Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3) (49 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

And here she was. Forty-one weeks from
conception. A week late and labor pains to show for it. She was on
maternity leave, so Sean had no idea she was in active labor.

Yes, she should have called.

But in reality, he’d just freak out and
insist they go to the hospital immediately. He wouldn’t understand
that the hospital would only admit people after a certain point in
their labor—and she wasn’t there yet—so it would be a constant
argument she didn’t feel like having. Instead, she was enjoying a
nice glass of white wine and looking out at the ocean. She figured
a little alcohol wasn’t going to phase the baby now, no matter what
study you ran, so she let her body relax and the pain rise and fall
in gentle waves.

A while and harsher pain later, Krista
decided she might want to get the show on the road. The pain was
slightly more intense and the ocean waves were no longer calming.
In fact, they reminded her of the pain. She knew that walking would
help speed up labor, as would various other exercises she learned
during her horrid breathing classes. Walking was the easiest
without a partner, though, so she got up and headed for the
door.

She made it to the end of the driveway before
the contractions doubled in ferocity. Up until that point she had
thought she could deal with labor quite well. Sure, they would hurt
toward the end, probably, but she was good with pain. She could
handle it.

That was until they turned it up a notch. Now
it was starting to get serious. It was a game changer.

Krista took her cell phone out of her pocket
and called Sean’s office.

Janice picked up on the third ring.

“Janice?” Krista asked before the matronly
assistant could finish her spiel.

“Yes? Krista?”

“Yeah, hi, Janice. Is Sean in?”

“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting. I’ll have him
call you right ba…”

“No Janice, it’s an emergency. Tell him I’ve
started labor.”

“Oh my God, honey,
congratulations
!
He’ll be so excited. Just so you know, you’ll have hours and hours
before you’ll need to go to the hospital. I know this is your first
so you…”

“Janice, I’ve already been at this for about
five hours. It’s time for him to come home now.”

“
Oh
! Please hold…”

Krista felt another wave of pain coming on.
It was like being caught out in the ocean in San Diego when that
huge set came out of nowhere. Sure, they had been quite large all
day, but she hadn’t been ready for what the ocean threw at her
next.

This was next. It felt like her abdomen was
in a vice that was squeezing, forcing everything inside her body to
attempt evacuation, except there was nowhere for it to go. And then
there was the back pain. It was worse. It was like her bones were
cracking apart and sending shooting spirals of razors down her
spine.

She leaned against the light fixture and
breathed. She wasn’t using what she learned in birthing class—she
wasn’t going to do a bunch of loud, guttural moaning,
thank you
very much
. Instead, she used her breathing techniques for
running. When she couldn’t go that last mile, she would breathe it
out. Focus on the breathing. Keep calm and relaxed. Just focus on
the—

Oh holy God…I do not like this,
Sam-I-Am
.

She could hear the trace sounds of panic in
Sean’s voice as he picked up. “Krista?”

Usually she would then calm down to calm him
down. Not this time,
se
ñ
or
.
Another bout of pain was right around the corner and she no longer
wanted to be alone.

“Hi Sean. I am having contractions. Come
home.”

“Of course. I’ll call you back on the cell.
I’m so ex
ci
ted!”

“Uh huh.”

“Okay, call you right back. Stay by the
phone.”

“Uh huh.”

“Love you. Bye.”

She was supposed to go to the hospital when
contractions were sixty seconds long and about five minutes apart.
So far she knew she wasn’t there yet. That meant that the pain, on
a scale of one to oh-my-God, was still closer to numerals. That
didn’t bode well for her mood. She was still toying with the idea
of a natural birth.

The phone rang. Before Krista could say
hello, she heard Sean yelling, “
wish us luck!”

“Hello, Krista?”

“Yeah, Sean.”

“Okay, now I’m headed out of the building.
How are you feeling?”

“Scared.”

“Okay, no problem. That is only natural. It
is going to be okay. Women have been doing this for thousands of
years, so it is doable.”

