Chapter Fifty-One:
Class is in Session
WEEK 32
JANUARY 8TH, 2002
1102 EST
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
With New Years out of the way, Harm and Mac felt as though they had jumped over the last hurdle separating them from parenthood. They were in the final stretch, and the pins and needles were already beginning to form under their feet. The nursery was completed and they already knew the ins and outs of Bethesda, which was ostensibly the hospital Mac would be giving birth at. Mac even had her hospital bag already packed. It seemed as though the last thing they needed to prepare for was the birth itself.
All of the books Harm and Mac read suggested they take a birthing class, but they wanted to avoid that at all costs. The whole concept just seemed so awkward that neither of them really wanted to put themselves through it. Sure it had its benefits, but Mac had her detailed plan, and that was good enough for Harm. They would just try to not have the baby in the bullpen like Harriet did and would hope that the hospital wasn't overtaken by terrorists the day Mac gave birth.
Harm and Mac should've figured it wouldn't be that easy. At Mac's first ultrasound of the new year, they got caught red-handed in their avoidance of the inevitable.
"So, have you two taken any birthing classes?" Melinda asked, looking at them pointedly. She wasn't accusing, but to the guilty party, it certainly felt like they were being accused.
Harm and Mac looked at each other, almost identical sheepish expressions on their faces. "We haven't yet," Mac said, deciding to play the woefully ignorant card. "Should we?"
Melinda blinked, looking at them to wait and see if they were joking. "I would recommend it," she said, which was polite doctor-speak for "You need to do it." Always being ones to (mostly) follow orders, Harm and Mac agreed immediately, and Melinda gave them the name of a good center nearby.
Later that night, over dinner, Harm and Mac discussed their predicament. Earlier that day Mac had made the phone call and signed them up, so there was no getting out of it.
"The class seems pretty good," Mac said as she cut into her lasagna. "I was able to look up some info about it during my lunch break."
Harm raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Yep," Mac looked at him and smirked. "It's at the GW Hospital. It'll be like a mini-law school reunion for you."
"Mini in the way that I'll be the only one there," Harm replied. Mac's smile dimmed when she noticed he didn't match her humor. She sat down on her fork, watching him eat for a few moments, trying to decide what she needed to ask and how to ask it.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Harm looked up. He smiled when he realized Mac was watching him. "Yeah. I'm fine."
"You sure?"
He nodded. "I'm just nervous for this class."
Mac gave him a wry look. "If you're this uptight about the class, you're gonna be a basket case for the real thing."
Harm didn't answer, and Mac sighed, going back to her lasagna without saying another word. She could tell that he was in one of his moods; one of his quiet, brooding moods where he wouldn't talk about what was wrong no matter how many times Mac pressed him about it. All Mac could do when he got like that was ride out the storm and hope it wouldn't last long. The root of the problem usually came out eventually; Mac just never knew when.
JANUARY 10TH, 2002
1800 EST
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON DC
The class was more crowded than Harm and Mac were expecting, and they had a feeling they were in for an interesting experience.
As soon as they entered the room, which resembled a smaller yoga studio, they were given a foam mat and assigned a place to sit on the floor. Harm was sitting towards the end of the mat and Mac was in front of him, leaning against his chest. Harm looked around at all the expectant fathers, wondering how they all could look so calm. Meanwhile, Mac looked around at all the other expectant mothers, wondering how all of them could look so comfortable."
"If I knew we would be sitting on the floor, I would've brought my pillow," she murmured to Harm.
He shrugged. "Maybe they want to mimic the experience."
Mac raised an eyebrow. "Do they think I'm giving birth on the floor?"
"You know what I mean."
"No, I really don't-"
The sound of bells jingling quieted everyone in the room down to whispering. The bells were attached to the classroom door, and the sound of them jingling was accompanied by the door shutting and latching. The whispers soon hushed completely, and everyone sat with quiet anticipation for the class to begin.
"Good evening, good evening. I hope all of you are doing well," a light and airy voice spoke behind them. "Are you all ready to go through the birthing process?"
There were scattered murmurs in the affirmative, and Mac murmured something that sounded like a curse under her breath as she shifted her position on the mat. A woman wearing a loose-fitting peasant blouse and a long skirt walked to the front of the room. She had long hair, bulky rings on her fingers, and long beaded necklaces around her neck that gently clanked together every time she moved. Harm and Mac exchanged wide-eyed glances.
The woman sat down on a yoga ball in front of the group. "Hi everyone," she waved with both hands. "I'm Frannie and I'm going to be your birthing coach this evening."
Harm ducked his head down. "Should we trust someone named Frannie with walking us through something like this?"
Mac shrugged. "I'm not sure," she replied.
Frannie clasped her hands together. "Alright, so first things first. Who all is nervous?"
Everyone's hands shot up, with Harm's being one of the first. Mac reached out with her unraised hand to squeeze his arm. She'd been able to practically feel the nerves radiating off of him ever since they'd arrived. Mac herself was anxious, but more so to get the class over with, not for what the class itself entailed.
