As the pain receded and she tried to catch her breath and move toward her house, another contraction, right on the heels of the first and this one—she didn’t even know how it was possible that she registered it but she did—a little stronger and longer than the first.
As the second contraction subsided, she stood and waited. Nothing. She took the phone out of her pocket and hit the stopwatch function so she could time the intervals between contractions. Everything was happening too fast. Gingerly, she started to walk and when she was directly in front of Tommy’s living room windows, the third contraction. She grabbed onto the wrought-iron railing with both hands and the sound that came out of her was so primal and involuntary that she scared herself; she felt as if she were being torn in two.
Tommy loved telling this part of the story, how he heard her before he saw her. “Three kids,” he’d say. “I knew that sound. Oh, boy, did I know that sound.” He ran out the front door and managed to get Stephanie up the stairs and through the front door (contractions four and five). He tried to settle her on the floor (contraction six).
“Not on the rug!” she’d screamed at him. He’d run upstairs to grab some sheets out of the linen closet and a blanket to wrap the baby because it was evident that there would be no time to get to the hospital. A pair of scissors from the bathroom. Peroxide? Why not. He started toward her bedroom thinking he could use a few pillows when he heard her bellowing.
Downstairs, Stephanie was just trying to control her breathing. Shit! Why hadn’t she paid more attention to the breathing? Practiced? She couldn’t manage her breathing, couldn’t get ahead of the pain. She sat on the living room floor, pulled out her phone, and after a brief, unsettling conversation with her doctor during which she had two contractions and the doctor said, “I’m hanging up and sending an ambulance,” and before she could even check the time again—and she knew this was very wrong, way too soon—she had to push.
“Tommy?” she wailed up to him. Where was he? “I have to push.”
“No, no, no,” he yelled down to her. “No pushing. Absolutely no pushing.”
But telling her not to push was like telling her not to breathe. Her body was pushing, her body wouldn’t not push. She reached up from the floor and pulled a cashmere blanket off the back of the sofa. She could hear sirens, but it was too soon for her ambulance and she knew she wasn’t going anywhere. She tried to remember if she’d learned anything about what to do once the baby was out. Would she have to cut the cord? Oh, God. The afterbirth? What the fuck was she going to do! The contractions were seamless; a constant tsunami of pressure, there was no break, no moment when she didn’t feel like every internal organ was trying to exit her body in one concerted rush. She pulled up her maternity skirt, managed to work her underpants off, and place the cashmere blanket next to her on the floor.
Nothing but the best for baby, she thought, hoping she would remember later that she’d had the presence of mind to make a tiny joke.
She was trying to fight the urge to push, but she knew she’d already lost. Her body was doing what it needed to do and it was completely clear that her job was to surrender. Tommy had come down the stairs and dumped a pile of things near her head and was in the kitchen washing his hands. At least she thought that’s what he was doing. She’d lost count of the contractions. She’d lost track of time. She thought she could feel something emerging, but how could that be true? It couldn’t be true. She remembered she was supposed to be trying short little breaths—ha, ha, ha, ha. No use. She reached down between her legs and felt it: her daughter’s head, slick and wet and grainy with hair. Her daughter was in a hurry.
“Tommy,” she yelled into the kitchen. “She’s coming.”
Her daughter was here.
CHAPTER FORTY–FIVE