Not giving me a chance to answer, Hurst called his grandson’s name and stuck his hand out, just as a pain hit the middle of my stomach. “Help me up, will you? We need to call Ellis because she’s in labor.”
Spinning around on the spot, he pulled his phone out, ignoring his still struggling grandad, and hit the screen. “Yo, Mace, is Ellis there? Uh huh, no, can you tell him I’m at the store and I’ve just bumped into Jose and Liv…” he stopped talking for a second and then looked at Liv. “Aw, yeah, she looks adorable in her glittery boots, man. I ordered them after he showed them to me…”
“Tom,” Hurst hissed, bringing him back on track.
“Shit, yeah. Tell him Jose has gone into labor, will you? You won’t believe this shit, Mace. Her water broke on top of that powder detergent stuff, like right on top of it, and I swear if you moved it, you’d get bubbles.” There was more silence and I could hear Mace’s deep voice, but not enough to make out what he was saying outside of calling my husband’s name. “Ok, will do. Yeah, she looks all right…”
Just then the next pain hit, and it was a gut wrenching one. Grabbing onto his arm, I almost sent him to his ass on top of the stuff he’d found so amusing seconds before. Digging my nails in, I grit my teeth as hard as I could to keep the scream inside as a band of muscle across my abdomen tried to rip my ass hole out of my belly button.
“Shit, she’s got ahold of me, she’s got ahold of me. Tell him to hurry before she rips the skin of my arm,” Tom snapped, not moving even an inch regardless of how much pain he had to be in as my nails dug in deeper. With a focus that a two-year-old only shows when it involves something they want, Liv started wiggling to free herself again. “I want to get in the snow. Unca Tom, can you help me?”
Balancing his phone between his shoulder and his ear, Tom automatically held his hands out to lift her up. “No,” I yelled, grabbing the hand closest to me. “She wants to make snow angels on the soap.”
Wrinkling his nose, he looked down, seeing more of the water that had come from my body mixing with it, and shook his head. “Sweetie, trust me on this – you do not want to get in that mess. Let’s wait for Daddy to arrive, and me and the old man will take you for ice cream and go see aunt Tabby, ok?”
Brightening at the prospect of ice cream – and the fact Tom was a good-looking man, and she had his attention – she backed down immediately and smiled at him. I was about to point out how lucky he was when the next pain hit at the same time as someone yelling my name. Turning around, I watched as my brother-in-law ran toward me, avoiding the mess on the floor at the last second, and stopped in front of me as he panted like he’d run a marathon.
“You make me feel fit,” I groaned, holding my side and digging my nails into the hand of Tom’s I was still holding.
“Had to park on the other side of the parking lot,” he wheezed, and if I didn’t have a Megalodon trying to force its way out of my body, he might have had my sympathy for the fact he’d had to run all that way. Unfortunately, I was shitting out an animal the size of one from the Jurassic ages, so no one had my sympathy at that moment apart from me and my vagina. So long as my daughter was safe in the cart, she didn’t have to witness the weapon of twat destruction that was going to come out of me, and I got painkillers soon – all would be well. I couldn’t go through a natural birth like Tabby had, I remembered the pain from having a baby and I knew for a fact I couldn’t do it. I wanted drugs, I wanted a bed, I wanted doctors, and I wanted privacy in case that poop they warned us about came out of me. As the next contraction hit and my free hand grabbed Dave’s and squeezed, my husband came around the corner just in time to hear me, and the two men I was holding onto, scream. But he’d brought reinforcements in the form of paramedics who had a vehicle to transport me to the place where they held the painkillers (even if I wasn’t given an epidural because there was no time), and the vehicle was equipped with flashing lights and a siren that makes drivers shit themselves and pull over to the side of the road so it can get past. Thankfully, I had my baby in hospital, and my brother-in-law didn’t have to deliver it like he had his own daughter, meaning he didn’t get to meet my cooch. That would have been awkward at family meals, sitting beside him, knowing that he might be able to pick my vagina out of a lineup.