Let me tell you one thing they never mention to you, BIRTH SUCKS. You are forced to leave the warm comfort of the womb through this narrow little tunnel they like to call the "birth canal" and then out of nowhere bright lights that hurt your eyes are everywhere and all you want to do is get back to the safety and warmth of where you were before. But then something not so bad happens they place you on your mother's chest and you can hear her heartbeat, the same one you have heard so many times before and things aren't so scary then. Then those bastards take you away and they put you on this cold thing to weigh and measure you and then they wrap you up in these uncomfortably stiff blankets. Ugh I'm so glad I never have to go through that again.
"But Asa Ma .. you might as well have tattoo kick my ass on the poor kids back" John sighed.
"I'm sure it won't be that bad John" Carol Cena suggested.
"Yes it will be that bad"
"Well John she does make a valid point it is her body and it's not like you two are together" Carol reasoned "sometimes you just have to accept things aren't always going to go your way"
"You are only siding with her because you are a woman and you women protect each other"
"No, I'm saying it because it is true"
"So you think I over reacted?" he asked already knowing the answer to his question.
"Yes"
"Fine I'll call her" he sighed again.
"Why don't you go talk to her in person" Carol said.
"You think she'll talk to me I mean I did hire a private investigator on her?" he asked.
"Only one way to find out"
"I'll be back later"
--
Rainey was stressed out. All the pregnancy books said to avoid stress but she had a million and one things on her plate at the moment. She had her last term paper of the semester due in 2 days and she had to begin studying for her finals. This was her last year and then she would have her degree. No more filling out financial aide forms ... no more having to settle for bad paying jobs because she didn't have a degree. Now she could begin working towards her dream job. She wanted to be an adolescent psychologist.
"Just a little while longer baby and you'll have a mom you can be proud of" she caressed her very pregnant tummy.
"Why wouldn't I be proud of you mommy?"
She was starting to get a headache so she removed her glasses. Pinching the bridge of her nose in hopes of relieving some of the throbbing in her temples. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had one more week to go until her due date and she was starting to get antsy. She was sick of being huge and she just wanted this baby out of her at that point.
There was a knock at her front door. It took her about two minutes to get up out of her chair which made her even more irritated than she previously was. She opened the door and a frown formed over her delicate features.
"What do you want?" she spat coldly.
"I wanted to talk to you" John said.
"Well I don't want to talk" she replied.
"Please Rainey"
"No!" she exclaimed trying to slam the door on him. But he wasn't about to let her shut him out like that. He placed a hand on the door keeping it open.
"Please just hear me out" he begged.
"No John just leave" she winced as a shooting pain shot through her.
"Rainey please"
"Oh god not now"
"What's the matter?" he asked concerned.
"My water just broke" he could hear the panic in her voice.
"Mommy something is happening!"
"Don't worry I will get you to the hospital"
"The hell you will" even in the mist of a very painful contraction she still didn't want his help.
"Don't be foolish the sooner we get you to the hospital the safer you and our son will be" she didn't say anything so he went over and put an arm around her. Helping her walk to the car.
She sat holding on to the door handle the whole time with her eyes closed trying her best to breathe through the pain. But he could tell every time she had a contraction, she would get this incredibly painful look on her face.
"So you going all natural?" he asked trying to get some sort of conversation going.
"Fuck you" she replied through gritted teeth.
"I'm probably not the first guy to hear that while a woman is giving birth to his child"
"I swear to god John if you do not stop talking I am going to hurt you"
He didn't utter another word. But he did however steal glances at her every few seconds as he drove which annoyed her to no end.
"Please keep your eyes on the road" she said through gritted teeth "I don't feel like dying"
"Relax I'm an excellent driver" he scoffed at her intended insult of his driving abilities.
"Yeah if you are an excellent driver then I will eat my own shoe"
"Mommy! I don't know what is going on but I don't like it ... I can't move around anymore"
"Take a right here" Rainey winced pointing towards the exit sign.
"I'm from here too I know how to get to the hospital"
"Then why did you just pass the turn off?" Rainey asked.
"Damn it!" John slammed both his hands into the steering wheel.
"Mommy I really don't like this"
John whipped the wheel around making a pretty illegal and dangerous U-turn. Taking the turn off that would lead them to the hospital. Five minutes later they were parked out front.
"Thanks for the ride but I got it from here" she said trying to get out of the car but she was in too much pain and couldn't.
