Stacie Murray

LABOR.

Hour eight.

Still three centimeters.

Was this baby ever going to come?

And where was Adam? He'd gone to find a nurse five minutes ago when no one had responded to the NURSE CALL button. This hospital wasn't that--

A series of distant explosions broke the silence of the maternity wing--balloons popping several floors below. Probably some clown or candy striper entertaining the sick kids in Pediatrics. She started to pray for the umpteenth time that their child would be healthy, but the pain stopped her.

Stacie turned over onto her side and groaned.

Here it came, that vise in her belly, and she was really having to breathe through this one--more intense than the last, and it had come faster, too, by almost a minute. Maybe she was finally progressing. Her obstetrician, Doctor Galbraith, had already warned her that if she wasn't at least eight centimeters dilated by midnight he'd have to perform a cesarean section. It got her emotional just thinking about it. She wanted a vaginal birth, not some doctor sawing her stomach open so he could rush home.

Her uterus relaxed. According to Nurse Herrick, these were still mild contractions, and honestly, that scared Stacie more than anything. Her birth-plan hadn't included having an epidural. She didn't want to be drugged for this experience, wanted her mind and body present for every moment, wanted to feel her first child coming out of her, hear those first cries with a lucid mind. But she didn't know if she could take much more pain than this.

She heard footsteps approaching.

Adam appeared in the doorway, still wearing his black dress shirt and clerical collar. It didn't exactly match his blue jeans and black Justin boots, but then again, Durango was hardly the epicenter of fashion, especially for a young Lutheran minister. They'd rushed straight to the hospital from the Sunday morning service when her water had broken during communion.

"You all right, honey?" he asked.

She nodded. "I just had another contraction."

"Stronger?"

"Little bit."

He came around and sat down beside her on the bed.

"Rub my back?" she said.

"Of course."

His fingers went to work on her lower back, her muscles tighter than steel suspension cables.

"You find the nurse?" Stacie asked.

"Yeah, but just as she was stepping onto the elevator."

Stacie stared into her husband's face--smooth-shaven, still carrying a little baby fat that made him look younger than his thirty-two years. Kind, deep eyes that made him seem wiser. Listening eyes, she called them, and in this moment, she had the feeling they were holding something back from her.

"What aren't you telling me?" Stacie asked.

"Nothing. Everything's fine, Stace. You just focus on--"

"Adam...what's wrong?"

"Nothing for you to worry about. I guess there was some disturbance down in the emergency room, and Nurse Herrick was called down to--"

"What kind of disturbance?"

"I don't know. She said she'd be right back."

Stacie thought about the balloons she'd heard popping several minutes ago.

What if...?

No. Adam was right. She had one thing and one thing only to focus on--getting this baby out.

"Tell me what you need, darling," Adam said, touching the back of his hand to her forehead, which had broken out in tiny beads of sweat.

Stacie smiled. "I'm really thirsty."

"But you can't have water. In case you have to go into surgery."

"Yeah, but a bucket of ice chips would really hit the spot."