Released (Caged #3)(79)
“You’re doing great,” I told her.
“Fuck you!” she spat back.
I cringed a little, rubbed her back, and hoped something I said or did made some kind of difference, because I felt useless. She wasn’t pushing me away anymore, but it was probably because she was too weak to do so.
I didn’t think it would take this long. Tria was a couple of weeks early, but still within the definition of a full-term pregnancy, according to the doctor. As much as I tried to reassure myself, it was getting harder to believe as the minutes and hours ticked on.
“I want to be up there,” Tria said, and I helped her move on her hands and knees toward the top of the bed.
Almost immediately, she screamed again.
“Can you try breathing?” I asked.
“No,” she moaned as tears flowed down her cheeks. Every one of the tears that left a trail on her skin also left a rip through the center of my chest.
All I could think was that it was my fault. If I hadn’t shoved my cock in her, none of this would have ever happened, and she wouldn’t be hurting like this.
“It hurts,” she whisper-cried at me. Her voice was too low for anyone else to hear. For the first time all day, her eyes didn’t show anger or frustration, but terror. “It hurts a lot more than I thought it would…I don’t understand…”’
“It’s supposed to hurt,” I reminded her. “You can still do the epidural or—”
“No!” she cried. “It’s not good for the baby…natural is so much better…the magazines…”
“I know, babe.”
Tria had gone kind of crazy over the whole natural birth thing. It was entirely possible she read too much about it. Though I had no doubt it was the better route to go, it seemed like an awful lot of shit to go through. Tria was sure, and I just went along with it because it was what she wanted.
Despite all the time we had to get ready for this, I felt completely unprepared. The baby was early, and we didn’t know what we were doing.
Tria went back and forth from the birth ball to the bed. Then she went from being up on her hands and knees to lying on her back so someone could check her progress though there really didn’t seem to be any.
“Stop poking at me,” Tria growled at one of the nurses.
The shift had just changed, and the nurse who had been there earlier was now gone. I wasn’t sure who this one was, but Tria obviously didn’t like her much. The nurse moved off to the side for a moment but then reached out and placed her hand on Tria’s stomach as another contraction hit.
“Don’t touch me!” Tria yelled at her.
I was about to move around and just get in the nurse’s way when she ignored Tria’s obvious warning and placed her hand right above my wife’s belly button, and Tria backhanded her.
Yep—right across the face.
The nurse jumped back, looking astonished, and then just backed out of the room altogether. Tria didn’t even say anything.
“Did she just hit that nurse?” I heard Julianne ask as she leaned over next to Chelsea.
“I do believe she did,” Chelsea said.
“I like her, you know,” Mom replied.
“I do, too,” Chelsea responded.
“Tria?” the doctor came over and touched my wife’s forehead. It wasn’t the doctor we had been seeing but some guy dressed in Dockers and a blue button-down.
Tria looked up at him just as another contraction hit her. My fingers were nearly crushed in the process, but she got through it. I let her squeeze the shit out of my hand, figuring it was the least I could do, and tried not to show in my expression just how much it hurt. I definitely wasn’t going to say anything anymore; it just wasn’t safe.
“I’d like to take a look at you, all right?”
The doctor managed to shift Tria to her back so he could check her out, and I hoped she wouldn’t smack him on top of the head. I tried not to think about the whole thing as another guy getting up in my wife’s goods, but it was hard not to. I mean, he had his hand in her, for Christ’s—
“Mr. Teague?” the doctor said, startling me. “May I speak with you?”
Chelsea came up beside me and took my place holding Tria’s hand while I moved to the other side of the room with Dr. Whoever-he-was.
“May I call you Liam?” he asked.
“Sure, I guess.”
“Liam, your wife has been in some pretty hard labor for over twenty hours now.”
Had it been that long? My mind whirled around in a little circle, and I conjured up images of all the “frog in a blender” jokes I had heard as a kid.
“She really hasn’t made any progress, and she’s still only about two centimeters dilated.”
“She’s supposed to be at ten to have the baby, right?”
“That’s right,” he said with a nod. “But the baby’s head isn’t in the right place.”
“What do you mean, not in the right place?” I bellowed.
Julianne was suddenly at my side, and she put a hand on my shoulder.
“You have to stay calm, Liam,” Mom said. “For Tria’s sake, remember?”
I restrained a growl but glared at the doctor as he tried to explain.
“She’s turned face up, and her head is pushing against Tria’s pubic bone, not her cervix.”