Page 78 of Everything After (Everything Trilogy)

ALFIE

When Lily had called her OBGYN, Dr. Geoffry, he’d suggested it might be better if she arrived at the back of the hospital to maximize her privacy. This detail was relayed to Keith via Oscar.

Lily might have sounded upbeat while we were traveling to the hospital. However, the moment the car pulled into the loading bay at the rear entrance, her grip tightened around my hand and her face looked pale.

My heart ached when I saw fear in her eyes, and in that moment, I wished I could take away any pain she would feel, to bring our child into the world.

“You’re going to do great,” I enthused. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze in support. She flashed me a brave, tight smile as Oscar opened the back door. “Go find a porter with a chair for her.”

“No, I’m walking through that door,” she insisted, stubborn as ever.

“Atta girl,” I said, making light of the situation.

I glanced up at the sky and was glad the rear entrance wasn’t one of those underground affairs.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day,” I remarked. She followed my lead and looked up at the sky.

“Not a cloud up there, baby.” We both took in the beautiful, cornflower-blue sky before I turned and took her head between my hands.

“This is where shit gets real. It’s the last day we’re going to be a couple. Can you believe this?”

Lily smiled. “I’d better believe it,” she slid a hand across her huge bump and gave it a gentle pat. “I just hope the obstetrician brings that scientist dad from Honey I Shrunk the Kids with him. I’d pay him every penny I had to do a number on this baby bump until our baby gets here.”

I laughed. “Yikes.” I glanced over her shoulder and saw Oscar holding the door open. “Let’s go, Mrs. Black, it’s time someone checked on our baby.”

“It’s most unusual these days that parents don’t know the sex of their baby,” the maternity nurse, Carlie, admitted almost four hours into Lily’s labor.

I nodded, momentarily distracted from staring helplessly toward Lily while she sucked in nitrous oxide gas through a mouthpiece, to help with the pain.

It had been recommended as a method of pain relief.

Apparently, Roslyn had sworn by the ‘gas and air’ combination while giving birth to Lily, and the method although not too common in the US, was in everyday use on labor wards all over the UK.

Inhalation analgesia wasn’t something I’d heard of before, but Lily had taken her mom’s advice and therefore requested ahead of time for this form of pain relief be available to her.

Her obstetrician had been very proactive to ensure Lily’s birthing experience be how she’d wanted it to be and had even handed out NDAs to the hospital staff ahead of time.

I waited until my wife’s contraction had subsided before I spoke. “I wanted to know, Lily didn’t. I figured we’d waited years for a baby, and as Lily was going to be doing all the heavy lifting to have our child, I could wait out the incubation period to find out.”

Carlie chuckled. “The incubation period,” she mused, shaking her head like I’d said something stupid.

Dr. Geoffry had checked Lily over on arrival, read the monitoring graph on the CTG machine that records the baby’s heartbeat and contractions, then stated that all was ‘moving along smoothly’.

Lily’s knuckles were white while she clutched the mouthpiece to the nitrous oxide. “Would you rub my back?” she asked.

I helped Lily onto her hands and knees before I did as she asked.

Each time a contraction began to build Lily rocked back and forth on her knees with one hand, while she sucked on the mouthpiece held in the other.

Seeing her in pain felt unbearable. It devastated me because my poor wife had barely gotten a break from one contraction when the next one would start again.

Apart from rubbing her back, dabbing Lily’s brow with a washcloth, or ensuring she drank some water, I was either a spectator or her distraction from her pain for most of it.

The birth of my son would go down as one of the greatest days of my life, yet I felt redundant during Lily’s labor.

Her contractions were relentless, going on for hours…

ten hours in total, before she became more restless and began to grunt.

Hearing the sound Lily made, Carlie’s back straightened. “Do you feel as if you need to bear down, Lily?” the maternity nurse asked, observing her more closely through narrowed eyes.

Lily had been quiet for the past few hours, totally focused on her labor, but she pulled the mouthpiece out of her mouth, gasped and nodded. “At the height of that contraction, yes.”

Just as Lily answered, her doctor poked his nose around the door. “How are we doing?” he asked.

“We?” Lily scoffed then hurriedly stuck the mouthpiece back into her mouth and sucked her way through another contraction. During this she grunted again.

The doctor smiled. “Sounds to me like someone needs to push.”

“Someone?” I asked incredulously when the only person in the room, doing all the work was Lily.

“Are you ready to be a father, Alfie?”

“Is she okay?” I asked when I became anxious with the grunts Lily had begun to make. The palms of my hands and arms ached from rubbing her back for hours on end, but the discomfort I felt was nothing to what she’d endured.

“You’re doing great. Try to keep breathing through the contractions, Lily,” he advised, sounding calm.

“How much longer is this going to go—”

A long, guttural grunt came from Lily, and she rocked back on her heels. “I need to push,” she grumbled around the mouthpiece.

“Not long,” Dr. Geoffry replied, smiling.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” I asked. The desperation in my tone would have alerted the dead that I was one sentence away from losing my shit.