“Women have been dying in childbirth for
thousands of years. Modern medicine doesn’t make it any less
terrifying.”

“That’s true, Krista. Of course that’s true.
How bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten?”

“I don’t know, Sean. It hurts. I thought I
might go for a walk to speed things up and they suddenly got super
worse.”

“
What
? Where? Walk where?
Where are
you
?”

Some men got the protective urge when their
partners were pregnant. Sean made those men look unconcerned.
Krista couldn’t count the times she was carried up the stairs. He
checked up on her constantly. Forget lifting anything heavy.
Getting up on a stool? No way. It was cute at first, but quickly
turned extremely irritating. He did it all out of love for both her
and the unborn peanut, so she didn’t push back too hard, but scowl
lines might be permanently etched into her face. Especially when he
started pushing a freaking chauffer on her!

“Calm down, I am at the bottom of the drive
way,” Krista said slowly.

He muttered a curse.

“Okay, great,” he said, trying to stay
positive and not get mad at her for traipsing around the yard while
in labor with his child.

Sometimes it was only his child—usually when
he thought she was being reckless.

“Well, I am about twenty minutes out. Did you
want to sit on the little brick wall until I get there? I hate for
you to be walking up the driveway and fall…”

“I’ll just stay here. Drive safely.”

“Of course I will. Of course. Okay, so how
was your day? When did it start?”

“I’m not really in a chatty mood, Sean.”

“Absolutely. No problem.”

“I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay on
the line?”

“No I…” pain surged in the center of her and
radiated out. She bent over and breathed, forgetting about Sean
entirely. It was as though all the time sitting still stalled the
pain, and now it was coming at her with a vengeance. Maybe she
needed to relax again. Maybe that was the big thing. Sitting was
certainly the thing. So were drugs.

When it was over, she put the phone to her
ear again. Sean was saying her name in a panic.

“I’m here.”

He gave a deep breath. “What happened?”

“I’m in labor Sean, I have contractions.
Don’t freak out every time I have one. That is
my
job.”

“Okay Krista, I am closer now.”

“I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Krist—“

She pulled a Ben and hung up without saying
goodbye.

She slowly straightened and started walking
back up to the house. The driveway wasn’t steep by any means, but
it wasn’t flat, either. She hadn’t thought of the climb up when she
was lumbering down.

Halfway up she was winded from lugging her
girth any great distance, and stopped to take a break. She had
another contraction. Walking was unreal for speeding it along. She
breathed through it, but had a harder time staying calm. Shit was
starting to get serious.

More serious than the last time she thought
it was getting serious.

She’d wait for Sean after all. She was far
enough up that the little brick wall Sean talked about was too big
to climb up and sit on. Instead, she hopped up on her car’s hood.
There she stayed until Sean got home, two contractions later.

He came racing up the drive until he saw her,
and then immediately slowed down. She wondered if he knew how
transparent he was. Probably not. She waited patiently for him to
get out of the car and walk to her in a measured pace.

His smile was radiant. Of course, he wasn’t
the one in pain…

“Hey baby, how are you doing?”

She was. “I need you to start timing.”

“No problem. Let’s get you to the house and
we’ll fire up the stop watch. How long have you been feeling
contractions?”

“Oh, about five hours or so.”

His grip on her tightened spasmodically. He
wanted to berate her for foolish behavior, but his voice came out
even and positive. “You should have called earlier. That is a long
time for you to be on your own with this.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

His jaw clenched but he struggled through it
and remained up-beat. “Well, let’s get you inside and see how we’re
doing.”

They were ten steps from the door when
another wrenching flood of pain caught her. She sucked in her
breath and bent over, trying to continue focusing on her breathing.
Immediately Sean started massaging her lower back and cooing. The
pain lanced through her lower section. Now it felt like the vice
had her whole lower body under pressure, not just a few bits on the
inside. The waves of pain radiated in pulsing, thick tendrils.

