The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain [145]
“I’d love you to stay,” she said. “But you may just be watching me sleep.”
“Fine,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll call Sheila.”
“What will you tell her?” she asked.
“The truth,” he said. He was standing now, his hands on the back of the chair. “She already knows the baby is mine.”
Joelle was shocked. “She does? How?”
“She guessed, and I told her she was right.”
“What did she say?”
“She beat me up with her purse.”
“Are you kidding?” She laughed.
“I wish.” He smiled and left the room.
She woke herself up with her own moaning, the sound coming from somewhere deep inside her. There was cramping low in her belly.
“What is it, Jo?” Liam asked.
She opened her eyes. The room was dark, except for the light pouring through the open door from the hallway, and for a moment Joelle wasn’t certain who was sitting next to her.
“Carlynn?” she asked.
“She went home, Jo,” Liam said. “Are you okay?”
“I think…” she said. “A contraction, I think. What time is it?”
“Two in the morning.”
She could see the paleness of his eyes in the light from the monitor. “You’d better get the nurse,” she said.
He was back in a moment with Lydia, who examined her, then stood up.
“You’re four, almost five centimeters dilated,” she said. “The mag sulfate didn’t work. I’m going to call Rebecca.”
She looked at Liam after Lydia left the room. “I’m afraid this is it,” she said.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’ll be with you,” he said.
“My mother was supposed to be my birth partner,” she said.
“Do you want me to call her?”
“She didn’t take any of the classes.”
“I’ve had all the classes, Jo,” he said. “I’m a pro.”
Another contraction gripped her belly, and she tightened her hold on his hand. When the pain had passed, she looked into his eyes. “I’m scared,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “Me, too.”
“I’ve been having these terrible nightmares lately,” she said. “That I get the headache.”
He pressed his lips to her hand. “You know that’s not going to happen.”
“What did Sheila say when you called her?”
“Essentially, nothing. I said that you were in labor, that if she could keep Sam, I would like to stay with you. And there was a long silence, and then she said, ‘Fine,’ and hung up.”
“Oh,” Joelle said. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“She could have said she wouldn’t keep him.”
“You can’t blame her. This must be terribly difficult for her.”
“I know.” He swallowed hard, and she saw the blue of his eyes darken for a moment. “Let’s not talk about it now, okay?” he asked. “Let’s just focus on you.”
Within thirty minutes, they had moved her to the birthing room, and, as though her body knew she was ready, her contractions started in earnest. The anesthesiologist, someone she didn’t know, came in to give her an epidural. It only numbed her right side, but that was enough to let her sleep, and when she awakened she was surrounded by people. Her legs were in the stirrups, Rebecca between them, and she recognized a neonatologist from the NICU standing to the side, at the ready. Liam was next to her, brushing her hair back from her forehead with his hand.
“You slept right through the hard part,” Rebecca said to her. “It’s time to push.”
What?
“What time is it?” she asked. There was an intense pressure low in her belly. “I thought I had an epidural.”
“It’s a little after six in the morning,” Liam said.
“You did have an epi,” Rebecca said. “It’s probably worn off by now, but it’s time to push, Joelle.”
Somehow, she’d slept through five centimeters’ worth of dilating. She felt the pressure again, and the urge to push was tremendous.
“I want to push!” she yelled, and several people laughed.
“Good!” Rebecca said. “We’ve been begging you to for the last ten minutes.”
She could feel everything as the baby slipped through the birth canal. It felt good, actually, the pushing, but she feared the whole process seemed so simple because her baby was very, very small.
“I’ve got her,” Rebecca said, instantly swiveling to hand the baby over to the neonatologist.