At 9:47 in the morning, Dr. Griffin returned and declared Beth fully dilated.
“It's time,” she announced. “Are you ready to push?”
Ready seemed like a strange word. Beth did not feel ready. She felt exhausted and overwhelmed and slightly delirious from hours of pain. But she also felt something else, a fierce determination that rose up from somewhere deep inside her.
“I'm ready,” she said.
The next part happened quickly and slowly all at once. Nurses appeared, transforming the room into a delivery suite. Maggie moved to stand beside Beth's head, her hand gripping her daughter's shoulder. Gabriel took his position on the other side, his face pale but determined.
“On the next contraction, I want you to push,” Dr. Griffin instructed. “Bear down hard and push for ten seconds. Then rest. We'll do it again and again until this baby is out.”
“Okay.” Beth gripped the rails of the bed. “Okay.”
The contraction came, a wave of pressure so intense it stole her breath. She pushed, bearing down with everything she had, feeling her body strain toward a single purpose.
“Good!” the doctor called. “Again!”
She pushed and pushed and pushed. Time lost all meaning. There was only the next contraction, the next push, the next moment of effort. Gabriel counted for her, his voice steady even when his hands shook. Maggie whispered encouragement, her words a lifeline in the chaos.
And then, suddenly, there was a cry.
A thin, wavering sound that cut through everything else. Beth looked up, gasping, and saw Dr. Griffin holding a baby. A small, red, screaming baby.
“It's a girl,” the doctor announced. “Your daughter is here.”
A girl. Charlotte. Charlotte Victoria Walker.
Beth reached for her, her arms shaking, and someone placed the baby on her chest. She was so small. So impossibly small. Her face was scrunched and red, her tiny fists clenched, her mouth open in a cry that was the most beautiful sound Beth had ever heard.
“Hi,” Beth whispered, tears streaming down her face. “Hi, Charlotte. I'm your mom.”
Gabriel cried too, his face pressed against Beth's hair, his hand gently touching the baby's back.
“She's perfect,” he said. “She's absolutely perfect.”
But there was no time to rest. The second baby was coming.
Dr. Griffin passed Charlotte to a waiting nurse and positioned herself again. “Okay, Beth. One more time. Are you ready?”
Beth didn’t feel ready. She felt wrung out, empty, like she had given everything she had. But she looked at Gabriel, at her mother, at the tiny bundle the nurse was wrapping in a blanket, and she found something she didn't know she had left.
“Ready,” she said.
This time was faster. Or maybe it just felt faster because she knew what to expect. The contractions came, and she pushed, and the pressure built toward an impossible crescendo.
And then another cry. Another baby. Another miracle.
“A boy,” Dr. Griffin announced. “Your son is here.”
Alexander. Alexander Thomas Walker.
They placed him on Beth's chest beside his sister, two small bodies curled together, their cries harmonizing into a sound that was chaos and beauty and life itself.
Beth looked at her babies, at these two tiny people who had been growing inside her for nine months, who were now here, in the world, breathing and crying and real. She felt Gabriel's arms around her, heard her mother's soft sobs, felt the weight of love so intense it seemed like it might break her open.
“They're here,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “They're really here.”
Gabriel kissed her forehead, her cheek, her lips. “You did it. You are an incredible, amazing woman, Beth Walker.”