“What would you suggest? I think Lily has this handled. Don’t you, Carlie?” he replied with a note of sarcasm in his tone. Babies being born might have been an everyday occurrence to him, but becoming a parent daily wasn’t the norm for us.

Carlie nodded. “She’s doing great.”

“I don’t feel like I’m doing great,” Lily muttered.

“Baby, you’re incredible. You’ve been so dignified throughout. I’m in awe,” I said, encouraging her to keep going.

She looked tired, and I had begun to feel concerned about the amount of time she’d been doing the same thing without much apparent progress.

“With the money OBGYNs make, I would have thought you’d be more… hands on,” I argued, thinking he’d spring into action once I’d called him out.

He flashed me a smug smile. “We are… whenever necessary. Lily’s pregnancy and labor have been textbook so far.

Your wife is a fit and healthy young woman.

Her body is working through a natural, physiological process quite efficiently without my intervention.

I’m here to facilitate ‘the catch’.” I frowned and he explained.

“Just ensuring a safe delivery of your child.”

Once Lily’s contraction stopped, she shifted into a semi-recumbent position with her back against her pillows. “Something’s happening down there,” she said while she did this.

“Would you prep me the tray please?” Dr. Geoffry asked Carlie.

Carlie wheeled a small metal trolley forward with a wrapped package on top.

Dr. Geoffry washed his hands, put on some sterile gloves and examined Lily in between contractions. “Look, your baby’s head’s sitting right here. Try to keep your pushes going a little longer,” he suggested.

I growled when I saw him speak to Lily with two fingers still inside her entrance. “We get the idea,” I snapped, never taking my eyes off of what he was doing.

The doctor removed his fingers and sat back as soon as Lily began to contract and push again. A small dark patch about the size of a dime appeared in her entrance. “See, look here, Alfie,” the doctor said.

I looked but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “Not long now, Lily, you’re doing great,” he encouraged.

“Did you hear the doctor, baby? You’re doing great…

no you’re amazing. The baby’s coming, he wasn’t lying, I saw something,” I babbled, excitedly.

I wiped her brow with a cold, wet, washcloth, ran an ice chip across her lips and pressed a kiss to her forehead, just like I’d been doing whenever I’d gotten the chance.

During the next few pushes more of our baby’s head peeped at us and slid back until eventually it stayed visible.

“Fuck that hurts,” Lily muttered. It was at that point her whole body began to shake. I had gulped some deep breaths to stop me losing my shit.

“Breathe, baby,” I said, noticing she’d stopped using the gas equipment altogether but still gripped the mouthpiece like it was a crutch.

“Lily, the baby’s head has crowned, and the baby will keep coming forward with each contraction now. I want you to pant through the next contraction if you can. Try not to push. We don’t want you to tear,” the doctor instructed.

The pack on the trolley was now open, it’s contents of long scissors, forceps and stitch holders, among other things, freaked me out, but before I could ask what he was going to do with all that, Lily began panting hard.

“Excellent, Lily,” Dr Geoffry encouraged. “Alfie, can you see your baby’s head?”

“Oh, My. God,” Lily ground out before her head flopped back on the pillow. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she grumbled.

I pressed a kiss to her forehead, wiped it with the washcloth and left it on her head.

“Baby, you’re doing it. He’s nearly here,” I blurted.

I shifted my glance from her face down to her pussy and became transfixed.

Every pant brought our child one step closer to life outside of her body.

When the contraction finished its whole head had been born between her thighs.

“Alfie’s right, your baby will be here with the next contraction,” Dr. Geoffry said.

“Here goes,” Lily warned, and began panting fast again. Seconds later, the baby’s head rotated from one side to the other and with two little moves to deliver the shoulders from her obstetrician, our baby came sliding out.

“Ho-holy shit,” Lily cussed, as the doctor lifted our child and laid it on her body.

“Congratulations,” Carlie muttered, as she rubbed at our baby on Lily’s belly with a towel. Relief flooded through me at the sound of his tiny cry.

“I can’t believe you just did that. Wow. Wow. Wow. You were incredible, baby,” I said, immediately checking on Lily to make sure she was okay. “He’s here,” I said, my eyes wide when they connected with hers. I ran my hand through my hair and glanced down at my beautiful wife.

Tears threatened in Lily’s tired eyes, but she blinked them back. “What is it?” she croaked, smiling. I gave her a brief kiss before I turned my attention back to her doctor.

“It’s a boy, right?” I asked.

Dr. Geoffry placed a clamp on the long rubbery-looking umbilical cord that still joined our baby to the placenta. “Take a look,” he suggested.

“Damn,” I mumbled, frowning at the cord attached to our baby before I stared back at Lily.

I became distracted and fearful when the doctor handed me a set of funny-looking, small scissors and suggested I cut the cord.

The moment I did this, Carlie lifted our baby from Lily’s belly and placed him in her arms.

“It’s a girl, isn’t it?” she asked. Curiosity stirred in her eyes when she raised a brow.

“See for yourself,” I encouraged, smiling. “I told you he was a boy.”