Having My Baby (3 page)

Anxiety set in as she recalled blacking out and falling. “Is the baby all right?”

“I think so. I saw you fading fast and managed to catch you before you fell on the sidewalk and hurt yourself or the baby.”

Sandy poked her head inside the open door. “What’s going on in there? What is he doing to you?”

“It’s okay,” Jill told her friend. “We’re just talking.”

The man named Derrick started to back away, but Jill grabbed his arm. “Before I passed out, why did you say I was having your baby?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

She waved Sandy away, and her friend disappeared, but not before letting out a disgusted huff.

“I hate to disappoint you,” Jill told the man, “but you’re definitely not the father of my baby.”

“How can you be sure?”

“CryoCorp has their donors fill out extensive amounts of paperwork.” She should know. She’d spent the past eight months memorizing every word her baby’s donor had written about himself. “The father of my baby has blue eyes. He’s a few inches taller than you, and he went to—”

He winced.

“What? What did you do?”

“I sort of lied.”

“Nobody can sort of lie. You either lied or you didn’t.”

“You’re right. I lied,” he said. “Your donor attended medical school and he preferred water polo over football. He’s a vegetarian, right?”

She nodded, disbelieving, and added, “He’s also ultra-sensitive and he used to work for Greenpeace.”

He scrunched his nose.

“He’s a doctor,” she went on, refusing to believe this man, “and sometimes he works as a clown at the children’s hospital because—because he loves kids so much.”

She felt the baby kick. He must have felt it too, because he maneuvered his body so he was no longer hovering directly over her. He looked uncomfortable, as if he was in pain. Not that she cared. He deserved to be uncomfortable for spying on her and then dumping too much information on her like he had.

The man was looking at her stomach. The baby kicked again—harder this time.

His eyes widened. “That’s amazing.”

She smiled. She couldn’t help it. Every time she felt her baby kick, it felt like a miracle. “It’s as if he’s been trying to kick his way out for days now.”

“Did you say ‘he’? We’re having a boy?”

Her heart plummeted at the man’s words. “Why are you here? Why would you lie?”

“I’m sorry, I really am. At the time I made a donation I desperately needed the money. I wasn’t thinking.”

“But CryoCorp verifies all donors’ information.”

“I have connections.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “That’s horrible,” she said. “You’re horrible. You wrote down everything you thought a woman would want in a man—in their own child—all lies—all the way down to the color of your eyes.” She frowned. “They couldn’t even verify the color of your eyes?”

He shrugged. “I know. I was a little surprised about that myself.”

“Is there anything you wrote in the questionnaire that wasn’t a lie?”

His forehead crinkled as he tried to think.

“So you’re telling me the father of my child is a lying, no-good, compassionless child-loathing, meat-eating, brown-eyed football player?”

“Now wait a minute, what’s wrong with brown eyes?”

She laid the palm of her hand on her forehead. She wasn’t ever supposed to meet the father of her baby. No man could ever come close to the man she’d imagined was the father of her baby, not even Thomas. Sure, this man was beyond handsome, and she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit he could kiss like nobody else, but a gorgeous and amazing kisser did not a good donor candidate make.

“The father of my baby is a big fat liar,” she said as if he wasn’t right there. “He’s just like all the rest of the men out there—nothing special at all—just an egotistical, selfish, horrible, lying—”

“You’ve made your point,” Derrick cut in, “but like I said, I had misgivings about what I had done. I knew it was wrong, which is why I wrote CryoCorp telling them to take me off of the donor list. I even sent their money back. I do have a conscience.”

The ambulance sounded in the distance. She shut her eyes. “Go away. Just leave me alone.”

“It’s not that easy.”

She opened one eye. “What do you mean?”

“You’re having my baby, my son. I’m not going anywhere. I can’t.”

A long low sound of misery erupted as she raised her hands to his chest and pushed at his upper body in an attempt to get him to leave her alone. A pain shot through her belly and she dug her fingernails into his rock hard chest. “Oh, my God!”

“What is it?”

Warm liquid gushed from her lower extremities as her fingernails dug right through his shirt and into his skin. “This can’t be happening. Oh, my God! It’s too early.”

