Part 13 – Arrival
The next few days dragged for everyone. Colby, Charlie and Nena spent time with Mary, but she usually kicked them out after an hour or two, saying they made her 'twitchy'. They rented a car, picked up Evie from the airport and dropped her off at her friends'. Evie said that she was looking forward to spending time with her friends and they shouldn't 'worry' about calling her until the baby came.
So Colby, Charlie and Nena tried to keep themselves busy. They went to a farmer's market, a movie at an antique theater, and did a walking tour of downtown Portland. They ice-skated, roller-skated and mini-golfed. They visited the aquarium, the zoo, and the children's museum. They gazed down at the World's Smallest Park – a 2-ft diameter garden on a traffic median that was supposedly the home of leprechauns. There were several interesting-sounding places and activities that they passed on, since they didn't want to be too far from Mary.
They went to the massive Powell's Books and got the book Mary wanted, as well as some fiction for Nena and an encyclopedia of baby and toddler health for Colby. Charlie drooled (carefully) over a gorgeous, rare book on the golden ratio and the relationship between math, nature and art, but decided that he needed to save the money for diapers. Wandering around that store killed an afternoon, even if Charlie and Colby were constantly checking their cell phones. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry killed another afternoon, though they couldn't all go on the sub tour at once because the cell phones didn't get signal inside.
Whenever either of Colby or Charlie's phones did ring, all three of them got a jolt of adrenaline, but it was usually just Alan asking how things were going (or where Charlie put the extra Koi food) or Don and Will wanting an update.
Mary's due date passed and the next day as well. Everyone got heartily sick of restaurant food, hotel rooms, and tourist sites. Nena even missed school. Mary grew grouchier, but no one was ready to induce labor. As Mary said, the baby wasn't just ready yet. She said that with a growl, though, and a definite poke to her abdomen.
Around 2AM on the night two days after the due date, Colby was sitting up in bed, with the phone in his hand, and asking, "Mary, you okay?" before he was even aware that it had rung.
"It's time," Mary said tiredly. "Finally."
Colby threw aside the covers and started fumbling on his clothes while talking into the phone, "Are you having contractions?"
"About five minutes apart. Pretty strong."
"Your water break?
"Not sure."
"I'll be right there." Colby shut the phone and turned to Charlie. He was surprised to see his normally heavy-sleeping husband already opening his eyes.
"Mary's going into labor," Colby said to Charlie's questioning noise. "You know the plan. You awake enough?"
"Uh-huh," Charlie said. "Go!"
Colby slipped on his shoes, grabbed his car keys, and headed out of the bedroom.
Nena was standing in the living room in her nightdress. "It's happening?"
"Yes!" Colby said and gave her a quick hug and kiss. "See you later! Help Charlie if he forgets the plan. You know how he is when he first wakes up."
"I'm awake!" Charlie said behind him.
"Okay, going now," Colby said and raced out the door.
He took the stairs two at a time and hurried to Mary's door. She opened it before he could knock.
"You okay?" he said quickly, taking the small suitcase from her hands.
"Just get me to the church on time," Mary said then grimaced.
"Contraction?" Colby asked. He took Mary's arm and held her up until the contraction passed. Then he steered her out into the hall and shut her door.
"Yes," Mary said shortly.
Colby didn't say anything more, just headed with her towards the elevator.
In the lobby, they were met by the valet, which meant that Charlie had remembered at least the first part of the plan. The valet had brought their rental car around and Colby carefully helped Mary into it. The roads were quiet and dark at this time at night so he was able to drive quickly but safely without having to pull out his portable siren.
At the birth center, they were also waiting for him, and he mentally thanked Charlie again. Though maybe it was Nena.
The attendants quickly whisked Mary away while Colby signed in. A brief flurry of activity with settling Mary in, finding out her dilation – 5 centimeters – then going back out to park the car somewhere other than the front sidewalk.
Then … he was waiting again.
He sat with Mary in a fairly nice, cozy, hotel-like room. The chair she sat in was more of a super lounger, though, than a usual hotel-room chair. They left the door open and saw people hurrying by.
"The rest of these people," Colby waved his hand, taking in the attendants and the entirety of the birth center. "They're all here for the baby. Me? I'm here to make you more comfortable. Whatever you need."
Mary gave him a crooked smile. "I think I love you."
Colby chuckled. "Sorry, I'm taken."
"Too bad," Mary said. "Where is he?"
