Chapter One Hundred Seven

Lincoln

After we both get dressed, I grab the hospital bags that she had just packed earlier this morning and take them down to the car before coming back up to help Raleigh out. We make it to the car and after helping her get into her seat, I make sure that she’s buckled and then move around to the other side, slipping into the driver’s seat.
*Fuck! This is really happening!* Is the only thing that keeps running through my head as I put the key in the ignition, start the car and then haul ass through the streets of Rhydell, then jumping on the interstate, we as quickly as possible make out way to the hospital.
“Did you call your brothers and let them know?” I ask, trying to distract myself from my spiraling thoughts of how I’m about to become a father between trying to pay attention to the road and time and comfort Raleigh through each contraction.
Her contractions are seven minutes apart right now and we are still twenty minutes away from the hospital. We practiced how to do an emergency roadside birth, just in case, in the birthing classes that we took, but I really hope that it doesn’t come to that.
Pressing the accelerator down harder, I speed up, not caring that I’m speeding, as long as we get to the hospital in time and in one piece.
“Yeah, or well, I called Rowen. He said he would call Ryker and Ryler for me.” She then looks at me, taking me in before reaching over and peeling my hand away from the steering wheel and twining her fingers with mine and then says, “I love you.”
And I can’t help but smile and my heartbeat faster for a whole other reason now, as I glance over at her and reply, “I love you, too, Baby.”
“Did you let your family know?” She asks as she pulls my hand into her lap, letting her fingers play with mine, likely trying to distract the both of us.
“I sent them a text before leaving the house. Dad said he would get everyone around and be waiting for our word on when to come up.”
She then gives me a nervous smile and says, “I can’t believe this is really happening.”
“Are you scared?” I ask, curious of where her head is on this.
“Shitless. But, with you by my side,” she says, then glances over at me, giving me a smile that is full of so much love and reassurance and then says,  “I know that we can do this.”
As soon as we get to the hospital, we’re quickly taken up to Labor and Delivery and taken into a room where Raleigh is given a gown to put on and a cup to pee in. When she comes back out of the bathroom in the ugly blue hospital gown, she is beaming.
A nurse named Sheila who is an older woman with gray hair and dark brown eyes, gets her hooked up to the monitors and then hooks another one around her belly, explaining, “This right here will keep track of your contractions if you’re having them and how often.”
Just as she said that, Raleigh tenses up, hissing as another contraction hits.
Sheila looks at the machine that is monitoring her contractions, then back at Raleigh, waiting for the contraction to subside. Once it has, she points to the screen and says, “You see how there’s what looks like a large hill?” Raleigh nods, so the nurse continues. “That is the build of the contraction. The top of it will show the length of time of the contraction before it begins to subside. Which is when the downhill slope begins.  If you give me a minute, I will perform what is called a Litmus test to see if your waters have indeed broke or not and check to see if you have begun to dilate yet.”
Nodding, Raleigh replies, “Thank you.”
Sheila steps out the door, leaving just me and Raleigh in the room, the sounds of the monitors beeping to fill the silence. “How are you feeling?” she asks me.
“Nervous,” I admit honestly. Then quip, “And I’m not the one that’s fixing to have to push out two babies.”
“You shut up! This is *your* fault after all.” She snaps back, her hand going to her belly, as if in preparation for another contraction to hit.
“Oh, yeah? And how’s that?” Then, moving so that I’m just a hairsbreadth away, in a low and gravelly voice, I tease, “If I remember correctly, it was you who jumped me.”
“You─ I─ Just shut up!” She says, her face turning red at not having a comeback because she knows that she’s the one that started it that night when she said she was ready. Then, crossing her arms across her chest, she snarks, “I am fixing to deliver *your* babies after all.”            
“And thank God, you are.” I say, leaning in to place a kiss against her lips. Then pulling back just barely, I murmur against her lips, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”   
The clearing of a throat forces me to pull back from her, but I don’t break my stare as I watch her cheeks turn pink and her bite that damn bottom lip.
“Okay, Raleigh. I need you to scoot all the way down until your bottom is at the edge of the bed and just let your legs fall wide and to your sides.” Sheila watches as Raleigh does as she asks and then moves between her legs just as I move up next to her head. Raleigh reaches for my hand just as Sheila grabs a small strip of paper and then moves her hand between Raleigh’s legs. “Okay, so, what I’m going to do is insert the Litmus strip and my hand into your vagina to see if your water has broken. It is going to be uncomfortable.”
Raleigh nods, her hand tightening its hold on mine.
“Okay, here we go,” Sheila says as she uses one hand to press on the top of Raleigh’s belly and the other goes inside of her.
Raleigh closes her eyes and grits her teeth, tensing up as Sheila does what she needs to do. Not even thirty seconds later, she pulls her hand back out, but Raleigh is still tense. Glancing at the contraction monitor, I realize that she’s in the middle of one as the nurse tells us that she will be right back with the results of the test and to check to see if she has begun to dilate.
Five minutes turn to ten and ten become twenty.
Soon it’s been an hour, and Sheila still has not returned with the results of Raleigh’s test and her contractions are three minutes apart and so painful that they are making her cry.
“What can I do to help?” I ask, moving back next to her, hating watching as she writhes in pain as she is hit with yet another painful contraction. “Pleas, tell me how I can help, and I will do it.”
“I think you’ve done quite enough, don’t you!” She growls as she writhes on the hospital bed, her hands clenching the plastic bars at either side of the bed, so tightly that her hands are white.  “Fuck! It hurts! It hurts!” she screams, repeatedly.
I try massaging her lower back, but she says that it doesn’t help because it’s the tightening of her stomach that hurts so badly, not her back.
