The Good Life

*Jack*

My heart is literally pounding out of my chest. Alex’s eyebrows looked like they would be permanently furrowed. We were walking from Camila’s hospital room to the hallway so Alex could murder me. I knew not telling him about the money would come back and bite me in the ass. As soon as we stepped outside and the door closed Alex took a deep breath about to go on a long rant, but I stopped him before he could speak.

“Wait before you yell at me, can I try to explain myself?” I pleaded. Alex nodded his head telling me to speak.

“When I met up with Camila and José to talk about how and if we would go through this, I told them what my career was and José was like ‘okay for fifty-thousand dollars the baby is yours.’ And I couldn’t say no, Alex. If I would have went through an adoption agency I would’ve had to wait like years before I could have a newborn. And I was so hurt when we broke up that I wanted anything to take my mind off the heartbreak. Adoption was the perfect way to get my mind off of you and become a parent like I wanted. So I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the money aspect. I don’t really see why it’s a bad thing though. It’s like I paid money not to have to wait in line.” I threw in the part about our break up so Alex would kind of feel bad and maybe not scream at me.

“Are you finished?” He asked and I nodded. “I’m not angry at you, I’m just a little disappointed. It’s your money and I can’t tell you what to do with it. I just imagine Izzy growing up and somehow finding out that you paid for her and how horrible that might make her feel. I mean she will already feel bad because her biological parents didn’t want her, but finding out you paid money for her would make things so much worse. But I do understand why you agreed to pay them.” He stated.
I finally breathed after holding my breath waiting on him to reply. “We can make sure to never talk about it so she won’t find out?” I suggested.

“Sure.” He said, but he still didn’t seem comfortable with the situation.

I hugged and kissed him to let him know everything would be alright. “Let’s go back inside.”

“Is everything okay?” Camila asked when we walked back inside. She probably expected the worse with the tension surrounding the room when we left.

“Yeah we’re fine.” I assured her. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine I guess. It feels like menstrual cramps so I can deal with it right now.” She giggled.

Camila’s doctor walked into the room to give her more information on how the process would work. We were all paying attention to the doctor’s instructions.

“You should be dilated enough in about five more hours and we’ll give you your epidural shot about two hours before it’s time. Do you have any questions?” He asked.

“No sir. Thank you!” Camila said and he nodded and walked out.

“Are you scared?” Alex asked Camila.

“No not yet. I’ll probably be freaking out in a couple of hours.” She sighed.

“You’ll be fine! We won’t leave your side.” I assured her.

“Should we call our parents?” Alex asked me and I said yes. My mom would kill me if I didn’t call her until after Izzy was born. We both went into the hall way to make phone calls.

“Jack is everything okay?” My mom answered the phone worriedly.

“Yes mom.” I laughed. “Sorry for calling so late. We’re at the hospital with Camila because she went into labor tonight. The doctor said she should be giving birth in about five more hours.” I heard my mom gasp.

“Oh my god! I’ll have to take off from work this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so I can visit my granddaughter.” She squealed.

“Okay. I’ll get your plane ticket for you.” I told her.

“Thank you, baby. And keep calling and texting me to keep me updated, Please!” She said.

“Of course.” We said goodbye and hung up.

“What did your mom say?” Alex asked when he finished talking to his dad.

“She’ll be here this Friday and she’s going to spend the weekend with us.” I told him.

“Alright. My dad said he’ll be here sometime tomorrow. Also Rian and Cass are on their way right now.” He said.

“Great!”

It didn’t take long for Rian and Cass to show up. They went home and changed so they didn’t look ridiculous in their costumes. Rian brought Alex some of his clothes so he could change into something more comfortable too. We introduced them to Camila and José and Cass went on a whole rant about how beautiful the baby was going to be because Camila was gorgeous.

“Did we miss anything when we left?” Alex asked.

