Having a Baby
One-Shot
Author: Lolly4Holly
Pairings: GSR - Grissom and Sara
Summary: The story of Sara's first baby. Another in the series of Sara, Grissom and their daughters, Charlotte and Abigail. Please let me know what you thought, thank you for reading.
"Being pregnant is one of the most exciting times in a woman's life. There's new clothes to buy, announcements to make, the nursery to decorate... I think whoever wrote this book wasn't pregnant." Sara tossed the book aside, giving up on it already. She felt huge and uncomfortable, fed up of patiently waiting for her baby to make up its mind of when it was going to arrive. Her expected due date for this baby was five days ago, but the doctors didn't want to induce her yet, hoping that her labour would kick start itself within a few days. "What are you making over there?" She cast her eyes towards her husband, leant over the stove with a ladle in his hands.
"Soup... are you hungry?"
"Starving." The heavily pregnant woman struggled to push herself to her feet, retying the bath robe around her waist as she waddled over to him. She didn't really have any clothes that fit her anymore, so she spent most days lounging around in her night gown or some of her husband's baggy pyjamas. "Ow..." She placed her hand on her lower back, feeling her familiar aches and pains now that she was no longer sitting down. "They said that membrane sweep would speed things along, but I haven't felt any kind of contraction pain."
"Maybe we should try some spicy food?" Grissom suggested, giving his soup another taste after adding some spices. "Isn't that supposed to kick start it or something?"
"Catherine told me that watching a weepy movie can trigger it too. She also said sex can." She smirked as her husband dropped the ladle into the pot the second she mentioned it. "You can relax, I feel too big for anything like that. I just want this baby out."
"What times your appointment?"
"Half eleven." Sara checked the time on her husband's watch, realising she'd have to shower and get dressed soon. Her dishevelled hair was all over the place and with the boiling hot weather they were having lately, she could actually smell the sweat on herself. She had avoided the shower and bath tub over the past few days, sick of feeling so big and achy all the time. "I hope they induce me today."
"They said they were just going to check the baby's position and your blood pressure." He reminded his wife, lifting the hot pan from the stove. "Do you want some?"
"Yes, please. A big bowl." She nodded, grabbing for a couple of the bread rolls he had baked too. She waddled over to the dining table, grabbing the back of one of the chairs as she felt her first painful twinge. It felt twenty times worse than any menstrual cramp she had in the past, feeling more like someone had stabbed her in the stomach. "Oh god... ow, ow, owww..." She howled through her pain.
Her husband rushed to her side, thinking she had stubbed her toe or something, but then he realised that there was a pool of fluid between her feet. "Looks like you got your wish, your waters have broke." He slid his arm around her waist, supporting her weight to help her sit down for a moment. "Does it feel like the real thing?"
"How am I supposed to know that, Gil?" She snapped at him, grabbing his hand as the severe cramps continued to cripple her lower half. She had experienced a few Braxton hicks through the early stage of her pregnancy, but this time it felt more intense, like her insides were being twisted, pulled and squeezed, while her hips felt as though they were being ripped apart. "Ow... forget what I said about ever wanting the baby at home, get me to the hospital." She originally planned to have a midwife with her at home, wanting to do the whole thing naturally for her baby, but she had no idea the pain would be this bad. "I have to stand up."
Grissom put his arms around her, helping her to stand again. He had his cell in his hand ready to call the midwife like they had planned, but his wife knocked it from his hands as she grabbed his shoulder through the contraction. "Is it fading?" He felt her grip subsiding on his shoulder.
"Yeah... your phones over there." She motioned towards it beside the kitchen counter. "Are you calling the midwife?"
"Do you want me to?" He retrieved it from the floor, scrolling through his phonebook to find her number again.
"Yeah." She changed her tune as soon as the pain started to fade. "I need to lie down."
"Do you need me to..." Grissom let her go on her own, while he called for their midwife. She spent the first five minutes of the conversation trying to calm down the nervous father to be, before she told him what to do to help out Sara, waiting for her arrival. He set the phone down a few minutes later, hurrying through to the bedroom to help out with everything that midwife told him.