“What’s wrong?” Sandy asked, her voice a high shrill.

“My baby,” Jill said. “It’s coming. My baby’s coming!”

In his haste to get away, Derrick Baylor, the man she refused to believe was the father of her baby, fell awkwardly to the floor between her and the front seats, and then scrambled backwards out the door.

~~~

Thirteen hours later, tired of waiting in the hospital reception area, Derrick pushed open the door to Jill’s hospital room and peeked inside. Her redheaded friend, Satan, the one who was supposed to keep him updated while he sat in the lobby, had fallen asleep in a chair in the corner of the room while Jill’s other friend, the lady in blue, sat in a chair on the other side of Jill’s bed.

Despite the paper mask he’d been handed before he entered the room, the smell of antiseptics was strong. He thought Jill might be asleep until the monitor beeped and she opened her eyes. Blindly, she reached out a hand and the lady in blue took hold of it and told her everything would be okay. Jill relaxed, but only until the monitor beeped again. This time her eyes opened wide. She and her friend began to breathe together, exhaling three small puffs of air, inhaling, and then starting over again.

Jill looked as if she’d just finished a day at boot camp without benefit of water: her face pale, her lips dry and cracked. Her hair was damp and pushed back out of her face. Dark shadows circled her eyes. She hardly resembled the woman he’d met earlier in the day.

For a second Derrick wondered if he should go find a doctor or a nurse. How could Satan sleep when Jill was in so much pain? After a few moments passed, the two women stopped the weird breathing thing altogether and laughed instead.

Their actions confirmed his earlier suspicions—they were all nuts.

“What are you doing in here?”

Damn. Satan was awake. “It’s been five hours since my last update,” he told her. “I thought I’d come in and check things out for myself.”

“They never should have let you in here. I’m going to give them a piece of—”

“Sandy,” Jill said, her voice hoarse. “It’s okay.”

Sandy stood and stretched. “Have it your way. I’m going to the cafeteria for some coffee. Scream if you need me.”

Derrick ignored her, relieved to see Satan head for the door.

“Wait for me,” the other woman said. “I’m starved.” She came to where Derrick stood, took his hand in hers, and gave it a good firm shake. “Hi. My name is Chelsey.”

He was glad to see that not all of Jill’s friends wanted to stick needles in his eyes. “Derrick Baylor,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too. I’ll be back in five minutes,” she said, “but you should know that the last time the doctor was in, Jill’s cervix was dilated to five centimeters. She has a way to go and she seems to be having a contraction every ten or fifteen minutes.” She pointed to a styrofoam cup. “There are ice chips in there. Feel free to give her as many as she needs. She also likes to have her back rubbed.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Jill said.

“Don’t listen to her,” Chelsey whispered. “She doesn’t know what’s good for her. Never has. Never will.”

The door shut behind Chelsey before Jill could protest further.

“Sorry about that,” Jill said. “You don’t need to stay. It could be hours. There’s just no telling.”

“I want to be here. Tell me if you want me to leave the room though.”

“Okay,” she said, her gaze falling to her belly and then raising to his face again. “This is strange, don’t you think? We’ve known each other for less than a day and you know more about my cervix than anything else.”

He laughed. “I also know that you have scary friends.”

She chuckled, blushed, and then looked around the room.

Suddenly he wondered what had possessed him to come into her room in the first place. Calling this an awkward moment would be putting it mildly. He looked toward the door, hoping somebody might enter and save them from themselves. “Parents stopping by later?”

She shook her head. “They’re in New York. Busy people.”

“Hmmm.”

“They’re not too happy about the choices I’ve made,” she added.

“I see. And what about Thomas? Will he be visiting any time soon?”

She looked painfully self-conscious, making him wonder why he seemed so determined to make things more uncomfortable every time he opened his mouth. He was usually a man of few words and now he knew why.

“Who told you about Thomas? I’m going to kill Chelsey when she returns—”

“It was you,” he said. “You mentioned Thomas. You thought you were kissing Thomas when I set you in the back of my car.”

She frowned. “I said his name?”

He nodded.

“I’ve heard of people talking in their sleep…but kissing in their sleep?” She sighed.

“No worries. I would be lying if I pretended I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it—you know—the kiss.”

