*Isla*
The puddle of water sinking into my carpet is the least of my worries as Sydney is panicking. She grabs onto my arm and squeezes, her nails digging into my skin.
“What? My water broke?” she shouts. “That means I’m having this baby right now?”
“Well, soon,” I tell her, prying her fingernails out of my arm. “Come on, let’s go back to your room. I’ll get the healer.”
She starts to walk to my bed. “No! I have to lay down right now!”
The thought of her getting goo all over my bed is unappealing. I know that she has time to get to her own room before she has the baby. After all, I do have a ton of younger brothers, and my mom gave birth to all of them at home because she couldn’t afford to go to the hospital.
Grabbing her arm, I pull her back toward the door. “Sydney, there’s time,” I tell her. “Let’s go to your room.”
“You can’t expect me to walk at a time like this!” she shouts at me, trying to pull away.
Thankfully, I hear a familiar voice at that moment as Poppy comes in the door, stopping in her tracks as I hold up a hand. I know she’ll be pissed if she walks through the puddle. “What the hell?”
“Poppy, thank the Moon Goddess,” I mutter. “Can you help me get Sydney to her room? And then we need to send for Mystica.”
“I can send for Mystica right now. Did her water break?” She sees that Sydney is trying to pull away from me, so Poppy takes her other arm.
“Yes, her water broke, and now I am trying to explain to her that she has time to get back to her own room and that it’s not necessary for her to lay down in my bed to have this baby.” I say each word with a measured, distinct tone.
Poppy understands my concern and is willing to help me as she says, “Yes, yes, there’s plenty of time. Come on, Cindy.”
“Sydney,” I correct her, but she doesn’t acknowledge me as she is pulling the young girl out of my room.
Why is Sydney so insistent that she have the baby here?
Between the two of us, we get her out of my room, and we head down the hallway. Sydney doing a strange waddle that I find alarming until she says, “My pants are soaked!”
“Mystica is on her way,” Poppy tells her. “And Beta Seth is going to meet us at your room. Where is it?”
“Beta Seth!” Sydney lurches away from me toward Poppy. “I don’t want a man in my room while I'm bare-assed pushing a baby out of my vajayjay!”
“No, he’s not coming for that,” Poppy assures her. “He’s just going to make sure that you’re okay, and then he’ll leave.”
Sydney doesn’t seem any calmer, and after a few more steps, she stops and shouts, “Oh, Goddess!” She wrenches her arms away from us and puts her palms on her abdomen. “It hurts!”
“I’m sorry.” That’s all I can manage to say. I’m afraid she’ll go sprinting off toward my room again.
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry!” Sydney looks at me with fire in her eyes. “Oh, well, as long as you’re sorry that it feels like a fucking alien is trying to rip my insides apart, I feel better!”
I stare at her with my mouth hanging open, not sure what to say.
Through the mind-link, Poppy says, “She’s just lashing out because she’s scared. Just ignore her.”
I want to say I think that she’s supposed to shout those rude comments to her husband, but she doesn’t have one, but I keep my mouth shut. I know better. My dad learned really quickly not to say anything at all to my sweet mother when she was in labor. No matter how kind-hearted my mother typically was, when a baby was about to emerge, she became a dragon monster.
“Where is your room?” Poppy asks again, but Sydney won’t budge, and then we see Beta Seth rushing toward us, and I feel relieved. He’ll know what to do.
Except, his eyes are wide and big as saucers as he says, “What is going on? Did she have the baby?”
I want to ask him if he sees a baby, but I don’t say anything.
Instead, Sydney shouts, “Yes, I did. It was a fucking water baby and it’s all over my goddess-damn pants!”
“No,” Poppy tells the Beta in a calm voice. “Not yet. Can you help us get her to her room?”
“Is there time for that?” Seth asks.
“That’s what I said!” Sydney shouts.
“There’s time.” Poppy is still calm but obviously a little irritated as well. “Where is her room?”
Beta Seth seems befuddled, but he finally says, “It’s this way,” and leads us down a hall to the left.
We follow along, nudging Sydney to walk, and eventually, we get there. Poppy insists that Sydney wait while she puts the shower curtain on the bed so that it won’t ruin the mattress and then she grabs a nightgown out of one of the drawers. “I’ll get her changed. You two wait out there.”
Beta Seth and I are more than happy to do just that, and I think that Poppy is a good person to have around when one is having a baby. She’s already proven to me that she’s a good person to have around during an emergency.
Mystica and a couple of her nurses come rushing down the hallway. “Where is she?” she asks.
“In her room,” Beta Seth says. “Poppy is getting her changed.”
Mystica doesn’t wait. She opens the door. Seth averts his eyes, and I do, too, but I hear Sydney screaming. “What the fuck? Some of us are naked!”
“I’m the healer,” Mystica says, and she disappears inside, along with the nurses she’s brought with her.
