Chapter 28 Ruby
Ruby
In the last month of pregnancy, I had moved back into Mom’s apartment.
It seemed like I would yoyo between Mom’s and Grandma’s forever.
The last trimester had been tough-going.
Back in March I had decided to build an extension on Grandma’s house, and Olivia, who had been doing set design in my year in college, offered to project manage it for me.
When Dad learned I was pregnant, he’d suggested I would need more room and offered to pay for it.
In the beginning, the builders wouldn’t take Olivia or me seriously, and spoke down to us, but they hadn’t reckoned with the rage of a pregnant woman who needed completion by the time the baby was four months old.
I was going to stay with Mom until then.
I got stuck in with painting and decorating to earn their respect.
And Olivia made them aware of who was boss.
The back of the house was going to be one large kitchen-diner with folding doors, which would open out to the deck, and we’d also have a new guest bathroom and shower upstairs as well as an en suite bathroom off my bedroom, which doubled in size.
The combi boiler would live in the attic.
The bedroom that had been my uncle’s was going to be the nursery, and Mom’s childhood bedroom housed my exercise bike and boxes of books. I hadn’t decided what it should be yet.
When the next contraction came ten minutes later, and the pressure whooshed down the valley of my groin, I knew that my baby was knocking at my pelvic door.
I stood up and apologized, and tried to leave the room discreetly as my waters broke.
I was mortified; my pregnancy jeans were soaked through.
The whole meeting was abandoned quickly and people were talking about ambulances, but I didn’t want a fuss.
‘Do you know anyone here?’ asked the woman I’d been sitting next to.
‘No, but I’ll be fine. I’ll drive myself – it’s not far to Holles Street.’
Jack appeared beside me. ‘Give me your keys, Ruby, I’ll drive. You’ll never be able to park.’ I was surprised. But there was a look of genuine concern on his face, and right at this moment wasn’t the time to quibble about whether he was insured to drive my car.
Outside, I heaved myself into the passenger seat and noted that he’d put his jacket down on the seat so it didn’t get wet.
I was about to thank him when another wave gripped me and this one was vicious.
Everyone from the meeting was crowded around.
‘Close the door,’ he shouted as I reeled back from the pain.
As soon as it was shut, we shot out of the car park and on to the road.
‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I’m not used to driving an automatic. Fucking Americans.’
There wasn’t much conversation between us on the way.
He told me to call the hospital and to call the father.
I didn’t feel I owed him an explanation and, in between huffing and puffing and screaming in pain, I called the hospital, told them I was five minutes away and that the contractions were three minutes apart.
Then I called Mom and asked her to meet me there.
She was with Grandma, and said she’d be there as soon as she could.
Jack overheard all this and glanced across at me before he ran another red light.
He dropped me off at the hospital entrance and came around and helped me out of the car.
I walked in by myself. The orderly at the door on a smoke break took one look at me and said, ‘That baby’s not waiting around. ’ He wasn’t wrong.
Eight minutes later, the midwife asked me for ‘one last big push’, and Lucy was born, punching the air and mewling as soon as her tiny body slipped through the birth canal.
It had been eight minutes of acute agony, but once I saw her, I no longer felt anything but love.
She was perfect. I didn’t want to let her go when the nurses tried to take her away to check her vitals and clean her up, while the midwife stayed with me as I still had to push out the placenta.
They eased her out of my arms, and they had never felt emptier.
Mom wasn’t there, Erin wasn’t there. I felt entirely alone as all the medics focused on my baby.
I could see her over the other side of the delivery suite.
The placenta pushed its way out of me and then a flurry of people came around me to clean me up and make sure I was okay.
A nurse came in and said, ‘Daddy’s here. He had trouble parking the car. Shall we let him in?’ I was confused. Had Dad flown in coincidentally on the same day I’d given birth? I wanted to see him. I nodded enthusiastically. But it was Jack who arrived at my side.
‘I lied,’ he whispered. ‘I told them I was the dad. I didn’t want you to be on your own.’
Just then, the nurse returned and put the baby back into my arms.
‘Wow,’ said Jack. ‘She’s beautiful and so tiny.
’ Her little scrunched-up face miaowed like a tiger cub.
Jack was leaning over, and she reached up and grabbed his finger.
‘My God,’ he whispered, and I looked at him.
His eyes were shining and his whole face softened.
And then I looked at my daughter again. She would melt the most hardened of hearts.