Iz grits her teeth; to prepare to push, or to minimize the shivering, I don’t know.
“Push, Izzy. Ten, nine, eight…”
The doctor counts.
The nurse holds her legs.
Iz cries.
And I simply hold on.
As soon as we hit three, two, one, Iz’s body collapses against the bed. The doctor looks up from between her legs. “Good girl. That was a good push. Rest now.”
The nurse’s almost silver eyes catch mine. “Daddy. Why don’t you come down here? Hold her leg and help her.” My heart trips erratically. She called me Daddy. That’s the second time in an hour I’ve been called Daddy. “I’m going to hold this leg, just like this.” She shows me. “I want you to hold the other. Give your girl something to push against.”
With wild eyes, I spin back to Iz. I mean, she said yes to marriage, but she didn’t say yes to anything else. Taking her leg is kind of a front row seat to something I’ve never seen before.
Uncaring, Iz nods and releases in an instant. On shaking legs, I step down the bed and take her leg so her knee rests against my chest.
Not looking. Not looking.
I looked.
“Here comes another,” the doctor announces. Iz’s body tenses and her leg jumps against me. I hold on tight and watch with fascination as Bean’s head pushes Iz’s stretched skin back.
“Ten, nine, eight, seven…”
“Ow! No! Push it back in, push it back in!”
My hands tingle with the urge to literally shove the head back in.
“Your baby’s crowning, Izzy. You’re almost there.” The doctor works around Iz’s bottom end. Reaching to his left, he comes back front and center with silver scissors. “I’m sorry, hon, I’m going to have to cut you. You’re nearly there.”
In an instant, he works to peel her skin back. Red tinges my vision. “Woah the fuck up!” But he snips. Just like that. Zero remorse. He takes her skin and just fucking cuts.
I drop Iz’s leg and spin on him as she screams out in pain. “Gimme those scissors, motherfucker. Let me show you how that shit feels.”
“Come back here!” The nurse snaps when Iz’s body tenses with another contraction. “Grab her. Help her.”
“This is it, Iz. I’m just going to use forceps to help him along.” I swear, he picks up something akin to the jaws of life they use when cutting people out of car wrecks. “Push. Ten, nine, eight…”
Whooshing in my ears, dots in my vision, the only things I can be sure of are, one: he’s latched that shit onto my baby’s head, and two: It hurts Iz.
It hurts so much, she screams so hard her voice turns hoarse.
I’m on the verge of tackling the fucking asshole when I’m sure he’s going to snap Bean’s neck, but with one last push, a grunt, and a whimper of relief, Bean’s body slides out and Iz collapses back against the bed.
“Oh my God, oh my fucking God.”
The doctor picks Bean’s purple body up as rough as if he was simply a bag of potatoes. Massaging his chest and stomach, people rush around us, around the doctor, as they work.
The nurse drops Iz’s leg and takes a different pair of scissors. Unceremoniously, she cuts the cord that anchors Izzy’s body to Bean’s. The doctor wraps him in a blanket and continues to massage his chest.
Not a peep.
All the noise in this room, but not one single peep from the tiny purple baby.
Shouldn’t he be crying?