Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(108)

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Billinger said. “She’s progressing a little slower than I’d like, but there’s no need to panic. This is a first baby. First babies can take a while.”

“I don’t want to let this go on any longer,” Hudson insisted. “Don’t want to risk her.”

“It’ll be better for both mother and baby if she can give birth vaginally. Everything’s fine, Hudson.” The doctor patted his back as she’d been doing all day. Then she took hold of Ellie’s arm to get her attention. “You’re okay, aren’t you, Ellie?”

Ellie didn’t respond. She seemed to be somewhere deep inside herself, searching for the strength to endure. Hudson watched her muscles tighten as another contraction hit.

“This is too much for her,” he murmured to the doctor.

“She’d say something if it was. I have monitors on the baby that’ll let me know if he’s in distress.”

Hudson lowered his voice. “But if she’s only at three, the end isn’t in sight. And I’m afraid she wouldn’t tell us if it was too hard on her. She’ll keep hanging on. I don’t want her to suffer anymore.”

The doctor tried to speak to Ellie again, but Ellie ignored her. She hadn’t been talking much during the past hour. She looked totally spent. Hudson wished he could lend her his strength. They’d decided to go with a natural birth, but he felt Ellie had already given it her best shot.

“Ellie?” The doctor spoke more loudly.

Finally Ellie opened her eyes.

“How are you doing?”

Ellie looked as though she might attempt an answer, but another contraction hit right after the last one, and she cried out.

Hudson felt so helpless. Angry that the doctor wasn’t doing more, he pulled Billinger into a corner. “Will you do something?” he demanded.

The doctor glanced over at Ellie, who was trying to catch her breath, and nodded. But as soon as she checked Ellie again in preparation for whatever she had planned, she said, “Whoa! That happened fast. She’s in transition. She’s going to have the baby any minute.”

“What does that mean?” Hudson asked.

Billinger shot him a look. “It means you need to relax and let me do my job.”

“Hudson,” Ellie moaned.

He hurried back to her side. “I’m right here.”

“I need an epidural. Get me an epidural, okay?”

“It’s too late for that.” Billinger answered for him as two nurses came in and raised the stirrups on either side of the bed.

“Should I get a mirror so you can watch?” a nurse asked Ellie.

Ellie was obviously steeling herself for the next pain, but she managed a weak nod, and the nurse rolled a mirror to the bottom of the bed.

From that moment on, everything went into fast-forward. Hudson didn’t even have time to call his in-laws to tell them the baby was on his way before the doctor started encouraging Ellie to push, and the top of a dark head appeared.

“There’s the baby. Did you see that?” Billinger asked.

Hudson did see it, but he could hardly celebrate. Not yet. So many things could still go wrong... “Is everything okay?”

No one answered. They were too busy. Ellie was bearing down, and the doctor was trying to ease the delivery using oil.

When Garrison’s head finally emerged completely, tears filled Hudson’s eyes. He dashed a hand across his cheek to get rid of them, but he couldn’t stop more tears from replacing those. Although the doctor held the baby’s head, Garrison looked purple—dead—and Ellie couldn’t seem to deliver the rest of him.

Hudson stumbled back as several nurses crowded the room. No one said anything, but he could feel their concern, knew something was wrong. One jumped onto the bed with Ellie and began to push right above Ellie’s pelvic bone to help her get Garrison’s shoulders out.

Panic made Hudson’s blood run cold. He feared his worst nightmare was coming true, and there was nothing he could do about it. But the whole room relaxed the second Garrison’s body slipped out.

The doctor suctioned the fluid from his lungs. “You have a son,” she said above the sound of his baby’s cry.

One of the nurses opened the front of Ellie’s hospital gown and laid the baby on her chest, skin to skin.

Hudson released his breath. Now that Garrison was out and Ellie seemed to be okay, he felt light-headed but steadied himself by putting one hand to the wall.

After clasping the baby to her, Ellie looked around at the nurses who were blocking her view. “Hudson,” she called. “Come meet your son.”

He managed not to stumble as he moved to the bed and bent to kiss her forehead. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he murmured. “So glad you both are.”

She laughed. “I’m better than okay. You can stop worrying.”

“Are you ready to cut the umbilical cord?” the doctor asked.

At that point he felt a little embarrassed, since his emotions had been so extreme. He should’ve had more faith. But everything that mattered to him in the whole world had been at stake. “Yeah,” he said and wiped his cheeks again as the doctor handed him the scissors.

Later, when both Ellie and the baby were cleaned up, the nurses and doctor were gone from the room and he was holding his sleeping son, Ellie gave him a tired smile. “You have such a serious expression on your face,” she said. “What are you thinking about?”