EIGHT (epilogue)

"The worst snowstorm in twenty years!" Timothy gleefully parroted the radio announcer's decree. He clapped his hands together and asked excited, "I wonder how much we'll get?"

"Enough to cover the ground and then some I imagine," his father mused. It had already been snowing off and on during the day, but the heaviest precipitation was supposed to come overnight.

The third member of the turner trio, groaned at this comment, but it was Tim who noticed her groan sounded a bit more stressed than simply annoyed. "Mum, are you all right?"

Patrick glanced over at his wife and saw her face contorted in a way that caused great alarm to spark inside his chest. He reached over to touch her arm carefully. "Shelagh?"

She looked over at him and confessed, "I'm in labor."

"That's funny." Tim quipped.

She gazed at him mournfully. "I'm not joking."

"But you're only measuring 38 weeks!" Patrick proclaimed, as though that would be one hundred perent proof she was not in labor.

"Well, baby coming at 38 weeks is not abnormal."

"Shall I call the sisters?" Tim offered.

"No…no we can't have them coming out in this weather," Patrick concluded.

"But…doesn't she need a midwife…"

"I am a midwife!" Shelagh snipped both hands circling her large belly.

"I mean another midwife."

"No, we can handle this on our own. Right? Shelagh?"

Shelagh appeared to be considering the idea carefully. It had been a point of contention in their marriage as of late that Patrick was treating her too much like a patient than his wife, the woman carrying his child. It had grown to the point where Shelagh questioned whether friendly foot rubs were actual examinations for swollen ankles and soft touches on her belly at night were actually his attempts to determine their child's positioning. As such, she had effectively banished him from being with her during the actual birth, which he had protested greatly. She had not intended to hurt his feelings, but at the same time feared his inability to be a father not a doctor would elevate her stress too much. Now, it seemed there wasn't much choice in the matter, but that did not mean she could not attempt to set some ground rules.

"I need you to promise to be my husband Patrick not Dr. Turner."

"Unless my being a doctor becomes necessary!" he responded. She shot him a withering glare until he relented, "Yes, all right. I promise. Now, how long have you been feeling contractions for?" Her glare continued and he defended himself with, "That is a husband question!"

Grumbling, she admitted, "A few hours."

His jaw dropped. "And you didn't say anything?"

"I thought it was false labor!"

"It still could be," Tim said positively.

Shelagh shook her head. "It's not. I'm sure it's not."

"Should I be doing something, then?" he asked.

"Go and put the protective sheet on the bed," his father directed. "And make sure there are plenty of clean towels in there." When Shelagh groaned again, he turned to her and asked, "Are the pains very strong."

"Yes. I've always wondered how bad they really were. Now I'm finding out. I need to—oh—" She grimaced as she stood belly-first and began to waddle towards the bedroom. "I need to change clothes before I can no longer manage."

Patrick stood as well and began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. He wanted to do as he promised, to be there for Shelagh as her husband, but he also knew he would struggle. He could not turn off the medical side of his brain, and since he loved her and their child so deeply, he knew he would worry about any possible think that deviated from the course of normal being an indicator for a crisis. They could take care of many issues on their own, but if she were to hemorrhage or if the baby would struggle to breathe… No, he couldn't let himself think those things or he knew he'd never make it through the next hour let alone the long night ahead.

"It was quiet, so I came to see how she was getting on."

Patrick glanced back over his shoulder to see that his curious son had poked his head out of his room. He stood behind his wife, massaging her lower back, as she held on to the doorway to their bedroom to steady herself. "She's trying to breathe deeply through the contractions," Patrick explained softly.

"How's that going?"

"Not great," she said before letting out a guttural grown. Then, as the contraction passed, her tears returned. "Oh god I didn't think it would be this bad. Some women do this a dozen times. What is wrong with me?"

Bracketing her hips with his hands, her husband promised, "Nothing is wrong with you, darling. You're so strong and so brave."

"Yeah, you're doing great, Mum!"

Shelagh turned away from the doorframe and gave Tim an appreciative look before forcing her face into Patrick's chest as she sobbed. "But it hurts so much."

