of those glass cases. She grabs some blankets and opens them up. She rolls it close to the bed.

“Something is happening,” Kaleigh says while her face is now covered with sweat. “I feel so much pressure. It hurts so much now.” Her head goes from left and right and she tries to breathe, but that is out the window and now she is howling in pain.

My hands go to my head, pulling my hair while Lauren holds her hands and tells her that everything will be okay.

I’m holding her other hand now as I move the hair away from her face.

“Okay, Kaleigh, how about we try some pushing?” the nurse says as she stands in front of her. “Bear down and push.” Kaleigh grabs my hand, puts her chin to her chest, and groans out as she pushes.

“One, two, three, you’re doing great. Seven, eight, nine, ten. Okay,” she says, grabbing another pair of gloves. “Okay, that was great. The baby is crowning,” she says, looking down at Kaleigh.

The doctor comes in with another nurse, who puts on the doctor’s scrubs jacket. “Hey there, Kaleigh, Noah,” she greets us as she sits on the stool in front of Kaleigh as she takes in the baby’s head.

“Okay, looks good. How about we push one more time?” Dr. Noelle says as she puts some gloves on and the nurse starts counting.

I look down at the head coming out and put my hand over my mouth. It’s not a normal size head. “Holy shit, is he going to have a small head? Did my penis knock him in the head? Is that why it’s so small?”

Dr. Noelle looks at me and laughs. “Noah, she’s crowning, which means the head is coming down. It’ll show more soon. Now, Kaleigh, stop pushing for a second,” she says and puts her finger inside, turning it around the baby’s head. “Now let’s push again, okay?” she says and as Kaleigh bears down I take my phone out and tape my son’s head popping out of his mother. “Okay, stop pushing. The head is out.” I look up to see Lauren and Dede with tears running down their cheeks. I look down and see the doctor grab onto his head and watch as his shoulders come out and his whole body slides out like a snake and she suctions his mouth while she holds him upside down and tears run down my face. I look down at Kaleigh, who has a red face and her chest is going up and down while she pants and cries as the doctor places our son on her chest.

“Oh my God.” She sobs out and her hand cradles our child as he cries out his first sound. “My baby.” She sobs as I lean down and kiss his wet head and then kiss the mother of my child, the wife I’m so lucky to have and the warrior in our family.

“I love you so much. You are so brave, baby, so, so brave.” I kiss her face while the nurse takes the baby from us and the doctor asks me to cut the umbilical cord.

She hands me the scissors and I cut between the white plugs. The nurse takes him to the bed, where she weighs him, cleans him, puts a diaper on him, and then brings him back to us. “Here he is, a whopping ten pounds, two ounces.” She smiles as the doctor finishes with Kaleigh and pushes back.

Lauren and Dede have given us time to ourselves by going to tell everyone about him.

“Hey there, it’s me, your dad,” I tell him while he blinks at us, just looking. “This is your mom. She’s the best. She is going to make you try some crazy stuff with her food. Just go with it, okay? She is going to make us do things we don’t want to do, but we will do it only because we love her and want to see her smile. You probably fell in love with her the second you looked at her, didn’t you? I should know, it happened to me also. She was the one who finally tempted the playboy.” And with that, I kiss him and my wife and thank whatever lucky star out there that made me fall into her life.