The fluorescent lights reflected off her eyes and made them sparkle.

They watched each other for a moment, sizing one another up before an irritating
beep
brought them back to the moment at hand.

Jill squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingers into the mattress.

Moving to the side of the bed where Chelsey had been, Derrick reached over the side rail and took her hand in his. “It’s okay,” he said, although he wasn’t feeling okay, and she certainly didn’t look okay. It hadn’t been much over five minutes since her friends left.
What the hell was going on
?

With her eyes clamped shut and her teeth gritted, the veins in her neck and forehead looked ready to burst.

His heart rate accelerated as he tried to think of something to say to comfort her and take her mind off of the pain. “Maybe we should do that breathing thing,” he said.

She didn’t answer him, but her fingers squeezed tight about his hand, and damn, she had one powerful grip.

The beeper on the monitor wouldn’t stop beeping. That worried him.

Jill brought her knees to her chest, blankets and all.

He leaned closer and rubbed her shoulder. “Is that helping?”

Her eyes shot open, startling him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly turned her head full circle and spit out pea soup. Instead, she reached out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt along with a little skin and said, “Get your baby out of me!”

He might have laughed if he wasn’t bleeding and in pain and if she wasn’t pinning him with the scariest look he’d ever seen in his life, which was saying a lot considering his mom had been the queen of scary faces back in her day.

In the blink of an eye, Jill Garrison had transformed from a sweet young lady into a woman possessed by the devil.

“If you don’t do something,” she said, “I’m going to scream.”

“I think we should breathe instead.”

“I think you should—” Her face turned scarlet, and she scrunched her nose as if she was chewing on sourballs. And then she did exactly what she said she was going to do. She screamed, an ear-piercing sound that set his teeth on edge and made his brain hurt.

Where the hell was everybody
?

Before he could reach for the red emergency button, the door shot open and two nurses surrounded the bed.

“Who are you?” one of the nurses asked him as she checked the monitor and IV hookup.

“The father of the baby,” he said.

Jill looked pitiful. Her head was bent back, her neck extended, and she had a white-knuckle hold of his arm, her fingernails clawing into flesh.

The nurses exchanged glances before the one at the end of the bed shrugged, pulled up the sheets and did a quick examination. “Ring for the doctor,” she said. “This baby is coming, ready or not.”

Derrick would have made a quick exit if Jill didn’t have a death grip on his arm. He was pretty sure his chest was already bleeding, and if she kept it up, his arm wouldn’t fare much better.

The door swung open again and Sandy and Chelsey rushed in behind the doctor.

“I told you he’d still be here,” Sandy told Chelsey.

“Is it a crime for a father to want to see his baby come into the world?” Chelsey asked.

Derrick decided he liked Chelsey.

“Donating sperm to a clinic for money,” Sandy added, “does not make him a father.”

Satan…not so much.

Chelsey stood close to Derrick’s side and leaned over the railing. “You’re doing great,” she told Jill. “Keep breathing. That’s right. You can do this.” Chelsey started doing her breathing exercise again and Jill followed along. The doctor and two nurses were taking care of business. Sandy grabbed a video camera and aimed it their way.

He could hear Sandy talking into the camera, muttering words like “ass” and “idiot” every once in a while.

Chelsey was perfectly calm, and she handed Derrick a cool rag and told him to wipe Jill’s brow. Glad to have something to do, he used his free hand to try and soothe her. Having no desire to see blood, he decided to focus on Jill’s face, which he noticed was heart-shaped. Disregarding the dark circles under her eyes, her skin was creamy and flawless. Although her lips were dry and cracked at the moment, they were also full and had a nice shape to them. She had beautiful eyes when they weren’t rolling to the back of her head, and she had high cheekbones and slender brows. There was an understated beauty about her he hadn’t noticed earlier.

Jill’s cheeks puffed up as she and Chelsey readied for another push and Derrick found himself pushing along with them. The three of them puffed three times, inhaled, three more puffs, inhaled, pushed, and then they all repeated the process for another thirty minutes before the baby finally decided to enter the world.