He hugged her as tight as he could and promised, "And that's okay. No one expects you not to feel pain."

"But—oh!" She gasped as a splashing sound could be heard and liquid gushed from between her legs, splashing onto all three sets of feet.

Tim pulled a face that indicated both horror and amazement. "That was so much!"

"Not helping." His father muttered to him before turning back to the pregnant woman, who had begun to cry even harder. "Breath Shelagh, breathe. This is good. The labor is progressing."

"But it hurts so much worse now!"

"Do you want to lie down?"

"Yes." She sniveled and he put his hands on her elbows to guide her but she brushed him away. "I can do it."

Exhausted, Patrick turned to his son and requested, "Help clean this up, please."

"Really?"

"Tim." His tone was firm and clearly indicated he expected no talking back. Though it was only ten o'clock, the labor process had been going on for nearly for hours and it was taking quite an emotional toll on him—not that he would have said anything, for any exhaustion he felt he knew that his wife felt tenfold.

Tim took a tentative step forward and asked, "Is she going to be okay?"

"Yes, this is all part of the process."

"Are you going to be okay?"

Patrick gave an appreciative nod. "I am keeping things together for her, trying to be positive for her, but this is…very difficult. She's in so much pain and there's nothing I can do to help her."

Tim patted his father's shoulder and said, "I know she's glad you're here with her."

Patrick squeezed Tim's hand and then walked into the bedroom to see that Shelagh had managed to get herself into a reclined position on the bed, but she was still crying. He decided to slide up behind her and placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head, not sure what else he could do for her.

She reached back over her shoulder and grabbed for his hand, saying, "I'm so sorry Patrick."

"Why are you sorry?"

"I thought I could do better."

He could not fathom why she thought she was doing a poor job and suspected it might just simply be a manifestation of her overwhelming emotions. Instead of questioning it, though, he felt it best to continue with encouragement. "You're doing perfectly. I love you so much. And I'm so glad to be here with you."

She cracked a small smile. "You would have been unhappy if I'd made you wait outside."

"Incredibly."

"I would have been unhappy, too."

He kissed her head again, and then ventured a question that was decidedly more doctorly than husbandly, but the question needed asked regardless. "May I examine you now? To see how you're progressing?" She nodded, so he walked over to the dresser where all their medical supplies were laid out and donned his gloves. On the bed, she had moved into the correct position for her to check her progress, so he sat down by her ankles and slipped his hand beneath her nightgown.

"What is it?" Shelagh asked a minute later, her tone urgent. "I can see your face – is something wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong." He assured her calmly, removing his hand from her and then pulling at his glove from the wrist. "You're just not as far along as I would have expected."

"How far? How far Patrick?"

He stood and placed the glove back near their medical things, obviously stalling before delivering the disappointing news. "Your waters have only just broken, and you know how that can speed thins along."

"Patrick!"

With a cringe he told her, "Only about halfway."

Her head dropped back against the pillows, and she wailed. "Oh god it could be hours!"

"I know. Just lay back and-"

"Do not tell me to relax!" she snipped at him, but he remained calm.

"I was going to say rest between contractions."

She grumbled and then rolled onto her side. After a few moments she softly requested, "Will you rub my back again?"

"Of course, Darling. Whatever you want."

"Oh…oh!" Shelagh groaned and struggled to sit up against the pillows she'd piled behind her. "I'm really starting to feel like I should push."

Patrick, who had stretched out beside her ten minutes earlier after she told him that his pacing was setting her teeth on edge, sat up quickly. "Okay, let me see." He palpated her belly and then examined her internally, concluding, "Yes, yes, I can feel the baby's head. You can push with your next contraction."

Shelagh gripped onto her knees and pushed heartily through three contractions. Then, she took a small break and reclined against her pillows, before gripping onto her knees through three more pushes. After that round, she flopped back and groaned, "Oh is it even working?"

After checking her, he proudly announced, "Yes! It's absolutely working—I can see baby's head just now. You're doing wonderfully. I'm so proud of you!"

