16. Delivery
AN: Delivery of a baby is described but nothing too graphic.
Disclaimer: I do not own The A Team movie or television series or any of the delightful characters found on The A Team.
The baby's head was crowning. Amanda screamed as another contraction wracked her lower abdomen.
Even as Maggie readied the scalpel to do an episiotomy, she knew the young woman was tiring from her labor. "It'll be soon now. Don't push. Not yet. Blow out your breaths, small puffs. Focus on the breaths. That's right."
From beyond the room, she heard a banging on the front door that could easily knock it off its hinges. "Doc Sull'van! Ah know Mandy's in there. Lemme in." Each syllable the slurred angry voice uttered was punctuated by a blow that made Amanda's eyes widen in terror.
"He . . . followed . . . me . . . sorry . . . " she gasped out between huffing breaths.
"Don't worry. My friend out there knows what to do." The ex-Captain made eye contact with her patient. She kept her voice low and soothing. Steadying her hand, she made the cut that would prevent the young woman from tearing the perineum as the baby's head passed through the vaginal opening.
Maggie hoped John would be able to handle an obviously still-inebriated Russell Fox.
At least he waited to drag his sorry ass over here. We're just about done here.
"Ya deaf er somethin'? Lemme in!"
The doctor smirked as she heard Hannibal chuckle to himself and answer Fox. "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin. You want more nursery rhymes, go back to school, but you aren't getting in here."
She heard the click of the Colonel's pistol being cocked and she realized she didn't have to worry about being interrupted before the baby was born.
Of course John came prepared for any intrusion. He probably didn't imagine he would end up defending two women and a soon-to-be-born baby from a drunken boyfriend.
The banging noise continued. "Ah don' know who ya are but I got ev'ry right ta be in there with my Mandy gal when she's havin' mah baby."
Maggie was certain she could detect a hard edge to John's voice as he answered. "Doesn't take a high school diploma to make a baby, pal. You gave up your rights to be in here when you beat that little lady. In my book, that means you don't pass 'Go,' you don't collect two hundred dollars and you certainly don't get to see her again."
"Mandy'll tell ya ah didn' mean no harm. Ah'll change mah ways. Right, sweetie?" The last two words were shouted loud enough to travel all the way through the sleepy town and into the surrounding hills.
"Sure, buddy. That's what every drunken slobbering fool says. Now go away before Doc Sullivan has a mess to clean up on her porch." There was no mistaking the threat in the Colonel's tone. Maggie hoped Russell heard it and left things well enough alone.
Before she could offer up a silent prayer to that effect, Amanda gripped both edges of the table with white-knuckled fists. "Doc!"
"Push now, Amanda! It's alright." No matter how many times she had done it before, Maggie still felt her heart exploding in her chest with the adrenaline rush as the baby's head appeared. "Another push! Bear down!"
She prayed Amanda had enough strength in her to finish the job. As quickly as the thought came into her mind, the rest of the baby's body surged out into Maggie's waiting hands.
She was vaguely aware that the banging sounds at her front door had stopped as she clamped off the umbilical cord and cut it. She suctioned the amniotic fluid from the baby's mouth and gently massaged its back until it let out a thin wailing cry. Scrutinizing the infant for any damage from the beating Amanda had taken, Maggie wrote the time of delivery and brief notes about the baby's condition on a sheet of paper. They would be needed later for the birth certificate and medical records.
Quickly swaddling the baby in a towel to preserve its body temperature, she turned to place the squalling infant in its mother's arms.
At about the same time, the window glass shattered as Russell Fox took a baseball bat to the pane and cleared it of all of its glass.
To Be Continued