“Celine, I—” I stopped when she raised an eyebrow, then cleared my throat, forgetting about my earlier instructions to use her formal married name. “Mrs. Harlington-Worthington, the Fifth, I—” Another call bell sounded at the nurses’ station, drawing my attention. “I’ll be right back.”
Her overly drawn smoky cat eyes blinked rapidly at me, the long fake lashes reminding me of spider legs as they swept her bronzed and highlighted cheeks. “But, I want to be checked now.” Her cool blue eyes dropped to my shoes and crawled their way back up my pink and chocolate-brown scrubs. “And please do change before the baby’s born.” She glanced at her stylist, who jumped to attention, reminding me of what a soldier would do for a general. “Can you do something with her? Makeup, hair.” She gave a tight smile as her cool blue eyes assessed me. “Something more, um, photo friendly.” Her eyes grew large and she inhaled a great gasp, and I wondered if she was finally feeling a contraction. When she thrust a finger into the air, I realized she’d just had an idea. A terrible idea by the way she was eyeing me. “We’ll do a makeover for her! Won’t that be delightful? We’ll call it Ambush Makeover, Nurse Edition, and it—”
I held up my hands as if warding off a slap. “Um, no. Thank you for the kind offer, but no.”
Mrs. HW5 thrusted her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout, and I was nearly overjoyed to see the pink smear of her gloss create a semicircle on her chin. My delight lasted only an instant before the stylist swept in and whisked the gooey flaw away, then pressed some powder to her already unshiny nose.
Heat flooded my face. I could feel it scorch its way up my neck and to my cheeks. Not from embarrassment of how I knew I looked at the moment, but from the sheer audacity of this woman. This was New York. I had divas aplenty on this ward. But this was the diva of all divas, and I wanted to slap the stupid tiara off her hair extensions and thrust her curling iron up her tight ass.
I wanted to scream at her. I wanted her to know that all twelve of our birthing room beds were full and that we had patients vying for an open one downstairs. I wanted to chide that she shouldn’t even be admitted yet, but because her husband pretty much owned half of New York City, her every wish had been granted by a suck-ass doctor who refused to say no when the very first contraction hit.
I wanted her to know that, in the room next to hers, a woman was going through labor too, but would be pushing out a baby who had already died from profound anencephalies, and she and her family knew they’d never hear that first precious cry. I wanted her to know that we’d already had another fetal death earlier this week. And I’d been the one who washed the vernix from the little boy’s limbs and swaddled him like I’d swaddle any newborn, handing him over to his sobbing mother and the father who looked like a feather would knock him off his chair.
I wanted to shout at her about the dejected thirteen-year-old down the hall, who’d be handing her baby over to the overjoyed adoptive parents also in the room—and who would be going to live at a friend’s house after discharge because her parents had kicked her out when they learned she was pregnant.
I wanted to shout at this pampered princess that, three doors down, a mother had sacrificed her life for the sake of her child. The thirty-one-year-old woman had been diagnosed with brain cancer when she was nine weeks pregnant. She’d foregone chemotherapy and treatment so that the baby could be born healthy. She might get to spend three months with him, but probably less. She and her son would go home tomorrow morning, and her family would wait for the cruel reality of her painful death.
But I didn’t shout any of those things, because I also knew just how much this mom deserved her special day too. Yeah, she might be over the top, by a lot. She might be annoying as hell. She might even deserve to have that damn tiara yanked from her golden head... but today was precious. And I’d do whatever it took to make sure her baby came into this world safely.
And I don’t get my ass sued or Instagramed into the Nursing Hall of Shame.
As an L&D nurse, I loved my job, no matter how horrible the mom or the situation. It had been what I wanted to do since I was young and pretended my first Barbie was in labor with Ken holding her hand. Of course, at that time, I thought babies came from their mother’s belly buttons. It wasn’t until I went to live on my aunt and uncle’s farm in upstate New York when I was nearly eight that I learned the truth by witnessing a black and white calf come into the world. Yes, it was messy, but I’d been hypnotized by the process. I’d loved it. From that moment on, I watched almost all the farm animals give birth. I rubbed bellies, and when I was older, the vet would let me help, guiding me through every step while answering my plethora of questions.
Excusing myself from the room, I ran to the nurses’ station and hit the button to answer the call button for room ten, wondering where everyone was. “How can I help you?” I asked, keeping my voice as courteous as possible.
“Can my wife have more ice chips, please?”
I rolled my eyes but forced a bright smile on my face, hoping the action would come across in my voice. I checked the wife’s name on the board to confirm she was allowed this bit of comfort. She was. “Absolutely. Just a moment.”
Squirting out a hand full of antibacterial foam and vigorously rubbing it into my palms and between my fingers, I rushed to the pantry and scooped up a cup of ice, still wondering where everyone was. Today had been crazy, and the night didn’t seem to be getting much better.
There was a full moon, and I didn’t care how many people said it was an old wives’ tale, the change in moon did seem to affect amniotic fluid as much as it did the waves in the ocean. In addition to that, a significant barometric pressure shift had pressed down on the entire east coast from an incoming strain of storms. My sinuses felt it, and it seemed pregnant women near their due dates were feeling it too. Plus, it was September, one of our busiest months. Apparently, it was too cold in December and January to do anything but have sex in this town, so we always had a slew of late summer and early fall babies. And today, we were swamped with them.
“Here you go,” I told the panting mother-to-be, handing the ice chips to a concerned-looking woman holding her hand. Ah, yes. The lesbian couple. Or was the non-laboring one transgender? I couldn’t remember, and my poor brain refused to give up the information.
I checked the strip. Yep, she was having a contraction and was doing so steadily every three minutes. Where the hell was Olivia, her primary nurse?
“Will my epidural be here soon?” she asked when the contraction had faded, her wife wiping the sweat from her forehead with gentle fingers.