Okay, so this is thefirst birth I've written, and I may be dead-wrong about how it goes. But I had to bring Kylie into the world.
If there was one thing Kyle could not stand after the past ten years of his life, it was hospitals. He'd had chicken pox in them, he'd had haemorrhoids in them, he'd had kidney failure in them. He'd watched his friends get sick, and get better, and he'd watched Kenny die a few times too. Never had he gone to the hospital for a good thing. And if you didn't know why Vicki was screaming bloody murder in the next room, you've thought this was the same thing.
Apparently the miracle of childbirth was not so beautiful as people made it out to be.
"Dude, what are they doing to her in there?" Stan asked, looking shaken. He and Wendy had come back from New York when they'd set a date for them to induce labour. Part of it was because of them, part of it was because the doctor had recommended it for a first time young mother, and partly because if they waited any longer, Kylie could have ended up sharing her mother's birthday.
"They aren't doing anything to her, dude." Kenny explained. "It's just the contractions, and the baby stretching out Vicki's cervix to four inches across."
"Did you actually read those birthing books my mom gave you?" Kyle asked in disbelief.
"No, Vicki just summed them up for me. I've been pretty busy."
That was true; he'd gotten his job back, and they'd finally finished the house enough to move into, though they still needed to paint walls and add more furniture and shit. But it was done. Vicki could bring Kylie home to a house her parents' friends had built with love.
As soon as Vicki and Kenny had come out of their week of 'honeymoon' holing up in his room, they had spilled the beans to their friends about naming the baby Kylie Stacey McCormick. Kyle had had three and a half months to try to convince the couple to name her after someone else, but they insisted she was going to be Kylie—named after her Godfather who'd almost married her mother.
Marjorine and Jason came back carrying cups of steaming hot coffee, and a paper bag of sugar, cream and sweetener. "Where's she at?" Marjorine asked.
"Three inches." Wendy replied.
"Though you'd think she was having the baby now." Bebe added as another semi-scream came from the next room.
Kenny grinned a bit. "Vicki's a screamer, right Kyle?"
"Shut up dude. Shouldn't you be in there with her?"
"She doesn't want me until she gets to the pushing. Then you and I are supposed to go hold her hands."
Kyle was surprised to hear that. "Why me?"
"Because she's less likely to break a man's hand, and you're the only other living guy who's familiar with her 'birth canal'." Kenny explained, slowly but clearly, as if speaking to a kid.
It was then the nurse poked her head out into the waiting room. "She's at four inches. Kenny, Kyle, she wants you now."
Standing up, he followed his friend into the birthing room, and they joined Vicki by standing on either side of the bed. Her legs were up on this weird stand thing which hooked under her knees, and already, Vicki's face and neck were soaked with sweat. Leaning down, Kenny kissed his wife. "Ready babe?"
"Hell yeah. I want this thing out of me."
The doctor, who had seated himself on a stool at the end of the bed, chuckled. "Come back to me in three months and we'll see if you'd rather have her in. Now Vicki, on the next contraction, I need you to push, okay? You can squeeze the hell out of Kenny and Kyle's hands, but you need to put all your energy into pushing that baby out."
Vicki nodded, and when the next contraction hit, she immediately clamped down on Kyle's hand, screaming 'fuck, fuck, fuck' as the doctor said 'push, push, push'. And then she let go, and Kyle could feel his hand throbbing like it had been in a vice.
"Good job, Vicki. You guys up there okay? Any broken fingers yet?"
The shook their heads, and braced themselves as another contraction hit, and they repeated the process. And they repeated the process, over and over, until Kyle's fingers were black and blue, and Vicki looked like she was about to pass out.
"One more." The doctor coaxed. "You've done really well, just one more."
Another contraction hit, and Vicki's mouth seemed to explode. "GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER SONOFA BITCH!"
And then the doctor was holding the baby, and there was a sharp, screaming cry that filled the air, until Kylie Stacey McCormick, born at quarter after ten pm on November 14th was passed to her mom. "There you go, Mrs. McCormick."
Vicki's face lit up like the Denver skyline. "Hi Kylie..." Tears threatened to escape her eyes as she stared down at her newborn daughter. "She's beautiful, isn't she Ken?"
"Perfect." He agreed, leaning down to lightly kiss his wife. "She's absolutely perfect."
Vicki passed the baby to her dad, and then turned to Kyle. "Thanks, Ky. I couldn't have done it without you."
They both knew she meant more than the labour. "Anytime, Vic. You're welcome anytime."
"Dude, do you wanna hold her?" Kenny asked after a few minutes of cooing at the newborn. Before Kyle could protest, he found his arms filled with a tiny baby girl wrapped up in a pink blanket. She was beautiful, in a baby sort of way, with wisps of dark hair and pale colored eyes he knew were going to become her father's baby blues. And for the moment Kyle held his Goddaughter, time just...stopped.
Until the rest of them started crowding into the delivery room, and the infant started squalling, and life went on, of course.
Oh my god... It's over. To everyone who followed me all the way through, I love you so much. And special thanks to a1r3ady13ga1 who made finishing this possible with all her advice to fix this damn account of mine. I hope this wonderful thing you've done for me brings you good fortune the rest of your life. Thank you so much.