14. Sette #2
Monique said that, aside from a large baby, her doctor never said anything. She had planned on a homebirth, anyway, just not… here. While it was good to know that there may not be any equipment or monitoring necessary, Sette would not be relieved until this was over.
“You’re going to need more towels than that,” she muttered to Grace.
When Minerva took over walking again, June grabbed her girlfriend and hauled her to the bathroom. Somewhere in the chaos, she had changed into yoga pants and a black T-shirt.
“Can you do this?” she asked, hands grasping Sette’s arms. “Maybe it’s a sign that you’re here when this is happening.”
“Hon,” Sette said, letting slip a pet name she hadn’t intended to use on her yet, “I’m already doing it. I’ve seen hundreds of births in my life. I remember every single one. They’re all different, but they’re the same, too. I do need you to help me, though. Can you do that?”
June assured her that she could. We’ll see.
Suffice to say, Sette had not expected to spend her night helping her girlfriend’s boss deliver her baby.
Yet once things started rolling, they were impossible to stop.
Sette had to call upon her years of being in the delivery room to do this for the first time in, well, years.
Luckily, a lot of it was reflexive memory.
Things she thought she had forgotten started coming back to her.
The hardest part was not having a team of competent nurses at her beck and call.
They were good at doing small tasks, monitoring, and keeping the patient as calm as possible.
Instead, she had a ragtag team of sex workers and cleaning staff running around and raising Monique’s blood pressure.
She finally had to evict everyone but June and Minerva.
Then replace Minerva with Grace, because for some reason the lady-in-waiting could not handle biological issues of this magnitude.
She’s going to be a nanny? Good luck with that.
It was messy. It was painful. It was a miracle in the making, and all Sette could do was pray that the baby faced the right way (it did) and nothing went terribly south (it didn’t, except for Monique hurling her phone when wife Helen said she was still a half hour away).
Grace stayed at Monique’s side while June did whatever Sette told her to do. Which included seeing parts of her boss’s body that she never wanted to see. To her credit, she didn’t pass out or throw up… although she did have to walk away a couple of times.
“One more push, Monique, I promise.” Sette, with her sleeves rolled up and still splattered with God-knew-what, had half a baby in her hands while June and Grace tried to keep the mother sitting up in the desired position.
The bed was doused in sweat and the miracle of life.
The size of the baby caused Monique to come dangerously close to some serious, surgery-inducing complications, but she somehow managed.
Her being the type of perfectionist she was?
No surprise. That baby was already following the mother’s orders!
“You can do it. Give me one big push and this baby will be out of there.”
A scream unlike anything she had ever heard erupted from the petite woman. At least there was no cord around the baby’s throat, and nothing important had torn. Just a big red baby landing in Sette’s hands right before she thought she would collapse too.
The only thing that screamed louder than Monique was her baby the moment Sette tapped its foot, and June grabbed the disinfected scissors to cut the cord.
Just because the baby was born didn’t mean things calmed down.
Much to everyone’s chagrin, there was still stuff to do and bodily functions to keep track of.
Minerva made herself useful again by taking care of dirty linens.
Chelsea heralded the arrival of the midwife and, way too late to be of any real use, Helen Warner.
By then, Monique was half passed out in bed, although thankfully not suffering from any major complications. Sette still made a call to the nearest hospital and suggested to Helen that her wife and baby go there as soon as possible for a check-up. Helen was too shocked to argue.
“It’s so cute it makes you want to gag,” June said, peering into the bedroom to see the Mrs. Warners in absolute awe of what they had made.
The little girl was already big enough to be three months old, or so Sette swore.
Then again, it’s been a while. “I’m afraid to gag, though. If I start, I may not stop.”
“Same.”
June looked askance at her. “Says the doctor.”
“I saw things then, and I saw things tonight.”
“Don’t ever tell me a detail. I will barf.”
“I don’t want you doing that.”
“I don’t want to do that!”
They hung around long enough to be sure that mother and baby were fine. After a feeble thank you from an exhausted Monique and a semi-violent clap on the back from Helen, Sette and June retreated to the latter’s room, hoping for peace and quiet… and a long, hot shower.
“Don’t suppose I’m going to get something extra relaxing for all my efforts tonight,” Sette said, watching June strip down before hopping into the steam of her shower. “Because if not that, then I at least want the strongest drink you can make once we’re clean.”
“For the love of my ovaries, Sette,” June beckoned her to come inside with her, “I watched my boss give birth. The last thing I want to think about now is sex!”
“You know…” Sette closed the shower door behind her. “There are other things we can do besides indulge in abstinence-only horror stories.”
Sette faced June, decompressing beneath the showerhead. “You think you’re so cute…”
“Darlin’, I know I’m cute.” She met June’s lips beneath the rain of hot water, happy to get back to where they were before they were so rudely interrupted by a little heiress making her world debut.