Chapter 31 – Rosalie – The Big Event

I sat on a wooden crate, contemplating the engine of the car without any real enthusiasm. In truth there was nothing else I could do with it, but at least sitting out here in the lean-to people left me alone.

Mostly.

"Rosalie, lunchtime!" It was Emmett, striding across the yard to me.

I shrugged. "I'm not hungry,"

He frowned at me and said, "You have to eat…"

"I said I'm not hungry!" I shouted at him, enraged. "Stop telling me what to do all the time!"

Startled, Emmett stopped dead and held his hands up in surrender. "Whoa, okay…no lunch." Shaking his head he turned and headed back to the house.

Almost immediately I felt sorry for shouting at him, but I was too exhausted to go after him and try to explain. It was one of the hottest days of summer and my back was aching unmercifully, along with the usual cramps and stretching pains low down in my belly. Mrs Miller had said the baby could come any day…any day was none too soon for me.

"Is it safe to approach?" A little later Emmett came over, giving me his familiar, dimpled smile.

I shifted against the pain in my belly and gave him a weary smile. "Yes. I'm sorry for shouting at you."

"That's okay." Emmett looked at me with concern. "If there's anything I can do for you, just let me know."

"Thank you."

"I was going to take the mare over to the Allison's," Emmett went on. "But if you'd rather I stayed here, I can." His eyes on me were worried as I shifted uncomfortably and pressed my hands against my cramping belly.

"No, go," I said, a little impatiently. I was tired of them all watching me like I was about to explode at any moment.

"Would you like to walk as far as the river with me?" Emmett asked. "Elizabeth wants to wade…I thought if you came with us you could walk back with her while I went on to the Allison's."

Unenthusiastically I agreed to go for a walk. I didn't really want to, but it might be cooler down by the river. So I waited while Emmett got the mare and lifted Elizabeth up to sit on top, and then the four of us ambled down to the river. As the pain tightened across my belly I wished I hadn't come, but moving seemed to ease the pain in my back a little.

"Can I swim?" Elizabeth asked me hopefully, once Emmett had left us.

"Yes, sure…oof," I said, managing to lower myself down until I was sitting on the flat rock near the edge, with my legs dangling in the water. I wondered briefly how I was supposed to get back up.

Elizabeth dropped her dress next to me and splashed happily in the water. I watched her, feeling ridiculous for being jealous of a five year old but wishing I could swim like she did and had her confidence in the water.

With the aches and pains that had been plaguing me for the past several days I had been unsure how I would know when real labour began. But there could be no doubt about the pain that gripped me like a vise as I sat by the river watching Elizabeth.

My first reaction was, quite simply, astonishment. It was really going to happen? I was really going to have a baby? After all this time it had begun to seem as though I was destined to be pregnant forever, but as a second contraction squeezed its claws into me I realised that the end was rapidly approaching and there was nothing I could do about it.

Mrs Miller and Miss Adeline had both impressed upon me that labours, especially first labours, take a long time and I had no need to panic at the first pain. There would be plenty of time. So I stayed by the river, watching Elizabeth while she swam and soaking my feet, hunching over my belly with a tiny grunt whenever another contraction came.

"Do you have a bellyache?" Elizabeth stood in front of me, naked and dripping water. "You made a sad noise. Is it the baby?"

I laughed a little raggedly. "I think so. We might have to go home."

Elizabeth willingly dragged her dress on without waiting for her skin to dry at all. "Can I be the first to hold the baby? And if it's a girl can we call her Daisy? Can we…"

I couldn't focus on her talk. Standing up and walking was bringing the pains on stronger, and I had to stumble through three of them before we reached the house.

"Mama!" Elizabeth shrieked. "Rosalie's got a bellyache and she says it's the baby coming!"

I groaned, half in pain and half in despair as Elizabeth's words brought everyone in the house flowing out to see me as I leaned against the porch rail.

"All right, all right," Miss Adeline said, quieting the children and coming down the steps to me. "So you think you might like to have a baby today then, Rosalie?" she said to me with a pleased smile.