As a way of managing her own nerves, Mac was taking a pragmatic approach to her final months of pregnancy. Everything she had to do; packing the hospital bag, baby proofing the apartment, organizing the baby shower gifts were treated as tasks to check off her to-do list and nothing more. Harm was having trouble compartmentalizing, which was completely understandable. Mac just decided that it was best for one of them to keep their head screwed on right.
Frannie smiled at all the raised hands. "That's perfectly okay," she reached up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, her rings clanking together. "Birth can seem super scary, but it doesn't have to be."
Mac heard Harm snort quietly, and she nudged him with her elbow. It wouldn't be too long before Mac would be forced off her high horse. When it came time to discuss different birth plans, Mac did something Harm usually did; stuck her foot in her mouth.
"So, is anyone planning to have a natural birth?" Frannie asked. Mac's hand confidently went up, until she noticed she was the only one raising her hand. She went to lower her hand, but didn't do it time for Frannie to not notice.
"Oh, we do have one," she said, clearly eager. "Would you mind sharing why you made your decision?"
With everyone's eyes suddenly on her, Mac shrank back into Harm's arms. She smiled sheepishly. "Well, it wasn't anything major. I just hate needles, you know? Like the idea of getting a six inch needle in my spine…" she shuddered. "I actually have a question, now that I think of it."
Frannie nodded. "Go ahead."
"How do the doctors keep from paralyzing you?"
Harm made a choking sound from behind her, and several of the mothers around them got very alarmed looks on their faces. Frannie frowned, an unpleasant expression dawning her face for the first time since class started.
Harm and Mac came to the consensus that birthing class wasn't for them without having to discuss it that much. Frannie with her foam mats, gaudy jewelry, and yoga ball didn't seem like quite the right fit for them, Mac's comments aside. They'd gotten enough information from the one class to make sense of the labor process; follow up classes would thankfully not be necessary.
Mac was head over heels with her new Jeep, almost as much as she had been with her Corvette when she first got it, so that was what they drove everywhere now. She also insisted on driving, even though she complained about having to adjust the steering wheel to accommodate her belly. The Jeep made her ecstatic, and Harm wouldn't do anything to stifle her joy.
That night though, Mac was too concerned with Harm to enjoy driving her Jeep. They sat in the parking space, letting the Jeep idle while she eyed him.
"Do you want me to drive?" Harm finally asked, which frustrated Mac enough to speak.
"No, I'm fine," she unbuckled her seatbelt, turning as much as she could to face him. "Are you fine, though?"
Harm blinked at her. "Why wouldn't I be fine?"
"You've been acting squirrely this whole evening," Mac told him, "What's wrong?"
She watched him intently, waiting for his response. Harm sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "It's nothing, Mac."
"No it isn't, honey," Mac was insistent. "How many times am I going to have to pry information out of you?" her question was only half-joking. Harm still had a tendency to act like every personal discussion was an interrogation.
"It's not that I don't want to talk to you-"
"Then why aren't you talking to me?"
Harm gave her a look. "It's not that I don't want to talk to you," he repeated. "I just don't want to worry you."
Mac's brow furrowed. :"Worry me? How could you worry me?"
"I don't know," Harm sighed again and shrugged. "You just have so much to worry about already, you don't need to worry about me wigging out."
"Wigging out?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I'm...I guess I'm getting cold feet about the labor. I'm worried about you."
"Worried about me?" Mac almost laughed at the absurdity of Harm needing to worry about her, but didn't when she saw his expression. At heart, her flyboy was a hoverer, and who was she to deny him his right to hover?
"There's so much stuff that could go wrong, you know?" he said, and Mac nodded. "With you, with the baby…"
Mac reached out to squeeze his hand. "But there's also a chance everything could go off without a hitch," she said. "We'll cross any bridges when we get to them."
Harm squeezed her hand back. "I know, but I can still worry about the bridges."
"You shouldn't," Mac brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed it. "I'm going to be fine. We're all going to be fine, okay?"
Mac caught a glimpse of his Flyboy grin. "Okay," he replied, and she smiled.
"Good. Now I can go back to being the pessimistic one."
Harm chuckled, and he watched Mac as she shifted the car into gear. "You don't actually think an epidural will paralyze you, right?"
Mac rolled her eyes. "Of course I don't. It was just an...irrational fear that I probably shouldn't have said out loud...in front of a bunch of other women who were getting epidurals."
"You're lucky you didn't get us kicked out. "
"We wouldn't have gotten kicked out," Mac rolled her eyes as she backed out of the parking space. "You need to be more optimistic."
"Says you."
"Says you."
I didn't get the time to proofread this, so if there are some spelling/grammar errors, they will be fixed in the next couple of days. Thanks for reading! Enjoy this cute little fluff piece!
-Harper