His compliment seemed to fortify her, for she gripped back onto her knees and pushed as hard as she could with the next contraction, and the next. Still, it too her nearly another twenty minutes until Patrick joyously announced, "You've done it, you brave girl! The head is out, I have it in my hand. You're doing so well! So very well!"

Shelagh merely gave a half-whimper, half-moan in response.

For another ten minutes she pushed, and he encouraged until finally their child slid out into Patrick's waiting hands. Not half a second later the baby let out a piercing wail and Patrick felt a rush of emotions crashing through him like a wave. "Oh, well done darling. You did it!"

"What is it?"

"A boy," Patrick said as he clamped the cord. "We have a son." It was then he looked up to meet Shelagh's tearful gaze and it was all he could do to remember the things he needed to and not to dissolve into tears himself.

He made sure the baby's airways were clear, cut the cord, and then wrapped him in one of the clean towels, saying, "There you are little chap."

"Is he okay?"

Grinning, Patrick lifted the baby up to place on his wife's chest. "Yes, he's perfect; beautiful."

Shelagh gathered him to her chest and dusted her finger across his little cheeks saying, "Hello my darling boy, hello." She forgot about the pain and misery of the prior eight hours and fell instantly in love with her son. After a few moments of staring at him adoringly, she looked up to see her husband standing just beside her, tears glistening on his cheeks. "Oh Patrick," she reached out her hand for him. "Don't cry."

He knelt down beside her and snuggled his face into her shoulder. "I've just been so worried about both of you."

"But we're fine now. Look what we did."

Patrick snuck his pinky finger to the baby's tiny fist and his heart clenched as the little boy squeezed onto it. Looking up at his wife he said, "We make a pretty good team, don't we?"

"Absolutely," she replied before giving him a sweet kiss.

They held each other tightly for several minutes before there was a soft tapping at their bedroom door. The door was not shut completely so they could plainly see Tim with one hand fully covering his face as he asked, "I'm not looking, I just want to know what it is?"

"I thought you'd gone to bed," Patrick almost laughed at his son's dramatic attempts to avoid seeing something unpleasant.

"Well, I couldn't really sleep knowing this was going on, could I now?"

"You have a brother, Tim," Shelagh told him. Then she passed the baby over to her husband, nodding towards the door. "Go on, show him, so he doesn't have to see anything he doesn't want to."

Patrick carried the baby over to his elder son and stood in the doorway, fully blocking the bed from view. He nudged Tim's arm with the baby's head and said, "Go on. You can open your eyes."

Tim peeled his hand away from his face and cracked one eye open. He spotted the baby and immediately grinned. Touching his index finger to the baby's forehead he said, "He looks quite small."

"Here, cradle your arms. That's right, there you go." Patrick gently placed the baby in Tim's arms and felt his heart swell with joy, watching his sons meet.

Tim stared down at the baby adoringly and said, "Hi, little brother. I'm Tim and I can't wait to play with you when you get older."

Tim held the baby for a few more minutes until Shelagh called out for Patrick. He quickly scooped the baby back up and told his son, "Still not done in here I'm afraid."

"I'm going back to bed. Thanks."

Feeling exhaustion weigh his bones down but knowing there was still work yet to be done, he returned to the bed and placed the baby back in Shelagh's arms. "Are you contracting again?" he asked. She confirmed and he went to work, helping her deliver the after birth. After he checked it thoroughly, he returned to his wife's side where he placed fresh towels down beneath her and examined her one last time before pulling off his gloves and pulling her nightgown down into place. "No tearing, bleeding is slowing," he told her.

She gave him a nod. "What time is it?"

"Ah…2:47. So I'd say this little chap was born about 2:30."

Shelagh hummed, her eyes not leaving the baby's face. "I think Theodore fits him."

Patrick slid onto the bed and settled beside his wife. He gave the baby a kiss on the head and sighed, "Our little Teddy." They had discussed several possible name options, but he agreed that Teddy did seem to fit him and his adorable button nose. Then, gazing up into his wife's eyes he said, "I'm so proud of you. You did so well."

She reached out and gripped his hand saying, "Thank you for being here with me."

"Where else would I be darling?" He kissed her hand then snuggled up to her adding, "There's no place else for me."