"Like to?" The thought of exactly how this baby was going to be born still sounded horrifying. "No. But then…I'm not sure I have any choice." And I gripped the porch rail and held my breath against another pain.

"Make sure you breathe," Miss Adeline reminded me. "I'd say you're well in labour, we'll give it a little while and see how you get on before we call for Mrs Miller." She turned and looked at the children, who were all staring at me, agog. "You can all go back to what you were doing and leave Rosalie alone for a little while. Hannah, can you help me make up the bed for Rosalie?"

Miss Adeline wanted me to lie down and rest, in case labour was going to be long, but I couldn't do it. Lying down made everything hurt more, so instead I paced restlessly along the porch for the next two hours, feeling the contractions strengthen as my body worked towards delivering a baby.

I barely noticed when Miss Adeline sent the children away. I vaguely heard her tell them to go to the Allison's farm and tell Daddy it was Rosalie's time, and to stay there until they heard something. Hannah was sent to get the midwife before she was to join them. They all called goodbye and wished me well, but by that point I was gripping the porch rail in both hands and biting my lip bloody in an effort not to scream out and frighten them and couldn't respond.

"Rosalie," Miss Adeline touched my shoulder. "You and I are the only ones here now, so you can make all the noise you like. Come inside and we'll get you ready for the midwife."

I followed her inside where, in between contractions that seemed stronger than ever, she helped strip off my clothes before she buttoned me into the old plaid shirt of Emmett's I'd been wearing.

Emmett. I wished he were there beside me, ready to hold my hand and reassure me with his steady blue eyes and tender smile that it was going to be okay. I wanted him there, to remind me that I was strong and capable so that maybe I'd believe in myself enough to do this.

It was Mrs Miller who came next though. The elderly midwife came into the bedroom where I'd crawled up on the bed and was hunched inelegantly on my elbows and knees, moaning and fisting my hands in my hair as I endured another contraction.

"This is looking promising," Mrs Miller said cheerfully. "How far apart are these pains now?"

"Just a couple of minutes," Miss Adeline responded. "It's all moving fast, but Rosalie's doing well."

"I'm not doing well," I moaned. "I'm not…this is horrible and I…" I finished with a scream that I couldn't hold back as another pain seemed to tear through me.

"There now, try not to scream," Mrs Miller counselled. "Screaming takes energy and we want to save that for when you really need it! You're doing fine."

I couldn't always stop the screaming though. Sometimes the pain was too intense, too quickly coming on top of another one, too frightening as I felt my body completely taken over by this monster force that was tearing me open.

"Rosalie? Rosalie!"

I thought I was seeing things at first, when Emmett's broad shoulders appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. But then he grinned at me and I saw his dimples as he came in and dropped down by the side of the bed, and I knew he was real. As another contraction sent its crashing wave of pain over me I crawled into his arms, thinking of nothing but the comfort he had always offered.

"Emmett McCarty, what on earth do you think you're doing?" Mrs Miller asked tartly.

"Having a baby," he answered cheerfully, kissing me quickly as the pain receded and rubbing a big hand across my back. "My girl here's doing real good, isn't she?"

"She's doing very well," Mrs Miller allowed. "She's very close."

The next contraction hit, and I leaned into Emmett and sobbed. "I can't, I can't, I can't…"

"Sure you can," he crooned. "Look, you already are…you're doing great, and it won't be so long now and it will be all over."

"Stay with me," I begged. "Please, please don't go Emmett, I can't do this by myself…" I didn't care that I was half naked, that in the hot room my whole body was slick with sweat, my hair a mess, and that at some near point I was going to have a baby…all I wanted was Emmett's strong, reassuring presence and his unshakeable belief in me.

"I'll stay as long as you want me," Emmett promised.

Mrs Miller sighed. "Well, if she wants you here…but if you're going to stay Emmett, you get up that end of the bed and stay out of the way, and know that if you faint I'm not going to be picking you up! It's always the big men that fall the hardest," she added with a sniff.