It lightened up, then stopped, leaving her
slightly dizzy.

“Start the timer,” she said breathlessly.

Sean reached for his phone, tapped a few
things on the face, and then resumed helping her to the door. He
did not look frazzled or flappable in the least. He was sure handed
and seemed to know what happened next.

Thank God because Krista hadn’t a clue.

They made it up the steps slowly, his arm
supporting her. At the door, another wave crashed over her,
stopping the progression, making her tighten her jaw and grip
Sean’s arm. Stuff was happening that wasn’t supposed to, Krista was
sure of it. No way were things supposed to hurt this much. No
way.

“Oh Lord,” Krista said as it passed. “This is
starting to seriously suck.”

Sean sat her down, telling her she was doing
great, telling her it would all be worth it, telling her there were
drugs at the hospital that would take all the pain away if she
wanted. He was positive and excited. She was still scared.

Next, he took out his phone again. “Cassie?
I’m activating the phone tree…No, start calling—the little vixen
waited all day to call me…Yeah, I know, you were right…I don’t
know, hold on…” Sean put the phone to his chest and leaned down to
Krista. “Did you want Kate, Jasmine, and Ben there, or would you
rather just me and Cassie?”

Krista felt things start to tighten and
realign in the world of pain. She started breathing and ignored
Sean as her torso tried to disengage from her body and stuff itself
into a tiny box. A sledge hammer was banging against the bottom of
her spinal column. She lost control of her breathing as the pain
ripped through her.

She wasn’t going to be able to handle this.
Too much! Way too much pain! People could not do natural birth
through this! Something seemed wrong.

Krista whimpered Sean’s name and clutched his
hand. Tears came to her eyes. This one was stronger than the last
one. She must be ready for the hospital by now. There was no way it
could get much worse! Maybe she was too late for drugs.

Oh no, what if I am too late for drugs?!

“Time,” she panted as the pain receded. The
memory of the pain stayed behind.

“You’re doing great, Krista. Really, really
well. That was six minutes and lasted for nearly a minute. Almost
time to go.”

“You can invite the girls. Don’t want Ben to
see my
hoo-haw
.”

Sean relayed the message. “Of course. Sure.
Cassie?... Yeah, we’re really close. I might get her loaded up
after another couple contractions. K-Jaz is a yes, Ben is a no for
now…See you there.”

Sean stuffed the phone in his pocket and
kneeled down to her. “Do you want to go look at the ocean? Would
that relax you?”

“No. Let’s get this done. I need to walk
around.”

“Sure, of course.” Sean helped her up gently.
They took a turn around the living room. Half way through she had
to stop, bow down, and breathe as her ass was ripped apart from her
uterus, which was being kicked and stepped on by a giant goat. They
kept walking until the next one, which didn’t seem worse than the
last, thank God, and Sean informed her excitedly that it was time
to go. Things were starting to speed up.

Thank God.

The pain was starting to make her into a
potty mouth like Kate.

Krista leaned against the couch as Sean ran
around like a wild man getting everything they would need. He had a
checklist that he actually checked things off of. Once everything
was loaded, he took a break to help Krista through the next
contraction, then got her coat, and started patting his pants
frantically.

“Keys, keys…” He looked around wild eyed.
“Okay,
Sean
, stop a minute, take a breath…” He took a big
breath, “and
think
. Oh yes—“ He dashed to the counter,
reclaimed his keys, and raced back to Krista. “Let’s go, baby.
You’re doing great.”

Krista tried not to waddle for any part of
her pregnancy. Now, however, she did not care. She teetered out of
the house, stopped to basically try and push out a thorny Buick,
and continued on when the pain passed.

In the car, she was in agony. Bumps and the
car’s rocking made her uncomfortable, and there was nowhere to bend
or move when the contractions hit. She gripped the handrail and
braced herself, but it didn’t help.

“Call Marcus,” Krista said through clenched
teeth.

“Marcus?” Sean asked in confusion.