"He should be here soon. He's going to take the taxi that dropped off Evie to stay with Nena." He frowned, worried. "That's if he woke up enough to call." Then he relaxed. "It was three calls, Charlie always remembers threes."
Mary snorted a soft laugh. "I believe that. So if your job is to take care of me, what's his job?"
"Um," Colby said with a wry smirk, "To help me take care of you, of course, but also not to throw up or drive us crazy with statistics and odds."
"Good," Mary said, then reached out and grabbed Colby's hand. She squeezed tightly. Colby gently squeezed back, then waited for the contraction to pass.
"She's in here," someone said and Charlie rushed in.
"Did I miss anything?" he asked, his hair askew and his face flushed.
"No," Colby laughed, amused by his husband's frazzled looks. "We're just barely moving into active labor."
"Oh, okay, odds are that any difficulties will be in stage 2 of hard labor, anyway."
"I told you not to read that article about all the things that can go wrong!" Colby grumbled.
Charlie blinked at him. "But it was a fascinating example of the use of multiple logistic regression analysis to estimate odds ratios."
"Okay," Colby said, "but just keep it to yourself."
Charlie looked disgruntled then he perked up. "Oh, I meant to ask the nurse what procedures and in what order they address shoulder dystocia. Be right back."
Colby and Mary smiled at each other as Charlie hurried out of the room.
"We all deal how we can," Colby apologized.
"I know, I—" she said then interrupted herself with a grimace and a squeeze on Colby's hand. When she relaxed again, she finished. "I don't mind. I prefer too much preparation than too little."
"I think you'll find us both on the over-preparation side."
"Would have guessed that," she smiled. "So did you ever decide on a name?" She pushed the button on the chair to raise her feet.
"Daniel Alan or Matthew Alan for a boy. Eve Margaret or Lily Margaret for a girl."
"Charlie's math didn't narrow it down to just one?"
Colby shrugged. "It did, and Charlie's all for just going with Daniel or Eve, which were the best by the math, but I'd like to wait to meet the baby."
"Which I don't understand," Charlie said, coming back into the room. "The nurse said she'd talk to me in a minute about the shoulder dystocia."
"What don't you understand?" Mary said, shifting awkwardly. Colby quickly helped her adjust her pillow.
"This waiting thing for the name," Charlie said, sitting on the nearby bed. "I mean, we aren't going to be able to evaluate the baby's personality before we have to put something on the birth certificate. We considered going with what some traditions do and have a 'baby name' until the child can choose their own name, but decided that would be too confusing."
Mary looked at Colby. "How did you decide on Nena?"
Colby frowned uncomfortably. This wasn't something he liked to talk about, but it was important to humor and distract Mary.
Suddenly, he flashed back to many years ago, when everything that was his life now had started. He'd been kidnapped and dropped in a dark hole with Charlie, who at that time had been only a co-worker that Colby had admired from afar. Charlie, wounded and in shock, had been terrified of falling asleep. Colby had kept him awake by talking, including telling him about his four-year-old daughter, who he'd never told another soul about before that moment. Colby smiled to himself, thinking about the mixture of terror and tenderness he'd felt as he'd protected Charlie from further gunfire.
His smile moved to Charlie, now his lover and husband and co-parent.
Charlie smiled back. "I've wondered that, too."
Colby managed a casual shrug. "I wasn't actually there. Jenny was supposed to tell me when she went into labor but she didn't. It was a strong indication of exactly how much she was going to let me be involved in Nena's life."
Mary frowned, "I don't understand."
Charlie spoke up, and Colby gratefully let him explain. "Jenny and Colby weren't married but Colby got joint custody – Jenny let him because then he would send her money every month for Nena. But he only got to see her for one or two weeks a year, that was until Nena was almost five and Jenny suddenly decided to move to LA. She actually dumped Nena on us for two months – it was supposed to be a few days – and took off to Mexico."
"What?" Mary demanded. "That's crazy!"
Charlie shook his head. "What was crazy was what she did when she came back and found out that her daughter had been living with two gay men. She, uh, attacked me, threw rocks at me."
"No …"
"Yep, cops and FBI and everything. It was pretty crazy." Charlie shrugged dismissively, though Colby remembered how upset he'd been at the time. "Colby got a lawyer and worked up the custody agreement we have now."
"You should have taken her away from that woman!" Mary said stoutly.
