She panted through the contraction, her fingers digging into the chair.
Seconds strung out, passing in slow motion. Finally the contraction ended and Melissa had a quick breather. Her hair was wet around her face, her skin glistened, and her knuckles remained embedded in the chair arms.
His heart swelled with love, with joy, with the pain she was enduring, with fear at what her body was going through, and that he would be facing his worst fear soon. But there was no time to dwell on any of that. Her abdomen tightened and her back arched. Another contraction was starting.
“Push as hard as you can, and we’ll have our baby.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
AS HARD as she could? Melissa glared at James. Was he kidding?
Right now it was all she could do to breathe, much less push. But the pressure did make her want to push. To relieve her body of the enormous heaviness weighing on her pelvis.
How had women done this for centuries?
Women gave birth and then went right back out to the fields to pick cotton? Lies. All lies. Had to be.
Drugs. She needed drugs. Lots of them. Anything to ease the torture she was suffering.
Bits and pieces of her maternity rotations came back to her. Pieces that told her how to regulate her breathing, how to naturally ease the pressure in her body.
It was time for their baby to enter the world, and she had to find the strength to help him. To push so mightily he couldn’t resist the lure of the world any longer.
She panted. Focused. Panted.
“Push, sweetheart,” James encouraged from between her legs. “You can do it. I can see the top of the baby’s head.”
He could?
More pain and pressure tore at her body. A pain so intense she’d swear her hips were being plucked apart.
“James,” she cried, bearing down as hard as she could.
“That’s it, babe. Push.”
Melissa pushed, holding her breath and bearing down, hard. Harder. Harder still.
“Breathe, hon, breathe,” James reminded her. “Breathe and push.”
“I can’t do both.”
“Yes, you can. You’re the most amazing woman I know. You can do anything, sweetheart. Anything. Now breathe.”
“No,” she cried, knowing her body was tearing in half. She could feel it tearing, feel her flesh ripping from her bones—that had to be what was happening down there.
Then there was the pressure.
The intense, almighty pressure that pushed against her insides, demanding she expand, grant passage.
“Lots of dark hair, Melissa.” James’s voice sounded hoarse, husky. “I see lots of dark hair.”
God, she wished she could see.
But that would require opening her eyes, and she’d shut them, squeezed them tight to the blinding pain.
“Breathe, Melissa, breathe,” James reminded her again, and she bit back the retort for him to shut up and breathe. “The contraction’s coming to an end. One more time. We’re almost there.”
We nothing. She was doing all the work. He was just sitting there, telling her to breathe. The pain in her body eased enough with the end of her contraction that she opened her eyes to tell him exactly what she thought of his we.