"If you think I'm leaving now you are crazy" he said getting out of the car and then helping her out. She leaned most of her weight against him as they walked carefully into the lobby of the hospital.
"Rainey it's a surprise to see you here today" Claire the receptionist said.
"He wants to come out I guess" Rainey winced.
"Oh let me grab you a wheel chair" Claire hopped from her seat as fast as her arthritic body would allow her. Returning quickly and John helped Rainey into the chair.
"Where is L&D?" John asked the older woman.
"John it's on the other side of the hospital so lets go because I am not giving birth in a hallways somewhere" Rainey said.
John took a frazzled breath and began pushing the wheel chair in the direction the mother of his child had indicated. The hallway was incredibly long and in the nervous state John was in he thought it would never end.
"Wow, this view is weird" she said.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Usually I have your job" she replied "I work transport for this hospital"
"Well that explains the unusually personal greeting from the receptionist. "But are you allowed to do this while you are pregnant?"
"No, I've been working as the L&D secretary since I found out I was pregnant"
They were just getting off the elevators now. Rainey told John to go straight which he did. He pressed a button on the little black box by the door and immediately heard a woman's voice.
"Can I help you?" the voice asked.
"Marie ... It's Rainey and my water broke"
The doors to the unit opened and John pushed Rainey inside. The moment the doors closed behind her they were bombarded by nurses.
"What happened to I'm not having my baby in this hospital?" the woman who's voice they had heard from outside the unit asked with a smirk.
"It was the closest hospital and I don't think this little guy wants to wait"
"How far apart are the contractions?" another nurse asked.
"About 3 minutes apart" she replied.
"Let's get you into a room"
John went to push the chair where the nurses were going but one of them stopped him. He gave the nurse an annoyed look.
"We are going to have to ask you to wait here"
"But I'm the baby's father" he retorted.
"I understand that but we need to get her prepped so it'll just be a few moments"
John paced outside the room. Those few moments as the nurse had said felt like an eternity. He didn't like that he didn't know what was going on. Something terrible could be happening to his son and he had no idea.
"You can go in now"
Rainey was lying in bed now. She seemed a little less agitated, which John concluded to the fact the was in a medical setting now so if anything happened the baby would be able to get the immediate help he needed.
"So now we wait" he said having a seat next to the bed.
"Nobody told you that you had to stay" she replied with her eyes closed.
"I'm not going anywhere" he said "I am going to be here through every contraction ... every push until finally our little guy decides to make his entrance and even then I am not leaving"
"Lucky me"
"So now that we are stuck here can you at least listen to me"
"I have a feeling that no matter what I say you are going to make me listen anyways" she still hadn't bothered to open her eyes.
"I'm not proud of what I did but I can't take it back. Liz put this crazy idea in my head that I knew nothing about you so I went off the deep end and did something that I didn't think was such a big deal"
"I can understand that you wanted to know more about me but why not just ask I have never hidden anything from you"
" I don't know" he put his head in his hands "in case you haven't noticed I'm not very good at this"
She laughed a little at him "It's weird you know … I never planned any of this but if I could go back and change it I wouldn't"
"You know knowing that he is almost here the name Asa is growing on me" she laughed at him again. "No I'm serious I can call him Ace"
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Scared and maybe a little excited" she admitted "but definitely more terrified than anything else"
"Why?" he asked.
"You know all these long months I've known he was coming but I still had time to prepare and get ready but now he's literally going to be here and I'm going to have to take care of him … me the girl who never even had a pet as a child is going to have to take care of another living human being"
"You are going to be fine" he assured her.
"How can you possibly know that?" she asked him.
"Because I just know it"
"If you don't mind me asking what's the deal with you and Liz?" she asked.
"It's a long story" he said.
"I think we have time" she joked.
"Well basically we were together when we were younger and we got engaged and then we broke when I was just getting started wrestling and then we got back together and we got engaged again but it was never the same"
"Do you love her?"
"I think at one time I did and now it's just more out of comfort than actual love" he replied honestly "I mean I'm not getting any younger right"
"But if you don't want to marry her then you shouldn't" just then she grabbed his hand and squeezed as she tried her best to breathe through a particularly painful contraction.
"Squeeze away I am here to do anything I can to make you semi comfortable during this whole process" John smiled at her.
"Do you think you could go to the caf and get me something to drink?" she asked sweetly.
"Sure thing what would you like?"