"Don't stroke me, I'm not a dog." Sara pushed his hand away, adjusting herself on the bed as she felt another contraction. "Can you open the window? It's boiling in here." Her husband quickly opened the window all the way, before he turned the fan on to cool her down. "No, I don't like that. It's blowing in my face." She immediately objected, adjusting herself again now that the pain was starting to fade. "What did the midwife say?"
"She's on her way, but she said that the first part of labour could take hours. She said to just try and relax and breathe through the contractions as they come."
"Oh what does she know." Sara snapped, brushing her mattered hair out of her face. "Can you get me a hair tie?" She motioned towards her vanity table against the wall. They were supposed to be moving to their new house that came with her husband's new job at the end of the week, so most of their things were in boxes all around the house, but she knew she left one on her table. "Ohh... why does it hurt so much?"
"Is that another one?" Grissom retrieved a brush and a hair tie for her, checking his watch as she writhed around in pain. He was told to time the contractions for when the midwife arrived, but he didn't know when they started or stopped. He just had to guess by the expression on his wife's face. "Is that a new one?" He asked a few minutes later, getting ignored as his wife tried to concentrate again. "Has it stopped?"
"Get the door, Gil!" She screamed at him, hearing the buzzer going off for a third time.
Grissom quickly jumped to his feet, hurrying for the door to let in the midwife. She seemed so much calmer than him, talking about the wonderful weather they had been having lately as she made her way through to the bedroom with a sunny smile on her face.
The midwife managed to tell them that Sara's waters had partially broken, but they were still leaking out of her. She helped her to change her clothes and strip the bed of their sheets, getting her more comfortable for the active stage of her labour.
"How long has it been now?" Sara reached for the water bottle from her husband's hands, waiting for him to check the watch for the time.
"About... two and half hours now."
"Soups definitely cold now." The woman smirked, recapping the water bottle as her contractions returned. They were around twelve minutes apart when the midwife first arrived, now they were at regular eight minute intervals, but she was starting to get fed up with this part. She hadn't dilated at all, meaning she was no closer to getting her baby out of her. Her midwife had advised her to try and get some sleep, but she couldn't with the constant contractions ripping through her body.
"Here we are, I managed to find one." Her midwife returned with a newly boxed Tens machine in her hands. Sara didn't want to take any form of painkiller, so she suggested the handy little digital device that she recommended to her patients in the active part of their labour. She hooked it up for her, showing her how to work the little device.
Sara eventually managed to find a setting that worked for her, dozing off to sleep for the next two hours of her labour, before it started to get more intense. Her midwife just observed her for a while, assuring her that she had a long way to go yet, but Sara really felt as though this was it.
After Sara kept insisting that this was the baby coming, the midwife decided to check for her, only confirming her own suspicions, "Yep... I can feel your baby's head, but it's very far back. You're about five or six centimetres dilated at the moment. You've still got a long way to go yet. Did you want to get in the pool for the next part. It might help you to relax a little more. You can't tense up like this when you need to push."
"I'll get it ready." Grissom opted himself in for the job, leaving his wife's side for the first time to set it up. He knew that she didn't deal with pain very well, but he didn't expect her to be like this during her labour. She was like two different people at the moment. When the contractions weren't ripping their way through her body, he knew how to talk to her as she was his wife Sara, but when they took control, it was like she was being possessed by a devil.
He returned to the bedroom as the midwife checked Sara's blood pressure and the heart rate of the baby, relieved that the two of them were doing fine. He never knew that birth was such a nerve racking time, not only for the mother but the father to be too.
Grissom assisted his wife through to the front room, where the pool was set up. She didn't want to get undressed to get in, so he helped her to remove her underwear, leaving her night gown on as she climbed into the pool.