“Oli threw up.” Rian laughed. “He was out of it when we were leaving. He kept trying to get the keys and drive to the hospital cause he said he wanted to meet his niece. He couldn’t even walk straight.” Rian said laughing even harder and Alex joined him.

“He’s going to have the worse hangover in the morning.” Cass commented.

“He’s use to it.” Alex laughed.

We sat in silence for a few minutes because no one had anything to say. We still had four hours and some minutes left before it was time and I didn’t know what we could do until then. There was nothing on TV because at this time of night, or morning I guess, the only things on were infomercials. Alex and Rian went down to the twenty-four hour gift shop to buy cards and snacks for us. Now we were trying to decide on a card game to play.

“Let’s play spades!” Rian suggested, but we disagreed.

“Texas Holdem?” Alex suggested, but Cass and I didn’t know how to play and they didn’t want to teach us.

“Ooo let’s play hearts.” Cass suggested, but Rian and Alex both said no. I don’t know why picking a card game had to be so difficult.

“We’re playing goldfish.” I said. We asked Camila if she wanted to join but she said she just wanted to watch. José was in the waiting room trying to take a nap. He said the beeping from one of the machines in the room was making too much noise.

It was almost three am and we were still playing goldfish. Since we were all getting restless these games of goldfish were getting out of hand.

“Alex, do you have any fours?” Cass asked him.

“Goldfish.” He said.

“You fucking liar you just asked Rian for fours.” She whispered yelled and Camila laughed. She had been laughing at how seriously we took the game the entire time and I was happy we could take her mind off of the pain and her contractions that were coming more frequently. I thought she would be sleepy, but she said her sleep schedule has been off all month so she sleeps all day and stays up all night.

“That was like last game, idiot!!” Alex whispered yelled back. We all burst into laughter because for some reason everything is always funnier at three in the morning.

“Damn how long have we been playing this game?” Rian asked.

“For like an hour.” Camila answered.

“We gotta do something else. I’m so sleepy and playing cards isn’t helping.” Alex yawned.

“Why don’t you take a nap and I’ll wake you when it’s almost time.” I said.

“Because If I fall asleep now it’ll be almost impossible to wake me back up.” He said yawning again.

“We can go get coffee from the cafeteria!” Rian exclaimed.

“But we’ll crash after a while.” Alex said.

“We’ll just keep getting more and more coffee.” Rian sounded like coffee addict.

“That sounds so unhealthy, but let’s go.” Alex said and they went down to get their coffee.

I looked over at Cass and she was staring down at her feet. Something was bothering her. “What’s a ‘matter?” I asked her.

“Oh nothing… I was just thinking.” She answered. I was going to ask her what she was thinking so hard about, but then it dawned on me. Cass was upset because there was still that possibility that she would never be able to have children of her own. Being here in the hospital with Camila about to give birth was probably hard for her.

“You’ll be okay. I’m always here if you want to talk.” I told her and she smiled and came over to hug me.

“I’m so confused.” Camila said. I almost forgot she was in there with us.

“It’s a long story.” Cass chuckled.

Rian and Alex returned ten minutes later with steaming hot cups of coffee which sounded good in this freezing hospital. I asked Alex for a few sips of his and almost spit it out, he didn’t tell me it was black coffee.

“You drink you coffee black?” I asked shocked.

“When have you ever seen me put creamer or sugar in my coffee?” He asked, chuckling.

“Well never I guess.” I thought about it and I never did see him add anything to his coffee, I just never paid attention.

“You don’t know anything about me.” He play whined.

“I know everything about you.” I sighed.

“Everything except how I like my coffee.” He mumbled and I rolled my eyes at him.

Camila started to move around a bit on her bed and she looked like she was in pain. She held on to her stomach and sat up a little higher than she was. “Fuck that contraction hurt worse than the last one. And my contractions are starting to come quicker.” She took deep breaths trying to get through the pain.

