Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
“Henry? Henry, sweetheart, she’s okay! Look, see, she’s got her epidural, and she’s much more comfortable. I think she might want to see you, if you want to go say hi. Take her some ice chips, dear. I’ll be right here.”
My mother’s voice snaps me out of my trance, and I realize I’m hovering in the doorway of my wife’s hospital room like the coward I am.
Katarina eyes me with amusement, and she looks so small and fragile lying there that the urge to panic and cry threatens to overwhelm me again, but her hand beckons me, and I’m powerless as always to resist her call.
Before I can make it to her, though, I manage to knock over a tray of supplies, and the clattering brings a nurse into the room. I feel like nothing more than a bull in a china shop, and nausea roils in my gut at the thought of being handed something as tiny and precious as a baby before long.
Finally, I make it to my wife, and the pity in her eyes is almost worse than her amusement.
“Sweetheart, I’m fine. Are you okay?”
“Uhh. Yeah. Yes. I’m fine. Are you sure you’re fine? Maybe I can go get you—”
“Nope, I’m all set. Everything I could ever want or need is in one of these very expertly packed bags that we’ve had ready for weeks. What I need is to know if you’re okay, and what happened earlier.”
Earlier…fuck.
“Henry!”
The edge to my wife’s voice has me running to the kitchen, where she and my mother were baking cookies and talking about the plans for the twins’ and Gisele’s birthdays next month.
When I arrive, Mom is in tears, but…smiling?
And my Kitten looks happy but scared. She’s standing in a puddle, and I assume she’s dropped some of the milk she was cooking with.
“Oh, Kitten, it’s okay. Here, let D…let me clean that up for you. We don’t have to cry over spilled milk. We have plenty more, and if not, I’ll run out and get some—”
“This isn’t milk, Henry! My water broke. My water broke, and we’re…we’re going to have a baby! It’s time to meet our son.”
She’s laughing and crying happy tears now, and Mother is basically sobbing across the kitchen. The ringing that fills my ears matches the black spots taking over my vision, and I hear Katarina scream before everything goes black.
“He has no allergies, no known medical history, and no surgical history. No, he doesn’t take any medications. Yes, he works out, as you can clearly see.”
My Kitten’s claws are out, and I can’t wait to open my eyes and see who she’s dressing down.
“If that’s all, it would be lovely if you could get on with your exam, and I can take him with me to the labor and delivery floor so I can check in and start giving birth!”
Her voice cracks in pain at the end, and I wrench open my eyes to find a gaggle of female physicians and nurses all staring at me.
I’m shirtless, and somehow my pants are gone.
I’m lying with my feet hanging off a hospital bed, hooked up to monitors.
Katarina is holding onto her stomach with one hand and my bed rail with the other, face scrunched up in pain. Shit.
I sit up, feeling like Frankenstein’s creature, with all the cords tangling and machines beeping.
Luckily, my mother bursts into the room, a man in a suit trailing her.
Every employee in the room snaps to attention, and I’m thankful once again for my mom’s uncanny ability to get what she wants and get things handled.
“As you can see, Mr. Ford, your employees are ogling my son instead of clearing him from what was obviously a fainting spell. His wife is in labor, and this delay is not why I donate to this hospital!”
The physician in charge, I assume, tries to defend herself to the man I now recognize as the CEO of the hospital, but once he hears that all my tests have been negative, I’m swiftly given a pair of hospital scrubs, pants far too short, and allowed to leave.
The trip to L&D was a blur, and I vomited when Katarina got her IV and when she got her epidural.
It all feels like a fever dream that I’m just now waking up from.
“You actually yelled at multiple people to do something about my pain, even the anesthesiologist who was trying to help.” Her eyes are kind, even as tired as she looks from her labor already, and I’ve never seen her so beautiful.
“I wanted to kill them all every time you screamed,” I mumble, playing with the up-sized replicas of her engagement and wedding bands she’s been wearing since her fingers started to swell.
When she told me that many women get cheaper, larger bands or forgo wearing rings altogether, I immediately had exact replicas made for her so she wouldn’t have to go a day without them.
I think they bring me more comfort than they bring her, by far.
“I should have been present and here with you all day. I’m so sorry, Kitten, for losing my mind and making today harder than it had to be.”
She rewards me with a soft kiss. “I forgive you. But the hard part is still to come, and so help me if you don’t man up and get it together for the rest of this experience, this boy will be the only kid you ever get out of me.
I might scream, cry, poop, throw up…I don’t even know, maybe all four at once.
But you’ve watched the videos and read the books.
You know my birth plan. I need my partner. ”
Well, when she puts it like that, I feel even more like a piece of shit. I’m Henry fucking Sinclair. I should be a pillar of calm help for my wife, not contributing to her distress in any way. It’s time to pull it together.
