Damn, Irina had never seen that firsthand and it did not look like it felt good. In the videos she’d watched with Knox, they’d described it as a whole-body hug. But a whole-body hug sounded nice, and that did not look nice.
“It’s not a good thing if she can’t move through the contractions,” Irina said softly to Knox. “She’s not talking through them either.”
She may not remember a ton of the birth guide stuff, but she did remember that part.
“Yeah.” Knox eyed the woman, pulling his bottom lip to his teeth. “I’d say we’re entering the transition stage.” He held his hand up as he said, “Uh… Grace?”
“Right here.” Grace headed toward them from the first-class galley with an oversized first aid kit in one hand and a mobile defibrillator in the other.
“I haven’t examined her yet, but…” Knox huddled with Grace and Irina. “I think they should land the plane.”
Grace shook her head. “There’s no way. There’s weather below us, and the pilot’s saying it’s safest for everyone if we go to Denver.”
“Shit,” Knox frowned. Then something resolved in him. “Looks like we’re doing this.”
An odd Cinderella fairy-godfather transformation took hold of him, and he wasn’t the keyboardist in a super-famous rock band anymore. He also wasn’t the guy marrying the girl for publicity.
He was a man in control of a situation, divvying out orders.
Irina helped make a semi-bed out of one row of first-class seats with blankets and pillows, then did her best to get Mom comfortable even as they hit some serious turbulence and she whacked her forehead against the overhead compartment. Irina, not the pregnant mom.
“You’ve got extra oxygen?” Knox asked Grace, keeping his voice calm like he was actually in an emergency and knew what to do.
Irina had a solid hope that this was the case, but she also had seen Knox do the splits onstage during the song “Mouthplay.” And once he’d left to pee in the middle of Tanner’s drum solo.
“Irina.” Knox said her name and cut through her memories of him onstage. “Do the birth guide stuff like we practiced for Courtney.”
She could do that. It had to be like muscle memory. Somewhere in her brain were instructions for being a birth guide.
Irina hadn’t actually had any official birth guide training, but she’d watched enough videos with Knox that she understood how the breathing thing worked. They decided that was probably what a birth guide should focus on. But then Courtney had her baby in the hospital, and she let that knowledge seep out of her brain.
But she did know how to breathe, and count. She did it every day.I can do this.
Look, if Knox was certain he could deliver a baby at the other end, she could count and breathe at the top end.
“I’m Irina,” she said, bending over the back of the seat, holding Mom’s hand through the space between them. “What’s your name?”
“Cathy,” Mom answered, doing the he-he-hoo breathing thing that Irina had practiced. This was good news because it meant that Mom actually knew more of what she was doing than Irina.
They finished the introductions between a couple of breathing exercises, until a whopper of a contraction took hold and Cathy’s face tightened up and turned red.
“You’ve got to breathe,” Irina squeezed her hand back. “In. Out.”Breathe. “In. Out.”Breathe. “Baby needs your oxygen.”
Birth guiding was like riding a bike, she slipped right back into it.
“How far along is she?” Knox asked the guy who came up with Cathy. “Prenatal care is up to date? How’s her blood pressure? Any spots in her vision?”
Irina didn’t hear the rest of the answers, keeping her focus on Mom and breathing. Any questionsshemight ask quickly dissolved on her tongue, because Cathy was presently trying to break her fingers with that grasp of hers.
“I think the baby’s coming.” Cathy adjusted her position. “Likenow. Right now. Somebody catch my baby.”
“Okay. Nobody panic, I know what to do.” Knox introduced himself as he gloved up, shared his qualifications—showing his five-dollar EMT card again—and asked if he could remove her pants. He did all of this with a straight face and actual authority. Which was why Cathy and her guy helped Knox get her undressed from the waist down.
Irina had never questioned Knox’s ability to get a woman naked, but this timetable had to be a record for even him.
Knox shifted Cathy’s hips and a rush of fluid drenched the blanket. This is the part where Irina focused on Cathy’s face, because while she may have done an acting job once that involved playing a birth guide, she wasn’t really into the whole messy, below-the-waist miracle of birth.
Body fluids as part of any miracle were just not her thing.
