Chapter 10 - The Monitor Would Not Slow Down
The nurse tightened the belts around my belly and the paper started spitting out of the monitor with that fast ticking sound. I was on my side on the labor bed, my sweater gone, in the hospital gown that kept slipping off my shoulder. Each contraction came up on the screen a second before I felt it, a little hill that turned sharp.
"Breathe with me," the ally beside me said. She had pulled a chair right up to the bed and she kept her voice low. "In through your nose. Out slow. There you go."
I tried to follow her. I breathed in and my hands shook. When the peak hit, I gripped the bed rail and made a sound I didn't recognize. The nurse glanced at the strip and then at the door, like she was expecting someone else to walk in.
The doctor came in a few minutes later, snapping on gloves. She checked the strip first, then she checked me, her face steady and plain. "Good thing you didn't wait," she said. "You're past the point where delay would have been safe. That was the right call coming in when you did."
Her words landed hard. Don't delay, I need you now. I had said that leaning on my own kitchen counter while Blake stood there with his keys in his hand. My doctor had told me at my last visit, if they get regular, don't try to be tough. Don't wait for permission. Come in.
Another contraction started to build. I felt my back lock up. "I can't," I whispered.
"Yes, you can," my ally said. She put her hand on my shoulder and didn't move it. "Look at me, Claire. Eyes here. Breathe out with me. One, two, three, four."
I stared at her face and breathed out through the pain. The monitor ticked and ticked. The nurse called out numbers I didn't fully understand, dilation and heart rate, and the doctor nodded. "Baby's handling it. You're doing exactly what you need to do."
Between contractions there was this thin quiet. My whole body trembled in it. Sweat stuck my hair to my neck where it had come loose from the tie. My ally wet a washcloth and pressed it to my forehead. She didn't ask about Blake. She just stayed there, counting, coaching, handing me ice chips I could barely swallow.
"I thought he'd be here for this part," I said when I could talk again. My voice sounded small under the fluorescent lights.
"I know," she said. "I'm here. The nurse is here. You're not doing this alone right now."
The next one took all my air. I curled forward and she braced my shoulders. I breathed the way she told me, in and out, in and out, until it broke and I fell back against the pillows gasping. The nurse adjusted the monitor belt and gave me a look that was honest, not pitying.
"Transition's close," she said to the doctor. "It's going to get intense."
I closed my eyes. I could see our entryway so clearly it hurt. The blue front door standing open. The gray and navy duffel on the floor where I'd left it packed. Blake saying he'd be back fast, and then the sound of his car pulling away.
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He told me later what he walked into when he finally got back to that house. The door unlocked. The kitchen quiet. The counter empty where my phone and his keys had been. And the floor by the front door bare, no duffel, no bag, nothing waiting. Just the faint mark in the dust where it had sat.
In that labor room, I didn't know that yet. I only knew the monitor wouldn't slow down, and my body wouldn't pause for anyone, and I had to keep going whether he made it or not.
