chapter fifty-seven
After twenty minutes of driving at full speed without getting pulled over by the police, Freddie parked in the emergency parking spot and unbuckled his seat belt. He opens the door and closes it, rushes around the car coming to my side opening the door. "Okay, we're finally here." He unbuckled my seat belt and grabs my hands helping me get out of the vehicle while I'm sweating.
"Oh god, Freddie I can't take it anymore..." I cried.
"It's okay, we're going to get help." He said calmly, but I know from the inside of his voice was mixed with fear. He rests his hand on my back guiding me inside the hospital doors while my hands are on my stomach.
I continued to breathe in and out, panting as the doors automatically slide open letting Freddie and I walk inside. The strong smell of hand sanitizer, chemicals, and medicine immediately hits my nostrils that made my nose crinkle from the disgusting scent. However, the air conditioning breeze hits my face which made me smile mentally as I couldn't deal with being hot anymore and feel the sweat on my body.
Freddie and I walk to the receptionist at the front desk, and the nurse looks up at us with a smile on her face, which faltered when she looked at me.
"I need help right now, I think my wife is going into labor," Freddie said sternly with his hand on the desk. I turn my head at him and saw how nervous he was from the look in his eyes. I want to know how he's feeling on the inside but I can't read his mind right now as I'm feeling another contraction coming in my body.
The nurse looked worried as she stared at me. She stood up and turned around facing the other nurses in blue scrubs. "Guys, we have a pregnant woman going into labor right now!"
As soon as she said that, my stomach clutched inside feeling double the pain as I felt before. "Ow!" I screamed, feeling more tears escape my eyes.
"Get a wheelchair!"
Another nurse wheeled a black wheelchair around the front desk and gets behind me. "Sit down here, sweetie." I ignored her name for me as Freddie and the receptionist helped me sit down on the chair, feeling my stomach getting electric pain.
"Okay, she's having a one-minute contraction now. When did her water break?" The nurse asked Freddie in front of me.
"Almost an hour ago," Freddie answered as the nurse is holding the push handles, rolling me somewhere I couldn't focus on.
Two nurses are now walking with me including Freddie as they were talking about something. "What's her name?" She asked.
"Samantha Benson, but she goes by Sam." He answered.
"And your name?"
"Fredward Benson." I can tell from his voice that it's starting to shake as we continued going in the hallways with staff in the way.
"How long has she been pregnant?"
"Nine months..."
"Okay, that's good. We're going to have her put in a room and get her ready to start delivering the baby since it seems she's having one-minute contractions now."
My ears were pumping at a loss not focusing on anything around me as another contraction hits. "Ow!" I yelled, craning my neck down at my stomach.
Freddie walks closer to me and grabs my hand gently, squeezing it for comfort. "It'll be okay, baby. Okay?" Freddie whispered in my ear, feeling myself calm down knowing he's here.
I nodded at him, licking my bottom lip as they were chapped. The nurse guides us to a room and wheels me inside seeing a bed unused including the white gown that is folded neatly on a nightstand next to the bed. My heart started to beat quickly seeing everything happening so fast; I hate hospitals, and the fact that I'm here right now going into labor scares the shit out of me.
I squeezed Freddie's hand as we stopped in the middle of the room. Freddie rests his other hand on top of mine, rubbing it smoothly. He knows I'm scared of hospitals: being around needles and people crying when someone lost their loved ones. Everything about hospitals scares me and Freddie notices it when he goes in front of me and bends down, facing me eye to eye.
"Sam, listen to me," he caresses my cheek softly making me lean my head against it feeling relaxed. "I know this place is scary, but we're going to get Doctor Meyers here and he's going to help get our baby girl... okay?" He said sincerely. I can see in his eyes that they're filled with worry but he's trying to hide them. I can read them carefully which has me wanting to calm him down like he's doing for me right now. However, I'm so weak from the pain and I can't find the words to help him.
Again, I nodded my head at him with a small smile for him to feel somewhat better.
He gives me a small smile as well, kissing my lips for a couple of seconds before pulling away. We were interrupted by me having another contraction causing me to scream louder than usual. "OOW! Oh god please!" I cried.
"We need to help her get dressed." A nurse announced walking over to me holding the white gown in her hands. "Sam? We're going to help you change and see if you're ready for delivery, okay?" I look at the young nurse who's around my age with sandy blonde hair and green eyes staring at me while she's trying to comfort me with her voice. I need all the support I can get right now, and I don't care if they're trying too hard to do that. I nodded at her question, and she smiles at me. "Alrighty." She grabs my other hand as she and Freddie help me stand from the wheelchair.
She looks at Freddie and asks politely. "Do you mind if you step out of the room for a minute so we can get your wife changed?"
Freddie looked worried but nodded his head at the nurse. "Yeah, of course," he looks at me as if we're having a staring contest and he talks to me in his eyes saying 'I'll be right back' in our eye language. He grins before walking out of the room and closes the door behind him.
Oh god...
