Sage froze. “Braxton Hicks?”
The pain was intense, so intense that I couldn’t speak for a moment.
“Maybe?” I said, breaking out in a sweat. I’d been getting a lot of these false labor belly tightening things over the past month, but that one was … different.
She stood, rushing around the cabin and into the adjoining nursery room I’d created. “We are going to pretend labor has started anyway, okay? I don’t want your water breaking on the mattress pad.”
She was right. We’d talked about the birthing plan, and we both agreed we should try to keep the beds from irreversible damage, as there was no replacing them.
“Okay, but I think it’s another false alarm.” I’d had a lot of those this week.
Moving to stand and make my way into the adjoining room that Sage had prepared as a birthing room, I was racked with another painful contraction mid-stride.
Okay … this was more than the fake contractions I’d been having all week. I rush-waddled into the room to find Sage laying out the deer skin suede on top of the clay bricks I’d fired. I’d finally mastered the art of firing clay in a deep hole inside the earth. I just dug a hole, put the pots or bricks inside that I had shaped from the natural clay mud, and then shoved a bunch of twigs and dried grasses in there and lit them.
It worked! This was a game changer. Sage even made the baby a little clay rattle with stones inside; it was adorable.
“I think it might be the real thing,” I told her just as wetness trickled down my legs. I froze, looking down at the clear fluid dripping to the floor.
Looking up, I met Sage’s panicked gaze. “Okay, it’s go time! I’m gonna boil water and wash my hands.”
Holy crap.
Okay … it was time. After all these months of preparing, I was about to have a baby out in the woods with no pain meds.
“Remember all those movies you told me about that had the women on their hands and knees?” Sage asked.
I nodded, slipping free of my giant loose dress and sitting naked and cross-legged on the floor. Sage and I had seen each other naked a hundred times; this was going to be no big deal.
“I think you should try that, on all fours, and then sitting or rocking might help the baby come out?”
Being on my back with all this belly weight pressing down on me was hard anyway, so that was a good idea.
“Maybe I should shower,” I called out into the house as Sage had disappeared. “What if there is bacteria on my legs and it gets on the baby?”
“Okay, I’ll boil extra water, but I’ll need to go to the artesian spring tomorrow to get more, because I don’t want to leave you right now,” she called back.
And she couldn’t go to the spring alone, or a tree, or elk, or whatever, would try to kill her. But I didn’t say that.
“Okaaaaahhhhh…” A contraction hit me mid-sentence and a growl ripped from my throat.
Motherfucker, this hurt way worse than I thought it would. How had this happened so fast? Didn’t women labor for like hours? I mean, I was having that rock hard belly and cramping all day, but that hadn’t been labor, right?
“I feel like I have to poop!” I yelled, and Sage rushed into the room wide-eyed.
Her hands were scrubbed clean and dripping wet. “Are you sure, or are you going to go poop outside and a baby is going to pop out?”
My eyes widened at the thought.
“Oh God, don’t scare meeeahhhh!” Another contraction hit me and the urge to poop or push consumed me.
“Screw the shower, Sage, I think the baby is coming,” I said through gritted teeth.
Sage ran forward as I popped onto all fours and she positioned herself behind me like she was going to catch a football. “Ohmygod, I see some brown baby head hair!” Sage screamed.
Shock ripped through me at that. “How is this happening so fast?” I asked, before another contraction hit. When I yelled, Sage told me to push.
I did, and my entire vagina felt like it split open. Red hot pain sliced between my legs so fast I felt like I was going to pass out.