“Do you want me to grab your nurse?” I asked and she nodded not even able to form words. I sped walk to the nurse’s station and asked one of the nurses to come and check on her. We walked back into the room and Camila didn’t seem like she was in a lot of pain anymore, but she was still holding her stomach.

“I’m going to go get her doctor so he can check how dilated she is right now.” The nurse said and left.

“Do you think the baby is ready to come now because I don’t think I’m ready?” Camila’s eyes were wide with worry and fear.

“I’m not sure, but you’ll be okay.” I rubbed my fingers through her hair trying to relax her. Alex, Cass, and Rian all looked worried too so I tried to keep calm so we all wouldn’t be stressed out. The doctor came in a few minutes later and looked under Camila’s blanket so he would see how far along she was. He wasn’t looking for very long which could either be a good or bad thing.

“We can give her the epidural now. She’s eight centimeters dilated. Page our anesthesiologist on call.” He told the nurse and she walked out of the room to get some equipment. “We’re going to go ahead and give you the epidural since you’re almost fully dilated, okay?” He said to Camila and she slowly nodded.

“I’m so scared.” Camila started to bite her nails.

“Just relax, you’ll be okay.” I said calmly.

“Where’s José? He should be here with me.” She said.

“I’ll go wake him up.” Alex said as he got up to go to the waiting room.

“What’s going on?” A half woke José said when he walked into the room with Alex.

“The doctor is about to give Camila her epidural.” I told him and he looked unphased, but it was probably because he wasn’t fully awake.

Two nurses returned and began setting the equipment for the epidural up. One of them told us that there could only be one person in the room for this part for sanitary reasons. I was going to let José stay in the room with Camila, but it turned out he was just as afraid of needles as Cass and Alex were. So I was the one who was staying in the room with Camila.

It only took them twenty minutes to set up and now they were telling Camila what not to do during the procedure. The most important thing was that she didn’t move because it could apparently paralyze her. Once they explained everything, they positioned her onto her side and started to serialize the area they were going to place the epidural. I held her hand on the opposite side so I wouldn’t be in the doctor’s way.

“How big is the needle, Jack?” Camila asked me and I glanced at it so I could answer her. It wasn’t a very big needle it was just super long, like uncomfortably long. I tried not to make any faces so I wouldn’t freak her out.

“It’s not big at all.” I said with a poker face and I could feel her hand kind of relax in mine.

The anesthesiologist told Camila to take a deep breath and when she did he started inserting the needle into her back. Her hand tensed back up in mine and she gritted her teeth together. I rubbed my thumb across her knuckles because I was afraid any other movement would cause problems. The needle and tube had to stay in her until after she gives birth.

The doctor came in a few minutes after the finished to check on her and he said she would be ready in about two more hours. They allowed everyone to come back into the room once they left. Cass and Rian wanted to see what the tube in Camila’s back looked like, but Alex and José kept their distance so they wouldn’t see anything that would make them feel sick.

“Just two more hours and you’ll be back to your normal self.” José told Camila and he kissed her on the forehead. It was actually pretty cute. It was going to be longer than two hours though. The doctor said she was going to be fully dilated in about two hours, and the actual process of giving birth was going to probably take hours also.

“You’ll be here with me the whole time right?” She asked him on the verge of tears.

He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Jack. Alex. When it’s time for me to give birth I want you all to leave. As soon as she’s born I’m going to ask the nurses to clean her and take her straight to you. I don’t want to see her or you guys ever again. I just want to forget this happened and move on with my life. I’ll be okay and I know you guys will be too.” Camila cried the entire time she told us this which caused Cass and I to start crying. It’s like we could feel the pain she felt giving away her first born.

“Okay we’ll do anything you want.” I told her as I wiped my eyes.

***

An hour and a half later Alex, Rian, Cass and I were in the waiting room. The nurses were in the room preparing Camila to give birth. I had transferred the money into José’s account so the only thing left to do was to wait for Izzy to be born. I told Camila and José thank you so many times and hugged them tightly before we left the room, since it was probably the last time we’d ever see them. Alex wished them good luck with where they were going and also thanked them.

