“They’ll be here in under ten minutes.” Relief flowed through her. Ten minutes was no time at all. She wasn’t going to have to do this by herself. All she had to do was hold the fort and keep Matilda calm until help arrived.
That was easier said than done. Whatever was happening to her was clearly overwhelming. Matilda was hit by wave after wave of pain, with no room to breathe. Tentatively Fliss placed her palm on her friend’s rounded abdomen. It was like touching a rock.
She grabbed her phone again and typed having a baby into the search engine.
A stream of websites sprang onto her phone, offering baby classes, pregnancy advice.
Fliss stared at the screen in frustration.
Muttering under her breath, she added the words right now to her search request and saw something about breathing pop up.
She thought back to a TV series Harriet had watched based on a maternity unit. They’d gone on and on about breathing.
Feeling pitifully inadequate, she rubbed Matilda’s shoulder. “Remember your breathing.” That was what they said, wasn’t it? “In through your nose and out through your mouth. Everything is going to be fine. You can hold on ten minutes, right?” Please say yes.
Matilda said nothing. She couldn’t catch her breath to speak.
Instead Fliss saw her hold her breath and push. “Are you pushing?” Panic ripped through her. “Don’t push. Whatever you do, don’t push.”
“Have to.” Matilda panted out the words, and Fliss looked at her in horror.
This couldn’t be happening. Not like this. Not now. She needed only ten minutes! How hard was that?
“Hold your breath. Think about other things.”
“Can’t.” Matilda gasped out the word, her fingernails almost digging holes in Fliss’s arm. It was so painful she almost joined her friend and yelled.
Fliss felt sweat cool her skin. Ten minutes. That was all the time she needed to delay this thing from happening. “Don’t push, don’t push. Do I at least have time to do an internet search on ‘what to do if a baby comes too fast’?”
Matilda’s gaze met hers, and Fliss saw the panic in her friend’s eyes.
Her own panic evaporated in an instant.
She put her arm around Matilda’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need the internet. Women have been doing this for centuries without the help of Google. It’s natural. Babies are born every minute, right? No worries.”
She hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt.
It was dawning on her that she was going to have to deliver a baby.
Why her? Why did she have to be the one in this position?
And then she realized it was Matilda who was in this position, not her, and she felt a stab of shame. She might be bad at some things, but never would she abandon a friend in a crisis.
“It’s okay, really it is.” She hoped Matilda couldn’t see that her hands were shaking. “It’s all going to be fine. Wait there a second—I’m not leaving you, but if it’s really coming now then we have to get ready for it.” She pulled her arm away from Matilda’s grip, sprinted to the bed and grabbed pillows, cushions and the comforter. She flung them on the floor next to her friend.
What else?
She didn’t have a clue.
Matilda grabbed her, gasping, and Fliss tried to think straight. Logic. She was good at logic. “Get closer to the floor. Here, lie on these cushions. It will be more comfortable.” And that way if the baby popped out fast it wasn’t going to start life bashing its head on reclaimed oak.
Her mind was racing ahead. Was she supposed to cut the cord? No. She wasn’t going to touch the cord. But what if the baby wasn’t breathing?
She should probably wash her hands, in case she had to handle it.
She shot into the bathroom and scrubbed her hands as best she could, and took clean towels from the neat pile. She barely had time to register that Matilda’s bathroom looked like something from an upscale spa, before she heard her friend groan in agony.
She shot back into the room.