Miss Adeline came in with cold cloths for my head and some of her lemonade, well sweetened with sugar for energy. I gulped the cool drink down easily and then nearly climbed the wall with the next few contractions.

"It hurts! I don't like it! Make it stop!" I was barely aware of what I was saying as I slithered across the bed and stood up unsteadily on the floor beside it. "I quit!"

"Rosa girl, you can't quit," Emmett said, slightly alarmed, holding out his arm in case I needed it to steady me.

Mrs Miller chuckled. "She's close now. When they get like this, when they think they can't go on any longer, that's when you know…"

"You know nothing! I'm never having this baby and I don't want to anyway, and I…oooOOOOHHHH" I roared as the next contraction hit, stunned to feel a shift in pressure as the water broke and splashed heavily out of me onto the floor.

There was almost no break after that in the excruciating pain that flooded my body. I had only a confused, jumbled sense of being wiped down and helped back on the bed, where Emmett sat against the headboard and I sat half reclining against his chest with Miss Adeline and Mrs Miller both at my other end. I twisted helplessly against the pain, as Emmett cradled me close and whispered in my ear.

"There's a little head right there Rosalie," Mrs Miller told me briskly. "I can almost see it…just a few pushes and you'll get to meet your baby."

I shook my head, but my body took over where I didn't want to go and pushed hard, despite the burning pain, and I flung back my head and swore. "Sweet fucking hell…if I have to do this than let's get it the hell over with." And this time I focussed all my energy on expelling the little interloper from my body.

"Oh, I can see it Rosalie…lots of dark hair!" Miss Adeline said encouragingly. "Just a few more pushes."

"Please Rosa girl, do this for me," Emmett breathed into my neck, his voice breaking. "I know it hurts baby, I know, but you're doing so well. You're so strong Rosa girl, just a little bit more…"

So I gripped his hand and bore down yet again, and finally the pain peaked and then disappeared as the baby was born, the round little head passing out of me followed by a tangle of limbs. Mrs Miller picked up the skinny, slimy purple thing and rubbed its back briskly until it wailed, and then she wrapped it in a muslin and placed it on my chest.

Hello baby.

I stared at it. Its eyes were scrunched shut, its mouth open and wailing, it was purple and slimy and cheesy and…it was unutterably, perfectly, beautiful.

Baby mine.

"Boy or girl?" Miss Adeline asked.

I shook my head. I had been so enraptured by the tiny little creature in my arms that I had never even thought to look. My hands shook as I tried to unwrap the muslin the baby had been wrapped in, and eventually Emmett took over.

"It's a boy," he said hoarsely.

"Look," I whispered. "Look at my baby…isn't he beautiful?"

I examined him all over, from the thatch of dark hair on top of his head, his round little belly, his scrawny chicken legs, all the way down to his tiny little toes. Emmett, his arms still wrapped around me, touched him with one wary finger, and then kissed away my happy tears.

"He's beautiful Rosa-girl…just like you."

"Rosalie, it's time to get the afterbirth out now," Mrs Miller instructed, pulling a bloodstained towel out from in between my thighs and replacing it with a clean one. "We'll get that baby on the breast and then a few more pushes should do it. Emmett…"

"He's staying here," I said bluntly.

"If that's what you want." Miss Adeline took the baby from me and placed him on the bed, and then unbuttoned the sweat soaked shirt I was wearing. "Let's see if this little man wants some milk."

The baby did want milk, opening his mouth and jerking his little head around in uncoordinated movements as Miss Adeline helped me hold him in the crook of my arm and my nipple touched his cheek. I felt a little awkward then, being essentially naked in front of three other people, but then the baby latched on with more strength than I'd been expecting and I forgot to care.

"Look at him," I said reverently. "He's only minutes old, and he already knows what to do!"

The baby nursing started up the contractions again, and with a grunt I pushed out the placenta. After that I simply sat contentedly in the circle of Emmett's arms, his chest broad and safe at my back, while I looking down at the beautiful, everyday miracle of my newborn baby.