Patrick

Chapter 11

The very day of her birthday was the day she started to feel the pains. She had told her husband and those close to her that she hoped that her son would not come on her birthday because she refused to share the day with anyone else. Doctor Whittingham had warned them that she was very near to her delivery date, so her bag was packed and she was ready.

Patrick had been planning to ask the chef to prepare a special dinner for her for that evening and something told him to stay close to home so he had been planning to go to the office early and come back in the afternoon, but very early in the morning, he had heard her turning restlessly in bed and had woke up to find her eyes wide open.

“Hey.” He switched on the bedside lamp and looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I think our son is being totally disobedient and is determined to share my birthday,” she said with a faint smile. He felt a shiver of alarm as her facial expression changed and she reached out to grip his hand tightly.

“Breathe,” he pleaded using his other hand to reach for the phone to call the doctor.

Carrie took a deep breath and exhaled waiting out the pain. It had been coming on and off since a little after they had turned in for the night, but she had wanted to wait until it had gotten a little unbearable.

“We are going in,” he told her quietly, searching her face.

She nodded as she let him help her off the bed. “I will call Mother and let them know that it is time.”

They were halfway down the stairs when another bout of pain hit her causing her to stop and cling to him! He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see his parents there. “Go and get the car around, son. We will walk with her down,” William told him.

He hesitated and then with a nod let go of her hand but not before squeezing it. William took one of her hands and Linda took the other and helped her down the stairs. It was too early for the household staff to be on the duty, and the house was very quiet except for the wind whistling in the trees outside.

The car was waiting and the ignition running as he ran out and made sure she was buckled inside. “We will meet you there,” his father told them.

Carrie tried to stem the cries coming from her lips as he drove barely within the speed limits to get her to the doctor. He swore as she moaned in distress beside him. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and sighed in relief as the path that led to Doctor Whittingham’s medical complex came into the view. The place was ablaze with lights and an intern as well as a nurse was outside waiting with a wheelchair.

He helped her into it and they wheeled her in. Doctor Whittingham was suited up and ready for them. “Just put her in the room, please.” He gestured into a room that said maternity ward.

“I am going in,” Patrick told him, hardly able to tear his gaze from his wife as she was wheeled into the room.

“Mabel will give you something to put on,” the doctor said with a nod. “I have to go and give your wife something for the pain.”

“Please,” Patrick said tersely as he turned to go with the nurse.

But it was going to prove to be a very long process. She was given an epidural in her spine which helped with the pain, but the doctor told them that because her cervix was so narrow and she was not fully dilated that it was taking longer than expected. “I am going to ask you not to push until I tell you to, Carrie, because your water has not yet broken,” he told her after the examination. “How do you feel?”

“As if I have a baby inside me,” she said at an attempt at a joke.

“That’s good,” he said with a laugh. “Keep your spirits up. I will step outside and let the grandparents know that we have quite a way to go.”

“How are you really?” Patrick asked her, holding her hand tightly.

“A little tired but raring to go.” She brought their joined hands up to her lips and kissed his tenderly. “You know what my worst fear was when I thought about having a child?”

“That you would not lose the weight?” he teased her.

“Thanks for putting that image inside my head,” she chided him. “It was actually that I would get pregnant and the father would not be there and I would end up like one of those baby mamas you would see on the talk shows distressing about child support and the worthless men they got involved with.”

“I hope I am not one of those,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling in amusement.

“Absolutely not.” she told him impishly. “You happen to be stinking rich, so it makes it hard for you not to support your child.”

“You are forgetting something,” he told her softly.

“What is that?”

“It so happens that I am so in love with the baby’s mother that I would not dream of leaving her to face handling our child all by herself. And I happen to be scared of her a little bit.”

“Scared?” She snorted as she looked at him. She blinked back the tears and her hand tightened inside his. “That I cannot believe.”

“Tears, darling?” he whispered as he wiped them away.

“Happy ones.” She reached out a hand to touch him on his jaw. “I love you, my husband.”