CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT #2
Someone told me they could see the head, and I almost told them to leave me alone.
Then Vallis stroked my hair and I decided not to yell again just yet.
Seeing the head didn’t mean the baby was immediate.
That was crowning. Seeing the head meant the baby was trying to pass over my pubic bone.
It would be time to push real soon. As that time moved closer, I had Vallis get up off the sofa, just in case.
Pushing is the primal part. It’s when my bear was most likely to take over.
I’d give in to his instincts. Sometime during all my thinking through pushing I dozed off for a few minutes and when I woke the others were whispering about mundane stuff.
That was a good sign. If they were talking about me that would mean I needed extra attention.
I dozed a few more minutes and this time when I awoke I was overcome by the urge to push.
I would’ve knocked down a skyscraper to push if I had to.
“We’re moving!” Dad called out from the doorway.
The first to notice that something was happening.
Vallis was there, sitting on the floor next to me, finally pressing on my back the way I wanted him to.
Grain had wandered off somewhere at some point.
Maybe that’s why Dad didn’t put him out.
He was already gone. I didn’t blame the kid.
Oh! He was cooking with some other bears. That made sense!
I pushed again, feeling the baby’s head rocking inside me as he tried to discern how to escape into the world.
I roared, burying my face into the sofa cushion and pushed again, taking advantage of the assassin contraction trying to do me in.
I pushed again and then it was time to breathe. The contraction had stopped for now.
Everything burnt, but I could already feel my shifter genetics repair things a bit. I always thought it was unfair that alphas heal faster because omegas are the ones pushing out the big-headed babies. Still, some healing was better than none.
I reached down between my legs and pulled off the miracle of reaching past my belly. I patted gently until I found what I was looking for. The baby was almost crowning. Almost. Another few centimeters. Definitely on the next push.
“Babe!” Vallis said, reaching for my arm.
“It’s okay!” My carrier and grandcarrier said in sync. “He can touch the baby.”
His head felt wet, hairy, and a bit like a tiny alien basketball.
“Are you sure? Isn’t he straining too much?” Vallis asked and I laughed, resting my hand against my free arm.
I kept my hand on the baby’s head and waited on the next contraction. My stomach growled. It was past breakfast time now and I hadn’t eaten. Someone – my carrier I thought – handed me a cup of really sweet tea heavy with cream. I gulped it down, knowing I needed the energy for the last stretch.
Everything burnt even as I breathed and everyone took turns rubbing my back.
Vallis kept whispering that I had this and I appreciated his cheerleading even if his scent was still nervous.
I knew the baby was close to being born properly because his thoughts were little abstract things inside my head.
He wanted out or back in. He didn’t care as long as it got out of this snug spot.
“Almost baby,” I whispered and someone answered me. I ignored them because their words didn’t make sense. I couldn’t process what they meant. I wasn’t talking to them anyway.
The next contraction came on like lava flowing over the bottom half of my body.
I roared and slapped the sofa and pushed as if the fate of the known universe depended on it.
Vallis asked someone about my hand and they told him I was fine.
I kept my hand there as my baby’s head pressed against it.
He was crowning and the contraction was still trying to murder me.
So I pushed again. I pushed and roared and bit the sofa.
I tore a chunk out of it. I’d probably cry about it later but only growled as my carrier’s fingers swept my mouth checking for bits of fluff I might accidentally swallow.
Then bigger hands were there, helping me support Urso. Vallis had disappeared and it took me longer than it should’ve to realize where he was. His nerves must’ve calmed down at some point because there he was holding our bloody, slimy baby’s head.
The next contraction came on seconds after the previous one ended and I pushed again.
The sofa died a lot more with each push as if it were my sacrifice to the gods of life and death as I delivered my little bear cub into the world.
Then just like that he was gone from me and the world was silent for a beat too long.
Then he wailed and I cried against the torn-up sofa.
I sobbed because my baby was outside my body – my body that burnt and ached with exhaustion.
I wanted my cub. Was about to growl and roar for him until my very human mind recalled what came next.
The baby needed to be looked at and the cord had to be cut.
He needed baby shots to protect him against the horrible invisible threats this world hosted.
So, I cried against the sofa through all the chaos until my carrier helped me turn around and lower gently onto a pillow in front of the sofa.
Then he laid my baby against my chest, and the world was clearer than ever.
All the pain, all the blurry moments, all the chaos – it was for this little life leaned up against me.
A second after Baby Urso recognized my smell his crying stopped.
He rested his cheek against me as if he was the most tired person in the universe and he probably was – at least until the next baby was born.
“He has your eyes,” Vallis said.
He’d cut the cord like we planned. I’d just been in the post-delivery zone, wanting my baby and needing to feel him against my skin to prove that he was alive and well.
He was tiny. I’d seen so many newborns but would never get over how small people started out.
Tiny and beautiful and surrounded by people who already loved him.
I leaned against Vallis, half falling asleep while the baby rested, but never letting go of him.
This was the good life for us. This is what we fought hell and high water for.
It was often said that it took a village to raise a kid but sometimes it took a village just to ensure that kid had both of his parents around when he was born.
I’d be forever grateful to my village, my family, my sleuth.
There wasn’t any other place on Earthside I’d want my cub to grow up.