Chapter 36 #2
That seemed to satisfy her, and she let the subject drop.
If I had to guess, the pain was still bearable at this point, but she was scared.
She was a first-time mom, after all, and she was going into this without her mom or her partner.
Hell, I was jittery with nerves that I shouldn’t have had after being with Taylor through four deliveries.
Kind of came with the territory, I guess, though I did my level best to keep my own nerves out of Jasmine’s sight.
She needed me as calm and level-headed as possible, and I was determined to get that right this time.
I knew we likely had enough time that a minute or two in either direction wouldn’t make much difference, and driving like a bat out of hell to the hospital was dangerous.
Still, I pressed the accelerator just a little harder.
Not into reckless driving territory, but enough that I was, at most, risking some blue lights in the rearview and an “Officer, my daughter-in-law is in labor.”
Luckily, traffic wasn’t bad this time of night, and in minutes, I’d pulled in front of the hospital’s entrance. I helped Jasmine out of the car and into the reception area, and someone quickly came with a wheelchair to escort her up to labor and delivery.
“I’m going to park the car and call Chris,” I told her. “I’ll be there in five minutes. Promise.”
Jasmine nodded and flashed me a smile. She was nervous and scared but staying fairly calm.
While she was wheeled upstairs, I jogged back out to the car. As soon as I’d parked, I speed-dialed my son. Unsurprisingly, his phone went straight to voicemail, which meant it was turned off and in his locker.
No problem—he’d left me with half a dozen people I could call if this exact situation arose. The first on the list, one of the assistant coaches, answered. Chris was still in the locker room, fortunately, and the coach handed him the phone.
Chris answered with a panicked, “Is Jasmine okay?”
“She’s fine,” I said, staying as calm as possible for his sake. “But I think you might want to head to the airport.”
“What? Is she in labor? Already?”
I hadn’t realized there were other voices in the background until they suddenly stopped. “We’re at the hospital,” I said. “It might be a false alarm, but my money is on this being the real thing.” I paused. “You’ve still got time, okay? And it could still be a false alarm. But—”
“Oh my God,” he murmured. Then he said to someone else, “I need to talk to Coach. Jasmine’s in labor.” Then he was moving, fast, and his voice sounded on the edge of panic as he asked me, “Is she okay? How is she doing?”
I deliberately injected as much calm as I could into my voice. “She’s doing fine, Chris. It’s probably going to be a while.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be with her. Don’t worry.”
He would worry, of course. I knew that. But hopefully he felt at least some reassurance, knowing she wasn’t alone.
And I hoped I wasn’t pulling him out of a game over nothing.
With as intense as Jasmine’s pain was getting, though, and with the intervals between contractions shrinking to ten or fifteen minutes at most, this seemed like a moment to err on the side of caution.
Especially with Chris being halfway across the country.
I reassured Chris that I wasn’t leaving her side and she was in good hands.
We ended the call, and as promised, I stuck with Jasmine.
The nurses agreed that this wasn’t a false alarm, and she was admitted.
The nurses instructed her walk the halls rather than stay in bed, though, so we started making laps around the ward.
That seemed to help with the pain, too. Every time she sat down or was in bed, she was even more uncomfortable, but whenever she was up and moving, it was more manageable.
Still not tons of fun, though. As she had numerous times since we’d started walking, she stopped and pressed her hand against the wall, grimacing as she held her belly with the other.
I held her arm gently just to make sure she stayed upright. When she’d recovered, we started walking again. After another half a lap or so, she muttered, “We’re both going to get our steps in tonight, aren’t we?”
“Probably, yeah.”
She glanced at me. “Are you sure you don’t mind being here? It’s probably going to be a long night.”
I smiled. “Even if I hadn’t come as close as I did to not even being in my son’s life when my first grandchild was born, I would have zero objection to being here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Even if your mom were still able to be here. If, you know, you wanted me here.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” Again, her features crumpled a little. “I feel so bad that my mom isn’t, though. She really wanted to be here, and I really wanted… I know it sounds childish, but I want my mom for something like this.”
“Nothing childish at all. Chris’s grandma was there for all four of our kids.”
