Nagging painful pangs wake her from sleep. It is still a week to the Expected Delivery Date (EDD) but she knows that it is time. A cursory glance at the half parted window curtains shows the pale orange hew of the rising Sun. The day has dawned and it seems like it will be an interesting day.

The contorting of her stomach compels her to tap Desmond on the shoulders in an attempt to wake him up. He hardly rouses. He sleeps so deeply that wild horses would enter the room and take the bed under him and he would sleep through it all, she thinks to herself.

“Desmond!” “Wake up!” She orders loudly; wishing that she has a bell to peal close to his ears.

He grunts, snuffles and rolls over to his left side.

“Desmond!” “Desmond!” “We have to get to the hospital, right now!” “Except you want me to have the baby here in bed, you need to wake up.”

That magic word baby! His eyes quickly fly open, the cobwebs of sleep recede fast as his scrambling thoughts quickly process the information.

“Baby, as in baby?” “Right now?” His eyes fly to her contorting belly in stupefaction.

“Yes baeeby, dear.” “I think we are having the baby today.” “No more false alarms this time.”

He gathers his wits and quickly jumps into a pair of jeans, throws on a shirt, a hasty mouth wash and helps Debbie to the car.

She walks funny and sluggishly. Her belly feels like it is being ravaged from inside out and her stiff lower back, as if an ill-fitting screw is being tightened into it in slow degrees. She is panting and trying to keep calm, but this is her first baby and all the lessons taught in the birthing class fly out of the window.

They manage to get to the car, without baby popping out when Desmond realizes that he doesn’t have the keys and rushes back inside to pick it up. It is a good thing that they place a stick-on hook on the cabinet in plain sight. Too many times of searching for the keys have been reduced and less gray hairs sprouted!

He spy’s the cute new baby bag that Debbie has put together with things that she wants to take to the hospital still sitting by the new cot and grabs it, rushing out to his doubled-over Mrs. who was looking quite red in the face and growing waspish by the minute.

It is a hair-raising and palm sweaty drive to the hospital, the early morning work rush and the frequent traffic stops are not helping matters along.

”Honey, try the Lamaze breathing” he suggests, tapping his fingers on the wheel as he counts the minutes for the light to turn green; it wouldn’t do to run a red light, he had nearly run a red light at the other junction.

“And just what to you think I am doing?” ”Practicing my ballet steps?” She snaps at him.

The sudden rush of warm fluid down her thighs, her exclamation, growing pants and whimpering all turn Desmond’s stomach. He feels like using the loo all of a sudden, however, spying the hospitals cross a few meters across the road, calms him down a notch.

Hopefully, the hospital will be ready for them. He had remembered to place a call to Debbie’s Obstetrician.

A quick dash to the reception and with the help of waiting attendants, they are whisked to the labour room. A quick examination and a disappointing observation. “You are 3cm’s dilated.” “You should be ready in a couple of hours” the mid-wife intoned. She sets up of an IV line and a heart rate monitor.

The hours are crawling. Debbie is almost hyperventilating. The pain has grown hydra-heads and the waves of doubling contractions are like the twist of a hot rod. She now wishes that she had opted for an Epidural instead of satisfying her desire for a natural birth.

No one had explained precisely that it would be this excruciatingly painful and so mind numbing, that she begins to see pin points of white light zooming in and out of her pain riddled brain and Desmond is driving her crazy with his placating words.

At a point, she wants to jump off the birthing bed and run away. As if her running would leave the pain behind.

“Bend you legs and breathe deeply” Debbie, “Let’s see how things are getting along” the OB/GYN directs. A quick swipe with sterilized swabs, some pokes and prods and he expresses a satisfaction that things are moving along rather well.
You are 7cm dilated. Almost there! Almost there! Just hang in. The baby should be coming within the hour or so, he pronounces.

The back rub helps and annoys her at the same time, the poor dear Desmond is trying but nothing seems satisfactory at the moment. She wants him there but not standing on her last nerve.

Her short, smart bob is now damp. The tendrils hang in lanky strings like limp noodles. The herculean effort not to scream her head off can no longer be contained as the desire to bear down and push grips her.

A flurry of organized movement, the OB/GYN utters words of caution and encouragement not to push so that the cord around the babies neck can be gently disengaged to avert the danger of choking her wind pipes. Seconds, minutes tick past in a blurry, a surgical episiotomy cut…. at last, with that big push and heave of the uterine muscles, the hardworking baby slides out of her mom heads first, in a slippery bath of amniotic fluid and blood.

The squalling perfect cherub is placed on her mothers semi-concave belly. A crying and laughing mommy, a dewy eyed proud daddy admire the sweet red-faced bundle that nature just gifted them.

They sigh in gratitude, pleasure and relief.

“She is ours,” Desmond whispers in utter amazement. “Our Mary-Louise” – the combined names of the little one’s grannies.

It’s been an exciting, hardworking nine hours since dawn.

Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

In fulfillment of Writing 101- Day 14 Assignment: Recreate a Single Day