With one last excruciating push that took everything I had in me, it was over and I was lost for a moment, drifting in the powerful relief.
"It's a boy!" announced the midwife and the very next moment, a weight settled on my heaving chest, squalling and messy.
My midwife and her assistant helped dry him off while I caught my breath and admired my second born baby.
"Hello, my sweet baby. I'm your momma," I crooned as I smoothed his long, sticky hair out of his face.
His crying faded to soft fussing as I snuggled and talked to him and stopped altogether. He opened his eyes, wide and innocent like his father's and looked right at me, well aware that I was his momma. I brushed my finger across his round, soft cheek and his head twitched toward it, his mouth wide open.
I smiled as the midwife and assistant giggled above me. My baby was hungry.
"Let us measure him first and then he can eat," said the assistant, a sweet young woman with curly brown hair. "We will only be a minute."
They weighed and measured him at nine pounds and two ounces and twenty inches long. He was a whole pound heavier than Gohan was at birth and goodness knows I felt it both in the last weeks of my pregnancy and labor. At least my labor was shorter this time around.
They returned him to me all swaddled up and with a hand-knitted hat on his head. I gave him his first meal. Just like Gohan, he wanted everything I had and then some.
"Ah, a nice, healthy appetite," said my midwife, nodding in approval as my new baby boy nursed. "You did well, Chichi. We will bring you some food in a little bit to replenish your strength and make plenty for your older boy and father downstairs. Don't you worry about them."
"Thank you," I murmured, not able to take my eyes off my precious, second-born son.
The midwife and her assistant left, giving my newborn and I time to bond. Well-fed, he quickly drifted off for a good, hard sleep. I kissed his cheek and breathed in his wonderfully sweet newborn scent, evoking a strong rush of love in me. He stirred, squirming in his snug swaddle for just a moment before relaxing again.
My baby's little knitted hat sat lopsided on his head and a single spike of thick, jet-black hair fell free of the confines of his hat, sticking out at a funny angle. In my effort to tuck the stubborn lock of hair back into his hat, I only managed to free more of his thick hair. Giving up, I removed his hat entirely.
I gasped as his hair fell into a silhouette I knew all too well. The hat slipped through my fingers. My throat constricted and my vision went blurry. I clamped my hand over my mouth, stifling a noise that was halfway between a sob and a laugh. I had to stay quiet. Waking my perfect new baby wouldn't do.