"Ginger Ale"
"One bottle of Ginger Ale coming right up"
John returned a few minutes later with a Ginger Ale for the both of them. For the next couple of hours nothing really changed Rainey slowly crawled from her original 3 centimeters to 6 but then her body seemed to not want to contact anymore so they put her on medication to help move things along. Rainey had packed a portable dvd player in her hospital bag so her and John passed the time watching movie and talking. It was starting to get late so they brought in a cot for John and they expectant parents turned in for the night.
--
It was now 5:30 A.M. and it had been 12 hours since Rainey had first went into labor. She was now eight and a half centimeters dilated. She was miserable and in pain. She had opted for no drugs because she didn't want to herself or the baby to be all hopped up on drugs.
"I frickin hate you" she squeezed John's hand as hard as she could trying to possibly break his hand in the process.
"Yeah well the feeling is mutual sweetie" John too breathed through the pain.
"Why do women actually put themselves through this pain" she asked nobody in particular.
"I think they find the end result to be worth it" John replied sarcastically.
"Why are you even still here?" she asked "didn't I ask you to leave like 9 times now"
Their cooperative relationship from earlier was gone now and back came the bitter relationship the had before.
"I'm not going anywhere and that's the last time I'm going to say it"
"You are a horrible wrestler and you aren't even that good looking … everyone is like oh look at the golden boy … I bet it's a lie you either use steroids now or you did"
"Nice try but this ugly steroid junkie isn't going anywhere"
"God, I hate you so much" she writhed around in the bed wanting this to be over soon.
--
Three more hours passed before Rainey started to push. John was still hanging in there holding her hand through contractions and coaching her every step of the way. Although he was exhausted and just as scared as she was he didn't let that get to him.
"Rainey you are doing great" Marie was back with them now.
Her doctor, Dr. Witowski, whom had not only delivered her but all of her cousins was on hand now. He had arrived about an hour ago.
"I swear I am never doing this again" she vowed.
"That's what I said too honey but I have 3" Maddie, the nurses aide, smiled at the young mother.
Rainey loved Maddie and she was so happy that she could be here at that moment. The older woman was always very nice to Rainey and she considered her like the mother she had always wanted. Maddie even called Rainey "her baby".
--
Thirty more minutes passed.
"Rainey the head is crowning so we are down to the home stretch now" Dr. Witowski informed her.
"You hear that Rains he's almost here" John perked up a little now.
"Bout time" Rainey grunted.
"One more big push"
Rainey pushed with everything she had and she would be the first to admit it that first sound of her son crying was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.
"It's a boy" the doctor held the baby up for his parents to see.
"What the heck is going on … put me back … put me back" the tiny infant wailed.
They placed a blanket over Rainey's chest and put the baby on top of it. His skin was a perfect pink color and he had a full head of dark hair. He stopped crying the moment he was placed on her chest.
'So you are the one who's been kicking me from the inside"
"Guilty as charged"
"Welcome to the world my little man"
The nurses took the baby away to clean him up and weigh him. John followed them with his digital camera he had gotten for his birthday one year and luckily enough for him that he left at his mother's house. He never even took it out of the box until now. The baby had begun crying again apparently he didn't like being on the scale.
"9 pounds 2 ounces Rainey" Marie informed the tired new mother "23 inches long"
"Oh lord no wonder he took so long"
"He's gonna be just like his dad" John beamed.
"Let's hope for all of our sakes you are wrong about that"
"Daddy do you want to cut the umbilical cord?" Maddie asked holding out a pair of small medical scissors.
"Of course" John took the scissors from her and cut the cord that had helped his son grow in the womb for 9 months.
"Can I get a blanket or something it's freezing and I'm naked here"
They wrapped the baby up and handed him to his dad. The baby managed to get his hand out from the blankets and John counted all five of his fingers.
"So what's his name?"
"As…" John started.
"John Felix Anthony Cena III" Rainey blurted out.
John looked at her as if she had 3 heads. She named the baby after him, he was shocked but ecstatic at the same time. His son had his name, his son John … or Johnny. Yeah Johnny he liked that.
"You hear that Johnny you and daddy have the same name"
"So you are my daddy … well you aren't exactly what I pictured but that's ok I guess" Baby Johnny stared up at his father with curious big blue eyes.
"Welcome to the world little guy" Johnny yawned and closed his eyes.
"You'd think he would have had enough sleep in the womb" John commented handing the baby to his mother.
"He's perfect in every single way"
"Thank you" John said.
"For what?" he asked.
"For letting me be a part of this and well for bringing him into the world" they looked into each other's eyes for a moment before John leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips.
To be continued …