“She was?”
I nodded. “There really isn’t a substitute for a mom who’s been through it herself. But in a pinch, I’m happy to step up as much as I can.”
“I appreciate it. A lot.” She started to say something else, but paused again as pain pulled her features tight. She breathed through it, and then we continued down the hall.
After our umpteenth lap, a nurse summoned us back to Jasmine’s room. “Let’s have you get in bed so we can see how you’re progressing.”
“Oh, yay,” Jasmine mused. “My favorite part.
I chuckled. The nurse didn’t seem amused.
Whatever. I helped Jasmine onto the bed. As soon as she lay back, she winced. “Okay, now it hurts.”
“It’s labor,” the nurse said flatly as she did a quick exam. “Labor hurts.”
Jasmine scowled at her, but then her face contorted and she put her hand to her belly as she curled in on herself. When she started to relax, she whimpered softly. “Oh my God.”
“Honey, you’re only at four centimeters. If you can’t handle it now…”
Jasmine closed her eyes and swallowed.
With a condescending laugh, the nurse shook her head as she checked some of the various monitors. “Go ahead and keep walking. You’ll progress faster if you stay on your feet for a while.”
“Hurts less to be out of bed anyway,” Jasmine muttered as I helped her to her feet. She breathed a sigh of relief, rubbing her back. “Laying on my back hurts.”
“It’s labor, dear,” the nurse replied. “What did you expect?”
Jasmine rolled her eyes.
“No one ever said this would be a cakewalk,” the nurse continued. “There’s a reason they say something hurts ‘worse than childbirth,’ you know?”
“I just didn’t realize laying on my back would hurt so much. I’m going to keep walking all night.”
“As long as you can,” the nurse said, her laugh edged with sarcasm and condescension. “Talk to me again when things start progressing a bit more.”
Horror crossed Jasmine’s face, and my patience snapped.
“Hey.” I glared at the nurse. “Go easy on her, all right? She’s never done this before.”
The nurse glared right back. “And I know what I’m doing, so—”
“So you can cut her some slack for not knowing,” I growled. “You do your job every single day. She’s never had a baby before.”
She glared harder, then muttered something and left the room.
As soon as we were alone again, Jasmine rolled her eyes and exhaled. “Ugh. I swear, the mean-girl-to-nurse pipeline is real.”
I chuckled. “Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. Like most of them are awesome, you know? They’re great. But I swear half the mean girls I went to high school with are nurses now, and I’ll bet she”—Jasmine pointed sharply at the door—“was exactly like them.”
“Yeah, probably.” I tsked. “Chris’s mom had a nurse like that when Ally was born. All the others were incredible, but that one…” I shook my head.
Jasmine giggled. “What did she say when you told her off?”
At that, I cringed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t. I wish I had, but…”
She sobered. “They’re intimidating.”
“They are. It’s been over twenty years and it still bugs me that I didn’t step in.”
Her lips quirked. Then she grinned. “Well, you made up for it today!”
I chuckled. “Let’s hope.”
No, it didn’t completely assuage my guilt over being spineless before. I couldn’t change the past, but I’d done better in the present.
I’d take it.
Around 2:30 in the morning, my phone pinged with a text.
“Chris just landed,” I informed Jasmine, who was sitting on a yoga ball in her room. “He’ll be in a cab in a few minutes.”
Her face lit up. “Oh, thank God.”
I patted her arm. “I told you he’d get here in time.”
She smiled, the relief plain as day… along with some discomfort, because her labor was definitely progressing now.
Even I’d started worrying Chris wouldn’t make it after all, though she probably still had at least a few hours left to go.
I knew all too well that labor was unpredictable, though, and that it could either get moving really fast or drag on longer than expected.
But Chris was in Pittsburgh now, and he’d be here in the next thirty minutes.
Hopefully baby Asher could wait that long.
According to everyone who’d checked on Jasmine in the last hour or so, there was probably plenty of time.
Still, I doubted Jasmine, Chris, or I would be able to relax until he was here by her side.
Fortunately, Jasmine was nowhere near ready to push when my phone pinged again.