I felt my eyes welling with tears knowing Freddie is not here and I need his comfort right now. But he wouldn't want me to get scared from this, so I have to stay calm and be brave until he gets back.
"Okay, Sam let's have you get changed, shall we?" The blonde nurse asked me, and I didn't answer as she helped me take my sweater and shirt off like a little girl is getting changed by her mother.
I just want this to be over.
Fifteen minutes of slowly stripping my clothes, the nurse helped me put on the gown and tied the strings to the back for me. She guided me to the electric bed and had me lay down with the recliner up.
My contractions had died down while I was getting changed and I was happy that I wasn't going to feel any physical pain anytime soon. I don't know how it stopped so suddenly. I was in hot lava at the time, and now it's gone. Being pregnant is confusing, and I don't know how I can deal with it.
The nurse with red hair walks over next to my bed and checks the bag that is filled with water next to the heart monitor that keeps beeping when I was put in lead wires on my chest. I travel my eyes to this small tube and saw that it connects to a needle...
Oh no...
"Um... what is that?" I pointed at the water bag sounding shaky.
The nurse looks at me and grins showing kindness. "It's called the Intravenous. It's to help you hydrate so you wouldn't feel lightheaded during the process." She turns back to the bag and picks up the needle that she's going to pinch me with and I felt my heart beating just looking at the long silver needle. "I'm just going to stick this in the back of your hand, okay?"
I felt my breathing come out at a fast pace, escaping my mouth as I tried to stop her. "Can you have my husband come back here, please?" I asked frightened.
The red-headed nurse slowly nods her head as she senses my fear of the big needle she's holding. "Sure, I'll have Macey get him for you." She looks over across the room and gets the blonde nurse's attention. "Macey,"
"Yeah?"
"Can you get Mrs. Benson's husband, please? She wants him."
"Yeah, sure." She nodded and walks to the door, opening it and walks out going to find Freddie as the door closes automatically behind her.
I sighed in relief knowing he's going to come back soon. Sadly, the feeling of my stomach is starting to hurt again which makes me scared of not knowing when it's coming. "You're scared?"
I look up at the nurse next to me and thought about her question. I'm more than scared that I'm in the hospital and seeing that my stomach is going to be tortured as they try to get my baby out sometime tonight, and the realization of it makes me want to throw up. "Yeah..." I murmured.
"It's okay, sweetie. When I had my first child, I was scared myself. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I had my husband with me and my mother. They tried to distract me from feeling any sort of discomfort, and it did the trick because that's when I had my son." She smiled as she had a flashback of the memory. My brain is telling me that she's trying to help me feel better about the situation and not worry too much, but this is new to me. This is my first child, and I don't want anything to happen to her.
"Was your son hard work to push out?" I chuckled.
She laughed shaking her head. "It took a whole three hours. But it was worth it, having to hold him in my arms and never want to let him go the second he took his first breath..." She trailed off, smiling. "The point is, your baby is going to come into this world and open their eyes seeing their mommy and daddy for the first time."
The thought of that made me want to have this delivery already. I want to see what little Amara looks like when she comes out and sees the world for the first time. I want to be able to hold her and have Freddie hold his daughter... the feeling of it is making my heart swell.
"I can't wait for that..." I smiled staring at the nice nurse. She's probably in her late thirties and has the side of gray hairs but barely noticeable. She's probably dealt with hundreds of women having pregnancies and delivering them in the hospital, so she must've tried to calm the first-time mothers down like me. She's a professional for doing her job so far, and I'm happy she's helping me out.
The door opens and the blonde nurse walks inside first and Freddie following behind her, looking panicked. He turns his direction on me and walks over to me standing on the other side of the bed, grabbing my left hand. "You okay?" He asked worriedly.
I nodded my head trying to calm him down. "Yeah, I just don't want to be alone when the nurse sticks the needle in me," I whispered.
Freddie understood when he looked at the older nurse holding the IV needle with a tape in her other hand. "It's okay, just hold my hand when you need to." Once he said that I squeezed his hand firmly not knowing if he's in any pain or not, but he offered and I'm not losing that opportunity.
"Alright, sweetie. You ready?" The nurse asked me, and I took a deep breath not looking at her or the silver devil weapon in her hand. I nodded enthusiastically wanting to get this over with. "Okay... I'm going to count to three and I'm going to stick it in." I nodded again. "One... two... three."
I felt the sharp needle piercing through my skin, and I winced at the pain, squeezing Freddie's hand more. "Dammit..." I whimpered.
"She's almost done..." Freddie whispered near my ear with his hand still grasping to mine. He rests his hand on top of my hand and rubs it slowly whispering comforting words until the small pain is over.
"Okay, it's in." She cheered. "Good job, sweetie."
I didn't want to look but my instinct was telling me to look at the result. I turned my head to my right hand and looked down at the needle in my skin with tape stuck to it so it will stay.
I don't know what it has done, but looking at the needle in my hand made my stomach churn and I felt another contraction come back to life as the electric pain struck in my stomach.
"OW!"