Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“That’s good Riviana, that’s really good. Give me another good push on the next contraction alright.” Griffin was coaching her as well, and I felt my heart pounding. I wanted to be there for my wife too.
I walked to my Little Bunny’s side and took her hand. I wanted to provide her with my strength as much as possible.
“You’re doing great, sweetheart.” I kissed her knuckles as she looked up at me with a smile. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Here comes another contraction.” The nurse said as she watched the monitors. “Come on now, big push Riviana.”
I tried. I really did. I didn’t want to admit to being squeamish, which normally I am not, but I couldn’t handle the sounds of her being in pain, and I stupidly looked at my baby’s head pushing its way out of her once more.
“GGRRRAAHHH!” She groaned and screamed as she pushed.
“That’s it, come on.” The nurse was pushing up on her leg as she encouraged her, and Griffin was helping to guide the baby out of her.
The sounds, that was what was getting to me. The screams of her pain, the squelching noises as the baby moved out of her, the conflicting tones of voices from Riviana and the nurse. It was all too much. I almost bolted again. I actually had my hand on the door this time before I stopped myself. I couldn’t leave. I knew I couldn’t leave her.
I rushed back to her side as soon as I could. I grabbed my wife’s hand once more and smiled at her with what I knew probably looked more like a grimace. I knew she was going to laugh at me about this soon enough. This was going to become a famous family story, I just knew it.
“One more big push, Riviana. One more and the baby should be out.” Griffin was grinning, and the nurse was preparing her for one more push.
“Come on Riviana, let’s give it all you got. You can help her too, Dad, grab her leg and bring it up for her so she can bear down easier. Don’t be so lazy over there.”
I glared at her. I was not lazy. I was a good dad and a good husband. She will see. I was going to help her, I wasn’t going to run away at all. This time, when the contraction came, and the nurse told her to push, I stayed by my wife’s side and didn’t run away at all. Even though I really, really wanted to.
“That’s it Riviana. Keep going. Bear down. Come on. That’s it.” The nurse was saying the same words over and over again, but I don’t think Riviana was even hearing it. I watched her face, red from the effort of pushing while also pale from the pain and covered in sweat. She was going through so much. Why had I been so stupid? Why had I tried to run away while she was going through so much?
While I was thinking about all of this, about all that my wife was doing, it all seemed to end. Well, this first part of it did anyway. Riviana flopped back on the bed with a relieved sigh and Griffin started talking really fast in a really happy voice.
“That was perfect, Riviana. Just amazing. Baby number one is here, and it’s a boy.”
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Joaquin
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“That was perfect, Riviana. Just amazing. Baby number one is here, and it’s a boy.” The words were replaying over and over inside of my head. I know what he said was true because that was why we were here, but it just made things ten times more real to me. I was a father, and Griffin was holding my son in his arms.
“How is he?” Riviana was panting, still trying to catch her breath from the effort she had exerted to birth our first child. “Is he alright?” I could understand why she was nervous. We hadn’t heard him cry yet.
Weren’t babies supposed to cry when they were first born? Wasn’t that the way it went? Babies came into the world crying. That was what we had all been led to believe. So why wasn’t our baby crying yet?
I held Riviana close to me then, nerves coursing through both of us. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. Riviana had said the only thing that I would have been capable of saying at that moment.
“He’s fine.” Griffin smiled at us. “He just needs to be cleaned up, that’s all.” We watched as he handed the baby off to a nurse and then went back to work on Riviana.
“What are you doing now?” I asked him, surprised as she was massaging my wife’s abdomen.
“I am checking on baby number two’s position and making sure that she is alright. We just need to wait until she is ready to make her grand entrance now.”
“Oh.” I admit I was only half listening to him as I had also been paying attention to the nurse across the room from us. She had taken our baby and was doing whatever needed to be done.
“Joaquin.” Riviana clutched at the sleeve of the scrubs I was wearing. “Go check on him, please.” The tone of her voice and the look in her eyes told me that she was worried about our baby.
“OK, I will be right back.” I squeezed her hand and kissed her temple before leaving her.
I walked slowly across the room, each step feeling like it was taking me forever to complete. I was about to see my baby, my son, for the first time. I had seen something small and pink in Griffin’s arms but I hadn’t seen my baby clear enough. Now though, I was about to see what he really looked like.
Laying there on a white cloth with his arms and legs flailing was my baby. His little face was scrunched up, and his eyes were closed. It looked like he wanted to scream, but there was a tube in his mouth. That scared me, I immediately thought there was something wrong with him. But I heard a suction noise then and saw a lot of fluid moving out of my son’s mouth. The nurse was clearing his airway.
As soon as enough of the fluids were removed, I heard a strangled cry come from my son’s tiny little mouth. He was angry. Apparently, he didn’t like that tube at all. Now that he was crying, and obviously breathing on his own, I saw that he was turning a more normal color. I hadn’t even realized that he was pale and bluish at first, I just saw him and the tube.
Now that I was looking closer at him and what he looked like I saw that he was still covered in fluids. There was blood and other amniotic or pregnancy related fluids all over him. Now that he was crying though, the nurse had taken the cloth and was vigorously wiping him off. I just stood there and watched the whole process.
The nurse cleaned him up most of the way, then proceeded to weigh him. My son seemed to weigh just shy of two thousand five hundred grams, or about five and a half pounds. It was smaller than I was expecting given the typical size of babies born in the pack, but he was a twin so that seemed good to me I guess.
She measured him next, holding one of his legs in place so that she could see how long he was. That was another surprise. Given how little he weighed I didn’t think he was going to be very tall, but he was twenty-two inches tall already. Such a big boy, he was already taking after his daddy. I couldn’t help but think that as I smiled at him.
“NGH!” I heard Riviana cry out in pain, and I felt conflicted. I wanted to be at her side, but I wanted to stay there, looking at my son some more.
“Go be with your wife for right now, I will give him his first bath after everything is done, and when the next baby is here you can hold him.” The nurse smiled at me after noticing my hesitation. I nodded at her, happy to have someone help me make the decision for me.
When I rushed back to my Little Bunny’s side, I saw that she was in pain once more. Her brow was creased in pain and she looked even more exhausted than she did before.
“I’m here for you, baby. I’m here for you.” I kissed her cheek when I crouched by her.