Colby shook his head. "It's been good for her, mostly, to have her mom in her life."
"I had no idea," Mary said. "When you said that Nena was from a previous relationship …"
"Anyway," Colby said with a bit of forced cheerfulness. "I don't know where the name came from. By the time I met her, she was Nena Elizabeth Granger and that was it."
Mary nodded slowly.
"So I'm totally new to this baby thing, too," Colby finished.
"I see, I see …"
"But you'll get a chance to help decide the baby's name this time!" Charlie said firmly.
Colby gave him a grateful smile. "That's okay, Angel, whatever you decide. Somebody has to decide."
"Then why can't I decide now to go with Daniel or Eve?"
Chuckling, Colby shook his head. "Just humor me on this, ok? Wait until after the baby is born."
"Okay …" Charlie said, with his 'one of those unfathomable people things' tone of voice.
"Hi," said a voice from the door. It belonged to a tall woman in baby-bottle-patterned scrubs. "You wanted to know about our procedures for shoulder dystocia?"
"Yes," Charlie stood up. "But I'm under instructions to keep discussions of bad things that might happen 'to myself'." He moved towards the door. "Can we step out into the hall?"
The nurse and Charlie left the room and shut the door behind them.
"See, he learns," Colby said with a smile.
"There's gonna be a lot of learning to do in the next few months, years."
"I'll bet." He pulled a smaller chair closer to Mary's. "Now, let's forget about all that and let me tell you about all the touristy things we did in Portland that you'd never do because you live here."
Mary nodded and pressed the button to turn on the chair's back warmer.
The morning crawled on.
Around 7AM, Charlie left to call Alan and Don, to tell him that things were finally moving.
Mary's contractions grew in frequency and strength. Charlie stayed with her and Colby for as long as he could manage, then he'd have to go into another room and do some math to calm himself. He'd always come back apologetic and determined not to leave again.
Colby sat with Mary and fed her ice chips and chunks of frozen apple juice. When she felt like moving around, he walked with her up and down the halls and even out in the garden, his hand always on her arm in case she should stumble. He massaged her back and her feet, gave her hot washcloths and cool washcloths, and praised her efforts to the sky.
Mostly he waited and tried to keep her entertained and comfortable. He felt like the army medic, stationed behind the battle lines, taking in a wounded and dazed soldier, patching up her wounds, soothing her fears, firing up her bravery, then sending her back out to the front lines. He wanted to take her place in the fight, but she had her role and he had his, and all he could do was fulfill his duties to the best of his ability.
But at least he was here to help this time.
It was horrific. Blood and tears and bodily fluids.
It was frightening. Mary cried and screamed and even cursed.
It was enlightening. Colby was a real rock, and Charlie decided that if he was ever giving birth, he'd want Colby as his attendant.
It was embarrassing. Everyone staring at the area between Mary's legs, poking and prodding.
It was tiring. Charlie felt like he strained with every contraction, panted with every breath.
By the time that the cervix had dilated up to 10 centimeters and Mary was declared to be in 'hard labor' and moved to the birthing tub, twelve hours had passed and Charlie felt that he'd been in the birthing center for days, and running a marathon in place. He stared at the handheld Doppler device that was monitoring the baby and ran some simple equations through his head.
The end came fast and slow. Mary cried and pushed, an attendant stood in the birthing tub and called out instructions and progress notes, Colby helped Mary breathe and Charlie tried not to faint and distract everyone.
Suddenly, between one moment and the next, the top of the head appeared. Thick black curls covered with goop. Mary rested for a moment. Then she pushed, Charlie's stomach clenching in sympathy, and the head came out, followed by shoulders, and abruptly a fully-formed baby slid into the tub.
The attendant scooped the baby up. Charlie's knees wobbled and he grabbed the side of the tub. Mary cried out in triumph and Colby made a gasping sound.
"It's a boy!" the attendant said, wiping the baby down and checking him. "He looks wonderful!" As planned, she turned towards Charlie. "Come closer and hold out your arms, Daddy."
Charlie did, though his arms felt like wet noodles, and the attendant placed his newborn son in his arms. Charlie's whole body trembled and his heart seemed like it was being squeezed inside one tiny fist. He heard Colby draw a shuddering breath. Charlie looked at the red-blotched skin, clenched-tight eyes, sprig of dark hair, perfectly-shaped fingers and toes. He looked at his child, his son, their son, and said, "Hello, Gabriel."