“I’m going downstairs to get Chris,” I said. “Are you okay for a few minutes?”
She smiled and nodded. “If it means he’ll be here soon, definitely.”
“He will. Hang in there.”
I got into the lobby right as Chris sprinted in through the front doors.
“Okay, I’m here!” he panted. “Let’s go!”
I motioned for him to follow me to the elevators. When he reached for the call button, though, I stopped his wrist. “Chris. Look at me.”
He did, face full of more fear and panic than I’d ever seen in him. “Dad, I need to get to—”
“I know. And we will.” I touched his shoulders. “But I need you to take a breath, okay? Take a few of them?”
“I am,” he said tersely. “I need to get to her before—”
“Chris. Listen to me.”
He snapped his teeth shut and glared at me.
“She’s still got a long way to go,” I assured him. “Taking two minutes to collect yourself will help you both more than you running in there in a panic.”
“What the fuck? I need—”
“She needs you, but more than anything, she needs you to be calm. She’s vulnerable, she’s scared, and she’s going through the most painful and intense experience she’ll ever have.” I squeezed his shoulders. “Right now, she needs to lean on you, and she needs to know you have it together.”
Anger flashed in his eyes, but just as he was opening his mouth to say something, understanding seemed to dawn. His shoulders dipped a little beneath my hands. He exhaled. Took a breath. Took another.
Without a word, I pressed the call button. When we stepped inside, Chris closed his eyes and took some slow, deep breaths. By the time we reached the maternity floor, he was still obviously worried, but he was collected now.
At her door, he paused again for another breath, rolled his shoulders, and then pushed it open and stepped inside.
Jasmine had been strong as hell the whole time we’d been here. The second she saw Chris, though, she burst into tears. She started to get up from the yoga ball, but he gestured for her to stay, and he leaned down to hug her.
“Hey, baby,” he murmured. “I’m here. I made it. I’m sorry.” He stroked her hair and let her cry.
I had a feeling she was just overwhelmed. Labor, hormones, and the relief of him arriving—yeah, tears were understandable. On Chris’s end, too—he wasn’t the one in labor, but his eyes were certainly welling up as he hugged her.
As they collected themselves, she looked at me. “Are you staying?”
“Uh. I can. Or I can—” I gestured at the door. “If you’d prefer—”
“Please stay,” she said quickly. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all.”
She looked almost as relieved as she’d been when she’d realized Chris had landed. And… so did he. As if he’d thought I was going to take off, and he wanted me to stay, too.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told them.
“Thanks, Dad,” Chris said, and that tired, relieved, grateful smile was the best thing I’d ever seen.
I came so close to missing all of this.
Fortunately, before the moment could get too emotional, my phone pinged, and I checked the screen.
Liam
How are things going? Did Chris make it?
He’s here with time to spare.
No baby yet?
Not yet. Probably still a few more hours at least, but it’ll definitely be tonight or tomorrow.
Awesome! If you need a break, we can FaceTime.
Just reading that text made me hyperaware of how exhausted I was, and how much I did, in fact, need a break.
Are you sure? It’s late as hell.
Not quite as late in Denver.
He had a point. I was so tired, I’d forgotten what city he was in.
I looked at my son and daughter-in-law. “Hey, now that Chris is here, I’m going to step out and grab some coffee. I’m not leaving—just stepping out for a minute.”
Jasmine nodded.
Chris smiled. “Take your time.”
I returned the smile and the nod. “Do you need any coffee?”
He looked at Jasmine. “Do you mind? Will the smell bother you?”
She waved a hand and shook her head. “No, it’s fine.”
“Okay.” To me, he said, “Can you get me one?”
“Of course. Back in a minute.” Then I ducked out.
I walked down the hall to the area by the elevators, which was empty.
There, I paused for a slow, deep breath, startled by how relieved I was to have a moment to myself.
I was more than happy to be here as a support person for Chris and Jasmine, but it was stressful.
Taking a break and talking to Liam sounded like exactly what the doctor ordered.
So I took another deep breath, smiled to myself, and sent the FaceTime request.