I take a deep breath, thinking my work here is done. I can go back to my room now, even if I have to clean up the mess on the floor myself. I don’t mind, as long as I have the proper cleaning supplies.
But then the door opens again, and Poppy is staring into my eyes. “She’s asking for you.”
I turn around and look behind me, expecting there to be another person behind me.
But no… she’s speaking to me. I point at my chest. “Me? She wants me? Why?”
“She says that she wants you in the room while she gives birth and won’t listen to anyone who says that it isn’t necessary.”
Poppy grabs hold of my arm and yanks me into the room, I stumble forward. This is the last thing in the world I want to do.
Taking a deep breath, I follow her into the room. Sydney is on her bed with a sheet over her, and Mystica is giving her some fluids in an IV. I can tell that the girl is in a lot of pain because of the look on her face.
I don’t know what to do.
When Sydney sees me, she says, “Thank the Moon Goddess. Get over here, breeder! I need your help!”
I approach the bed, but I am hesitant because I have no idea how to help her. I’ve already told her that I haven’t had any babies, that I’m an inexperienced breeder. I’ve never helped my mom give birth or done anything other than bring in some towels. I will be more helpful once the baby is born. I have helped my mother take care of the children after they are born.
Nevertheless, I am not one to deny a pregnant woman in labor my presence if it somehow helps her, even if it just means I am about to be cussed at and screamed at until this baby makes its way out into the world.
I sit in a chair next to Sydney and hold her hand, and she squeezes so hard that every time there is a contraction, I think that my hand might be crushed. She is in a lot of pain, and even though I heard Mystica say that she put something in the IV, it doesn’t seem to be helping any.
The labor goes on and on for a couple of hours, and Sydney becomes more and more agitated. She’s sweating profusely, and it doesn’t matter that there’s a fan on her and the windows are open.
I see that Mystica and the other healers are whispering to one another, and that’s when I realize….
Something is wrong.
Sydney hasn’t realized it yet. “Can you please, just… get this baby out of me?” she asks Mystica, and the fact that she’s no longer cursing makes me think that she is exhausted.
“We are working on it, dear,” Mystica says. She smiles and pats Sydney’s leg, but then she whispers something to one of the nurses, and the woman scurries out of the room at a quick pace.
I want to ask what’s going on, but I figure, if they’re not going to tell Sydney, they’re not going to tell me.
Then I realize Sydney is talking to me. “What’s happening down there, breeder?” she asks me. “Can you see the kid’s feet or what?”
I want to tell her that seeing the feet would be a bad thing, that the baby is supposed to come out head first, but I don’t say that. Instead, I get up and peek around the sheet that’s held up by her knees. “Uhm, no, I don’t see any baby yet.” I didn’t study the situation as that seems weird, but I do know there’s no baby. Not yet.”
“Sydney, dear,” Mystica says, coming around the side of the bed. “You are a tiny woman, and the baby is rather large.”
“Tell me something I didn’t already fucking know!” Sydney shouts at the calm healer.
Mystica clears her throat. It’s obvious to me that she was about to tell her something she didn’t already know.
“We are going to have to do something different to get the baby out, dear,” Mystica says, still calm. The nurse who had run out is back now with a cart. I can see instruments on it, and my heart starts to beat against my rib cage.
“A different way?” Sydney says. “Wait–if there’s a different way, why didn’t you just do that to begin with? You think I want to push this kid out through my junk?”
Mystica doesn’t react to what almost has me laughing. “The way that we will get the baby out is called a Cesarean, dear. I’m going to have to put you under and then make a small incision in your abdomen.”
“You’re going to cut me open?” Sydney asks. “Are you shitting me?”
“It’s the only way,” Mystica says. But Sydney is shaking her head vehemently.
“Nope, nope, nope!” she says.
“Dear, the baby is stuck in the birth canal. If the child continues to work its way down, I won’t be able to save either one of you, so please, let me do this.”
“Either one of us?” she asks.
Mystica sighs. “I need to hurry, dear.”
Sydney looks at me, her face pale, and her mouth agape.
I don’t know what to tell her because I have no idea what the chances are that she will survive even if they do cut her open. “You want to save your baby?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
Mystica says, “If I act now, I have a better chance at saving both of you.”
Sydney’s head swivels to her and then back to me. “It sounds like you’ll both die if she doesn’t get him out.”
Looking into my eyes, she says, “I’m scared.”
“I know,” I tell her. “But I’ll be right here.” I squeeze her hand and try to smile to be reassuring, but I am also scared, scared for her, and I don’t even know her–scared for her baby as well.
“Okay,” Sydney tells Mystica, but she’s looking at me. “Do it.”
I glance over at the healer, and I can see that she doesn’t look comfortable. I pat Sydney’s hand. “It’ll be okay.”
She nods, but we both know I’m lying.