Izzy was going to have to stay in the hospital for one or two days to make sure there were no serious complications. One nurse was setting up a room on the other end of the hall for us to use when Izzy was born. We could have all the family in one place and everyone would get to see and hold her. It was five am now and Rian and Alex were up moving around so they wouldn’t fall asleep and Cass and I were just staring at them. We all had bags under our eyes and we kept yawning every two seconds, but it would all be worth it in a few more minutes.

I couldn’t hear any noises coming out of Camila’s room so I didn’t know what was happening. I was staring at the door when it opened and I saw a nurse wheeling an incubation like thing down the hall to the nursery. I heard a high pitch noise that sounded like crying and my stomach filled up with butterflies. Another nurse came out of the room and walked over to us.

“She’s so beautiful.” She said and I and Alex’s faces lit up. “You all can follow me to your room and we’ll have your daughter there as soon as we clean her up so more and run a few test.”

The nurse took us to the room and left us alone. Rian and Cass sat on the couch in the room and Alex and I both sat up in the bed. I was shaking for anticipation and Alex put his arm around me and rubbed my back to try and get me to relax.

It felt like we wait for an eternity for the nurse to walk in. She opened the door with a bundle of pink blankets in her hands. I saw a tiny hand lift up from the blankets. “Are you ready to meet your daughter?” The nurse asked as she walked over and I nodded my head. She placed the Isabella into my arms and tears started to fall down my face. I looked down at my beautiful baby girl and she looked back at me with her big amber colored eyes. I could see parts of her hair sticking out of the pink beanie they put on her head, she looked like she had a full head of black hair. She was so wrinkled and her skin was a soft shade of pink, but I read that she would go to her natural color in a few days. Alex was next to me and he reached his finger over to her hand and she grabbed tightly it and wouldn’t let go.

“She’s a healthy happy baby. We cleaned her and ran all the test which came out perfectly. Also she might keep blinking a lot and that’s because we gave her a few eye drops to make sure she doesn’t get a bacterial infection, but we do that with every newborn. And she weighs five pounds and five ounces. We’re going to bring you a bottle with formula in a few minutes because she’s very hungry.” The nurse told us.

“Okay thank you so much!” I told her as she left the room.

I watched Alex as he was staring down at Izzy and she was staring back up at him. They were making eye contact for the longest time. I shifted my arms so I hand her to him. “Do you know how to hold her?” I asked him.

“I’m supposed to support her head right?” He asked nervously.

“Yep!” I said and I slowly and carefully handed her to him and helped him situate his arms so he was holding her right. She didn’t break eye contact with him the whole time we were moving her over. I texted my mom really quick to let her know everything was fine, but she was asleep because she didn’t text back.

“Hi baby!” Alex exclaimed when she was comfortable in his arms. Izzy made a noise and reached her hand out to the sound of his voice. She probably liked the sound of his voice, I mean who wouldn’t?

Rian was passed out sleep on the couch, but Cass was smiling at us from where she was sitting. “You guys make a cute little family.”

“Thanks!” I told her.

The nurse brought the bottle which was a good thing because Izzy started to become cranky because she’s hungry. Alex handed her back to me so I could feed her and the nurse had to stay and watch to make sure I knew how to do it right, which I did.

Soon after I finished, everyone started to doze off to sleep. I stayed up a little bit longer to burp Izzy and rock her to sleep. We all just need to sleep for a little while, it’s been a long night. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep and as soon as she did I laid her down in the temporary crib a nurse brought in for her. I laid down next to Alex in the hospital bed still facing the direction of Izzy’s crib and he rolled over and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed me behind my ear which caused the biggest smile to form on my face. This was the happiest I’d ever been.

Notes

Is anyone reading this anymore?

Title credit: Backseat Serenade