Their two cats, Romeo and Juliet found the water in the pool fascinating, while their pit bull, Hank junior stayed well away from it all. He whined with Sara as she groaned through a contraction, thinking he was helping her through it, but no one could help her as she started to feel the burning ring of fire pain that everyone had warned her about.
Grissom rubbed her lower back to sooth her through her contractions, letting her squeeze his hand as her midwife encouraged her to start pushing her baby out. They were told not to give her any words of encouragement during this process, so they kept silent, trying to be there for her in any way that they could.
Crowning seemed to take hours for Sara though, she felt boiling one minute, started vomiting up her breakfast another then she couldn't find a comfortable position to push. Her baby's head finally popped out fifteen minutes later, followed soon after by baby's shoulders, arms and chest.
"One more push and you'll have your baby, Sara." The midwife announced, preparing things beside the pool, keeping one eye on the half of the baby that she could see. "Gil, do you want to help Sara to bring the baby up. Very slowly..."
The woman grabbed for a towel, watching the nervous new father guiding his baby up to the surface. He didn't turn the baby over until they were completely out of the water, getting a tear in his eye as he saw first signs of life in the little being he had created.
"A girl." Sara opened her eyes to see her baby. "We have a girl."
Grissom smiled widely, keeping his eyes focused on his brand new daughter in his hands. She didn't cry right away like he was expecting, instead she tried to open her little eyes, trying to see the world around her. She didn't appear to be that shocked about being born, just curious to know what the outside world was all about.
"Let's get her warmly wrapped up in Mommy's arms, shall we." The midwife placed the first towel in Sara's arms, letting the father hand over the baby, before she helped the new mother to wrap her baby up warmly in her arms. She left the three of them alone for a moment, filling in her paperwork of the exact time that Sara gave birth to her new daughter.
"She's so tiny." Sara spoke softly, delicately brushing the tip of her finger across her baby's forehead. She always knew that she'd have a baby at the end of this ordeal, but none of it really felt real until this moment right here. She turned to look up at her husband as she heard a sniffle, smiling at him as he was crying at the sight of their beautiful little girl. "Isn't she perfect?"
Grissom pressed a kiss to the side of Sara's forehead, putting his arms around her shoulders as they both watched their daughter making her first movements. He fell completely in love with his little girl, instantly feeling like a father as he wanted to love and protect her for the rest of her life.
"What name did you decided on?" The midwife asked them a few minutes later.
Sara tilted her head back to look at her husband, smiling as they both knew exactly which of their favourite names they liked for their little girl.
"Charlotte."
"And that my dear, is the story of how you were born." Her father spoke softly, pressing a kiss to his eight year old daughter's forehead. She tore her eyes away from the photo album in front of her, giving her father a wide smile. "There's your very first cuddle with Mommy there." He pointed out the picture on the right.
"What about my birth story?" Abigail curiously asked him, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Oh no, we will have to save that one for another night." Grissom closed the photo album on his lap, lifting his two sleepy girls up from the sofa with him. "It's time for bed. Mommy will be home in the morning, so you'll need your energy." He ushered the two of them up the stairs, getting them tucked up in their warm beds.
"Did I really not cry when I came out?" Charlotte continued to quiz her father.
"Not for the first hour or so." He shook his head. "The midwife said you were sleeping after what you had been through. You cried when you wanted feeding or your diaper changed, but you and Mommy slept for the rest of the day. Neither of you woke up until the next day, when I finally got to warm up the rest of the soup so Mommy could finally try it."
"Please can you tell my story." Abigail pouted her lip out at him. "I promise I will sleep right away."
"Another night, my dear." Grissom ushered her back to her bed, pressing a kiss to his four year olds forehead. "Mommy tells your story better anyway, so you're better off waiting for Mommy to tell it. Good night, I'll see you in the morning."
"Night." His youngest sighed softly, wishing she had got to hear her story first.
"Night, Daddy." Charlotte waved to him as he pulled the door shut. "I love you!" She quickly called out to him.
"I love you too." He poked his head back into the room, looking towards his youngest. "And I love you too, my dear. Sweet dreams."