“Anything you need, Kitten. I’m here. Daddy’s back.”
“Alright, Dad, are you ready to catch?”
Am I ever. I practiced with lube-coated fruit, and if I can catch a slippery cantaloupe that Jack Carter launched at me like a grenade, I can catch my son as he enters the world for the first time.
With one last push, Katarina leans back heavily onto her pillows, and the tiny bundle is safely in my hands.
So small, and so much hair.
“Congratulations, you two! It’s a boy!”
My son.
I’m weeping as I place him on my wife’s chest, my tears mingling with hers as she sobs. Nurses clean him off and tend to her, but we’re in a bubble of awe looking at the life she’s just produced. Finally, he goes to be weighed and swaddled, and I cradle my love’s face gently in my hands.
“Thank you, Katarina. I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’ve given me. He’s perfect. Our son.”
“I love you, Henry. Your giant baby almost just killed me, but I love you.”
“Giant? He looks so small in my hands…”
“Nine and a half pounds!” the nurse proclaims, bringing the screaming bundle back to us.
I take him gently, still thinking that he seems small, and kiss his head before helping settle him onto Katarina and grab a bottle.
Now that he’s lying on her chest, I can actually agree he looks much bigger than when I’m holding him…
We’re left alone while he eats, and I can’t stop looking at my family. My beautiful wife. My big, strong boy. There’s no way to adequately tell her what this moment means to me.
“You’ve given me everything, Kitten. I was such a shell when you burst into my life,” I whisper, and I realize I’m crying again.
Or perhaps I never stopped. “You’ve colored in every stark, drab corner of my soul and made it magical to live.
I’ll never be able to thank you enough. You’re everything.
And look at how well you’ve done, darling.
He’s perfect. You made us the perfect baby. ”
“You had a hand in it, too, I seem to recall. Although I agree, the hard parts were all me, and I gladly take all the credit.”
We exist for a bit, just the three of us, watching our little guy eat, burp, and sleep.
Finally, there’s a soft knock on the door, and Mom pokes her head in.
I’m actually impressed with the restraint she’s shown in waiting until now, then I notice the red blooming on her neck and Ivan straightening his jacket, and I realize she's been busy with her own activities.
“Come in, you two!”
Katarina perks up as her dad kisses her on the head and murmurs to her in soothing, fast-paced Russian. Whatever he says, she sniffles and laughs a watery snort. Mom comes to me for a tight squeeze, tears in her eyes, as she watches Ivan coo over how much hair my son has.
“Oh, Henry. He’s magnificent. Katarina, darling, he’s huge! You’re such a trooper. I hope you’re alright…down there.”
“Would the two of you like to hold him?” Kat ignores my mom’s inquiries about her vagina and offers up the newest Sinclair grandchild to Mom.
“Well, since he’s Ivan’s first, I think he should have the first grandparent hold.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that…”
“Here, let me help.” I gently lift the sleeping bundle from Katarina’s chest, cooing when he stirs and moving to pass him to Ivan, who Mom has helped arrange on the couch for his first hold.
“This is your grandpa, yes, he is. This is Dadushka. Yes, that’s right.
Don’t poop on him yet, you just met him! ”
Ivan expertly notches the baby into his elbow, providing excellent head support and immediately soothing him in Russian.
Mother looks on proudly. “I taught him that with a weighted doll! Granted, not quite as heavy as…Wait! Did the two of you decide what you’re going to call him?
Obviously, Henry Charles Sinclair the fourth, but a nickname? ”
I look at Katarina, offering the chance to explain our son’s name, and she smiles.
“Well, we played around quite a bit with the 'four' aspect, then once we started looking at 'IV', we realized with your name, Dad…”
Ivan looks up in shock from where he had been mesmerized by his grandson.
“We started calling him “Eye-vee”, then when I really started speaking to him in Russian, I couldn’t help but call him Vanya and Vanyushka…so I think we’ve officially settled on those.”
Mom squeezes Ivan’s shoulders as he cries, trying not to jostle the baby.
“I…thank you both. I’m so happy for you two,” he says, then looks at Mom. “I’m so happy for all of us. This is more than I could have ever dreamed of.”
Waiting for my siblings to burst in here and make noise and bother my son, I find myself agreeing with Ivan. I have more than I could have ever dreamed.
Ivan stands with Vanya to go talk to Katarina, and Mother slides over to me on the couch.
“Darling, I do have something for you. Your father left a letter for you, for the day you become a father yourself. I have it here, if you want it now.”
Taking a deep breath, I pop open the wax seal and see the familiar script.