“So…what does it feel like when your water breaks?”
Lainey whips back, looking at the space between my legs and the floor. “Did your water break?”
“Yeah…Maybe. I think this morning.”
Lainey’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and she pulls out her phone. “Tell me when your next contraction starts.” She pulls Jenna’s phone from her purse and dials. “I’m calling Jim.”
“Oh my god,” I cry out, feeling the tears ready to fall. “I’m so dumb. How dumb am I to think that I was peeing when actually my water was breaking? I’m the dumbest nurse on the planet.”
“You’re not dumb,” Lainey says, reaching back to squeeze my knee. “It isn’t always a huge rush of liquid like in the movies, sometimes it’s a slow trickle. And it’s fairly clear, so in the shower it makes sense you didn’t think anything of it.”
“Okay,” I breathe out through pursed lips. “And what do you do when you have the urge to push?”
Both Jenna and Lainey whip their heads around to gawk at me. “Don’t push!” they scream in unison.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I get to deliver a baby!” Jenna shouts as she whips the blinker on and twists the wheel to pull over to the side of the road.
“Don’t you dare stop this car!” I scream at her. “Get me to the hospital right now!”
It’s then that Jenna slams on her breaks, but it’s too late.
We smash into the car in front of us, bodies lurching forward and falling back into the seat only to feel the impact of the car behind us whip our bodies forward again.
“Oh my god,” Lainey shouts, unbuckling her seat belt to crawl into the middle seat with me. “Oh my god, Meg, are you okay? Her hands go to my belly, then my face, thumbs gently lifting my eyelids to look at my pupils.
“I’m okay,” I groan, before another contraction ramps up and I grimace, clenching my teeth through the pain.
“I’m going to be the bitch that tells you to relax during contractions,” Lainey teases, grabbing my hand. “Breathe in with me, Meg. Look at me. Look. At. Me.” I finally peek an eye open, and Lainey gestures with her free hand to take a deep breath in, and push it out. I won’t admit it to her, but that does help with the pain. Barely.
“I’m okay, too, bitches. Thanks for asking,” Jenna says as she yanks the second row door open. “I know now is not quite the time, but I’d like to point out that the twenty some car pileup we are in the middle of was not my fault.”
“Are you okay?” Lainey now turns to ask Jenna, eyes scanning her body.
She waves her off. “I’m fine. We were going like ten miles an hour and my big ass suburban can handle a lot more than some piddly fender bender.” She turns to me, clapping her hands. “Alright, lemme see where we’re at.” Her hands reach for the hem of my sundress, gathering the fabric to pull it up over my knees.
“Jenna!” I squeal, pushing the fabric down between my legs. “Call an ambulance. Call my husband. I’m not giving birth in a fucking car on the side of the ro—” My words are cut off by another contraction, this one more painful than the last.
Lainey ushers my shoulders to the side and starts laying me down in the seat. “Breathe, Meg. I know you want to haveyour hospital bag, and your playlist, and special whatever-you-wanted, but your contractions are thirty seconds apart, this baby isn’t going to wait for that.”
“Oh!” Jenna raises her hand then climbs in the car with me, long limbs maneuvering over the second and third row of seats until she’s in the far back. “I have sheets that I was going to return to Target! I can grab those!”
The rustle of a plastic bag sounds, and Jenna grunts as she climbs back over the seats. “Lainey, hang up the phone and grab the bottle of water from the floor! We’re doing this!”
“I’m calling Ryan,” Lainey hisses at her.
“Why are you calling your husband? Call an ambulance. And someone call Jim, goddamnit!”
Lainey hangs up the phone and climbs back into the vehicle, kneeling at my side.
“What did Jim say?”
She sighs, grasping my hand. “Jim didn’t answer.”
I’m going to murder him.
My head falls back on the seat as tears well in my eyes.
“But I called Ryan, and Ryan is running downstairs to the ER right now to find Jim. I called an ambulance, but with the pileup, I’m not sure if they will be able to get to us right away.”
