Thanks for all the reviews :D I'm glad that you enjoyed it! I'm hoping to have this story finished before Xmas, so I might get a sequel up in the New Year, depending on how far my idea goes. I'll run it by you at the end of this story and let me know whether you think it's worth doing. Thanks for all your help with names, but someone told me what they've named their kid when I wrote this so I just had to use it.
Xx
Scared, shaken, and in a great deal of pain, Kate leaned back against the cave wall. Sweat was creating a shining film over her face, and although she was looking brave, her eyes were saying more than anything else about the fear she felt. Claire and Shannon were at her sides, Jack ready to deliver the baby. The contractions were getting more frequent now, which scared Kate even more. While between each one she could hear Shannon's faint counting, the same numbers were running through her head in a similar fashion, but for different reasons. Over and over again she counted, getting a few seconds without fear before it washed over her again.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5...Come on, you can do this, the baby needs you... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...This is nothing compared to what you've done before... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...You're not alone, you're not alone... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...you can be a mother...
She yelled out again as another contraction came, Shannon announced that they were now a minute apart and Kate began shaking. "No...they can't be...are you sure you counted right?" She asked, but she felt the urge to push down, and knew that she was right. Scared, she felt pain in her chest. "Jack-" She started but he was already talking to her, he took a hand of hers from Claire while the other woman wiped her forehead with cool water.
"It's alright, Kate, just breathe. That's it. Deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth." After a few seconds, the pain in her chest lessened from the more organised breathing, and she gripped Jack's hand tightly with her own. "Are you ready?" He asked her.
No! I can't do this! "Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely." -Not.
Jack looked at her fear stricken eyes, and nodded. "Right, when the next contraction comes, I want you to push until I say to stop okay?" She nodded, and the next contraction came. She pushed as Jack told her, for as long as she could, and a few contractions passed where nothing happened. Then, when she was starting to worry if something was going wrong, Jack announced that he could see the head.
Kate pushed as hard as she could, knowing that it was nearly over, and that her baby was finally arriving, having recieved a new sense of strength. The head emerged...then the shoulders...then her baby was out.
She lifted her head quickly from where it was resting on Shannon's shoulder, to see Jack holding the slippery child, clearing the mouth and throat of the child. "It's a girl." He told Kate, who immediately asked a question that was worrying him.
"Why isn't she crying?"
Jack was already checking his newborn daughter though, and to his horror, found that she wasn't breathing.
"Jack?"
His daughter wasn't breathing.
"Jack, what's happening?" Kate said, nearly screaming. Tears were streaming down her face.
Jack counted to 5, threw off the panick, and began working to save the baby's life. He wasn't about to let his baby die, not when he and Kate had been through so much already. With a nearby blanket, he vigourously dried her arms, her legs, and her stomach with the blanket to warm her up. When that failed, he flicked her heels with his finger and thumb. The sound of Kate's crying and desperation to see her baby was finally drowned out with the sound of a crying baby.
"She's Ok!" He said, although the cry had already told Kate that, who's cry had turned into a small laugh.
Wrapping the blanket around the baby, which although for a girl, was a royal blue colour, he moved so that he was sitting beside Kate, as Shannon had moved to be beside Claire, giving the new family room. They said their congratulations, and then left the caves.
Jack passed their daughter over to Kate, who took the baby in her arms, smiling broadly. "Oh my God." She whispered, tracing the crying baby's face with her finger. "I told you she'd be a girl." She said proudly, tearing her eyes of the baby for only a second before returning her attention on her daughter.
Jack put his arm around Kate's shoulder, kissing her before looking down at his daughter. "Ok, you were right. I'm glad you were."
"She's so beautiful." Kate marvelled. "I can't believe we waited nine months for this. All this time she's been getting more and more beautiful every day, and we haven't been able to see it."
"But now we will get to see it everyday." Jack reminded her, noticing how, just as he reckoned, the baby already had a thick tuft of dark hair. "We did it, Kate, we're parents. Think we can handle it?" He teased. "Getting up in the middle of the night? The linen diapers we've had to make that won't absorb anything? The crying?"
Kate smiled that smile she always had when she thought of her baby, the maternal look of peace. "We'll manage." She said. "I think that the first words, her first steps, her first laugh and her smile will make up for it."
Jack grinned, and they kissed again, for longer this time, as the baby stopped crying and simply looked around her in wonder. The new parents finally matched their gaze with a pair of crystal blue newborn eyes. All newborns came with blue eyes, but would the baby's eyes become greyish brown like Kate's or pure brown like Jack's? Or would they remain blue?
"What are we going to call her?" Jack asked. "You were the one thinking of girls names." He pointed out.
Kate looked at her daughter, and the perfect name came to mind. "Kaia." She said confidently. "Kaia Sahara Shephard."
Jack looked as his daughter yawned, and then closed her eyes, just before her eyelids fell still in sleep, she would have heard her father whispering "Goodnight Kaia."