Finally, after an hour and fifteen minutes, Sheila comes back with the results. “I am so sorry that took so long. The lab was backed up. But it does show that your water did indeed break. So, let’s get you checked to see how far you’ve progressed.” As she says this, she’s slipping on a pair of gloves and moving the blankets on the bed so that she can check Raleigh.
“Now, if you will just scoot down, just like you did last time.” Raleigh does as she says, doing exactly as she did before. “Again, I’m sorry but this might be uncomfortable or even hurt a little bit.”
As soon as she puts her hand inside of Raleigh, her face contorts into one of pain as Sheila checks her. “Alright,” she says, pulling her hand out and removing her gloves. “You are dilated to about a seven and completely effaced. You probably have several hours to go still, but you will be having these babies either tonight or early tomorrow morning.”
“Can she get something for the pain? She’s *really* hurting.” I ask, wanting her to get some relief as soon as possible.
“Yeah, let me get the anesthesiologist in here and get her some relief,” she says, giving us both a kind and reassuring smile.
As Sheila leaves, Raleigh gasps in pain as another contraction hits her. “It hurts, Lincoln. Make it stop. It hurts so bad,” she cries repeatedly.
“Come here,” I tell her, remembering some of the techniques that we practiced during the birthing classes.
She scoots to the edge of the bed. I guide her forward, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and on her own, she props her feet on the chair on either side of my thighs, trying to get more comfortable.
“Lean on me, just like we practiced in class,” I tell her, using my hands to rub her lower back as we gently sway back and forth.
When I hear her hiss and her nails dig into my back, her feet shoving against the chair, I know that she’s having another contraction, but I keep up the swaying and continue rubbing her back.
We do this for what feels like hours, but it’s been long enough that I’ve lost track of time. All that I know is that her contractions are practically on top of one another now and she’s started shivering, which tells me that she’s transitioning into the last stage.
*Fuck! Where is Sheila or her doctor?*  
No one has been back in to check on her since she was checked the first time and she still hasn’t received anything for her pain.
I glance around for the call button and see it on the plastic bar that Raleigh had been squeezing earlier.
Not wanting to frighten her as she seems to have found a way to tolerate the contractions for the moment and is managing to work through the transition surprisingly well, I place a kiss against her sweaty forehead and murmur, “That’s it, Baby. Breathe. Don’t hold your breath. Just breathe.”
“I’m trying. But I feel like I need to push,” she rasps without lifting her head from my shoulder.
“I’ll call the nurses station and get someone in here to check you out. They said you should have more time.” I say, then, glancing at the clock on the wall, realize it’s only been fifty minutes since Sheila was last in here, not the hours that were predicted.
Trying to move as little as possible, I push the call light on the outside of the rail, facing me and wait for someone to answer.
A few moments later, “Nurses station,” comes over the speakers in the room.
“Umm…yeah, can someone come in here? I think she needs to be checked again.” I say, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible.
“Someone will be right there,” the voice says before cutting off.
“You’re doing so good, Baby. I’m so proud of you,” I tell her, in awe of her strength. I know that she’s hurting and that this isn’t over yet but she’s so close to bringing our babies into the world and I’m feeling so many things that I can’t even begin to put them all into words.
A few minutes later the door to the room opens and two nurses come into the room followed by two people wheeling in two radiant warmers, who immediately begin getting them set up.
“My name is Angi. I’ve taken the place of Nurse Sheila for the rest of the night. What do we have going on?” A younger, brunette nurse with baby unicorns on her scrubs asks. She seems nice and hopefully will be able to help more than the last one was able to.
“I think she’s transitioning. She’s started shivering and she says she feels like she needs to push. But Sheila made it sound like she still had hours before she would be at this point.” I tell Angi, as she helps Raleigh reposition and slide down to the end of the bed.
“Let’s go ahead and check and see what we have going on here then. And we’re having twins, correct?” Angi asks, verifying that her information is correct.
“Yes, should be a boy and a girl.” I tell her, unable to hold back the grin that forms on my face.
“Alright, honey. Just let your legs fall to either side and I’ll be as gentle as I can be, but it might hurt. So, I’m sorry.” Angi tells her as she places two lubed fingers at Raleigh’s entrance and then slides them inside of her.
Surprisingly, Raleigh doesn’t tense up like she did with Sheila and not two seconds later, Angi has her hand out and is pulling off her gloves.
“Well, good news, you’re ready to have those babies right now. One of them is right there, I even felt its hair.” She has a big, bright smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes as she says this and her exuberance is palpable and I can see why she went into obstetrics, she loves what she does. She turns to one of the other nurses in the room as she reaches for a fresh pair of gloves and says, “Someone call her Doctor, these babies are coming right now and he needs to get here yesterday.”
“Oh God!” Raleigh groans, “I need to push! I need to push!”
“Don’t hold it in. Do what you body is telling you to do. I can deliver these babies. It’s okay.” Then, one of the other women in the room grabs a stool and gown and helps Angi robe up, as another two women pull the lower half of the bed off, surprising the hell out of me.
“Alright, Raleigh,” Angi says, stepping between her thighs, “place your feet in the stirrups and when you feel your next contraction bear down like you’re trying to poop, and push as hard as you can.”
Raleigh pushed and pushed, delivering our son after just eight solid pushes, and our daughter after another six.
Maddox Eli Jones shot out like a football at 7:00pm on the dot, weighing in at 6lbs 4oz and 18 ¼ inches long.
Maddison Elizabeth Jones entered the world screaming her little lungs, making everyone know she had made her debut, at 7:14pm, weighing in at 5lb 10oz and 17 ¾ inches long.
“You did amazing,” I tell Raleigh as I look from our babies that she has nestled on her chest, to her beaming face, overwhelmed with the knowledge of how damn lucky I am to have all three of them in my life. “I love you.”
“And I love you, too, Lincoln.”

The End.