Bridget appeared beside me with the loaded syringe. Her expression was somewhere between apologetic and determined. "This is going to help move things along," she said, not bothering to sugarcoat it. "Your babies are being as stubborn as their mother. We need to give nature a nudge so I don’t have to cut them out of you."
The needle slid into my arm with surgical precision. I barely felt it over the tsunami of pain already coursing through my body. Within minutes, everything intensified. If labor had been brutal before, now it became something that would have made medieval torture masters take notes.
What followed redefined my understanding of pain. Labor was exactly what evolution had designed. Raw, primal, and utterly merciless. The injection Bridget had administered kicked my body into overdrive. Suddenly, the contractions were full-scale assaults that left me gasping and cursing every deity I could remember.
Bridget coached me through each contraction with gentle encouragement. "Breathe through it, not against it," she encouraged when I tried to hold my breath against the pain.
"Your body knows what it's doing, even if your brain is having a meltdown," Tarja said into my mind.
Between contractions, Bridget pressed her hands firmly against my swollen abdomen. Her fingers probed with the confidence of someone who'd done this countless times before."Melaina's sideways," she muttered, then began what felt like an aggressive massage from hell. Her hands pushed and manipulated my belly with surprising force, trying to coax my stubborn daughter into a better position.
"Why are you—ow, shit, Bridget!" I gasped as she applied pressure that made my ribs feel like they might crack.
"You’re familiar with external cephalic version," she reminded me without letting up. "Your babies are all tangled up in there like Christmas lights. And Melaina's decided to go transverse. We need her head down, or this gets a lot more complicated."
She worked with methodical determination. Her hands moved across my abdomen in practiced motions that felt like she was rearranging furniture inside me. Push here, press there, encourage this baby to shift while convincing that one to stop hogging the prime real estate. It was deeply uncomfortable on top of the already excruciating contractions. But, I felt movement. It was a reluctant, stubborn movement.
“It’s okay, little ones,” Tarja crooned to them.
Aidon held my hand and whispered encouragements that I couldn’t properly process. Something about strength and love and how proud he was. Honestly, I was more focused on not screaming loud enough to shatter more windows. We had enough broken.
The babies fought every step of the way. They didn't want to leave the womb. They'd already learned that walls meant safety and the outside world meant predators. Time became meaningless. Minutes stretched into eternities that were punctuated only by Bridget's increasingly urgent instructions.
Just when I thought it was never going to end, everything started happening faster. "There we go," Bridget said with satisfaction as one final, particularly aggressive manipulation sent shockwaves through my entire torso. "Melaina's finallycooperating. She’s head down and ready to make her grand entrance."
"Come on, Melaina," I panted as I felt my daughter finally starting to move down the birth canal, her heat blazing a trail that made every nerve ending sing with fire. "Come meet your family. We're not going to let anything hurt you."
The pressure was indescribable, yet familiar from when I had my first two babies. It was all that was the same. I felt every inch of her descent. The burn and stretch made me understand why women used to die doing this. My vision blurred as another contraction seized me, and I bore down with everything I had left.
"I can see her head," Bridget announced, her voice tight with concentration. "One more push, Phoebe. Give me everything."
I screamed. It wasn’t the polite, movie-style groan, but a sound that came from someplace primal and desperate. Something gave way with a sensation like tearing silk. And then Melaina was sliding free in a rush of fluid and relief so intense I nearly passed out.
She emerged in a blaze of golden light hot enough to make the air dance. Her tiny fists were glowing with power that could have lit up a small city. The temperature in the room spiked twenty degrees in an instant. But the moment Bridget placed her on my chest, something shifted. The wild heat gentled to warmth, and for the first time in months, I felt something other than terror flowing through our connection. Pure, uncomplicated love.
"There's my brave girl," I whispered, tears streaming down my face as Melaina's golden eyes found mine. "You're safe now. Mama's got you."
But the moment was brutally short-lived. Another contraction hit, reminding me we were nowhere near done.
"Nana," Bridget called urgently, already moving to prepare for the next arrival. "Take her."
My grandmother had been next to the bed, encouraging me the entire time. She immediately scooped Melaina from my chest. "Well, aren't you a little firecracker," she cooed to the baby, then shot me a look that was pure sass. "One down, two to go, sweetheart. Try not to burn down the house before we're finished."
I would have sassed her back, but I had to concentrate on pushing again already. Thaniel came next. Where Melaina had blazed her way into the world, he fought for every breath. The contractions felt different this time. They were sharper, more jagged. Like my body was trying to expel lightning. When he finally slipped free. I saw why. He was smaller than his sister. His tiny chest was working overtime as electricity danced across his pale skin.
The air around him crackled with raw power, turning sharp with the scent of ozone and making my hair stand on end. But it was his breathing—or lack thereof—that made my blood turn to ice. It was coming in shallow, stuttering gasps that didn't sound like they were bringing in enough air.
"Bridget," I started, panic creeping into my voice.
"I've got him," she said. As a seasoned nurse, I could hear the concern she was trying to hide. Her hands moved over his tiny form with practiced efficiency. She used the suction to clear his airway, which stimulated his reflexes. "Come on, little one. Work with me here."
Aidon and I held our breaths as we watched and prayed. It seemed like it took forever but was likely less than a minute. When he finally took a proper breath, the relief knocked me flat. Blue sparks cascaded across his skin like captured starlight. When his eyes opened—eyes like summer lightning, brilliantand wild—my heart stopped and restarted in a rhythm that matched his irregular breathing.
"Hey there, little man," I breathed. My voice broke as Mom carefully placed him in my arms for just a moment. "Welcome to the world. You gave Mama quite a scare there."
He made a sound—not quite a cry, more like the whisper of wind through power lines—and I felt tears I didn't know I was holding back spill over. He was so small, so fragile.
"Alright, sweetheart," Mom said gently, taking him back as another contraction seized me. "One more to go."
