“I DIDN’T MEAN TELL THE BABY! I MEANT, TELL THE DOCTORS!” Isabella bellows.
“Right, of course,” he whispers fearfully.
“We think the baby is coming now,” I say urgently into the phone. “But apparently it’s not supposed to be happening this quickly.”
“Every birth is different. Do you have a clean towel?” the calm woman echoes on the other end of the phone.
Quick as a flash, Ryan whips off his tux jacket and holds it ready.
“We have a tux jacket,” I respond, helping Isabella to balance.
“You need to ask the driver to pull over and put on the hazard lights,” she instructs.
I repeat the instruction and he says, “We’re in the middle of standstill traffic!” before putting on the hazard lights and opening his car door. I watch out the window as he starts yelling, “Is anyone in this traffic jam a doctor?” at the top of his lungs.
“Oh my god, the baby is coming!” Isabella shrieks. “Ryan, I can feel its head! ITS HEAD IS COMING!”
“I’m ready, Isabella,” Ryan says, holding his dinner jacket under her legs and looking at her with an encouraging smile. He suddenly doesn’t look panicked at all, as though a switch has gone off in his brain and he knows he needs to step up. “Don’t worry, we can do this. We’re right here with you. You can do this! Keep breathing. You’re doing brilliantly.”
Her eyes fixed on his, she nods.
“An ambulance is on its way to you,” the caller promises as I tell her the head is coming out. “It will be with you any minute. She needs to push.”
“Isabella, you need to push,” I inform her.
“NO SHIT.”
“That’s it, Isabella,” Ryan says in this steady, calm voice that’sso convincing. He’s making me feel much better, too, as though he might actually know what he’s doing. “Big push, you can do it. It’s going to be okay.”
I hear sirens in the distance as Isabella howls, gripping my hand until my fingers no longer have any feeling left in them. Ryan has positioned his jacket right underneath her, ready for the baby to come, so when the woman on the phone tells me to make sure the baby won’t fall on the floor, I can assure her that we have that covered.
“More pushing, Isabella, you’re doing so brilliantly,” Ryan says, a great big smile on his face.
“You’ve got this, another push, you can do it,” I say, Ryan nodding along.
Above Isabella’s groans, I hear the cabdriver yell, “It’s here! The ambulance is here! Cars are parting to let them through! Why didn’t you do that for us when I was saying we were having a baby, eh? You load ofwankers!”
“Almost there, Isabella, almost there!” Ryan says soothingly, and I watch in disbelief as after a few more pushes from Isabella, he wraps his jacket around a baby whose cries pierce the air and send a wave of relief through all of us. As he passes the baby to her to hold on her chest, the door behind swings open and paramedics appear.
“It’s a boy,” Ryan whispers.
Tears are streaming down all three of our faces. Ryan and I tell Isabella that we have to step out to let the paramedics into the cab and, as the fresh air hits my damp cheeks, I notice the driver is also crying, beaming down through the window at the little baby. Other drivers have gotten out of their cars and are squinting at us to see what’s happening, the blue lights of the ambulance flashing across their faces.
Ryan and I look at each other, big dopey smiles on our faces.
“I can’t believe that just happened. Ryan, you were… incredible. I would hug you, but you are covered in blood.”
He laughs, looking down at his shirt. “This is going to be a fun story to tell the dry cleaners.”
“You delivered a baby,” I whisper in amazement.
“It was a team effort. You were so great with her, Harper, she really trusts you.”
As a paramedic steps out of the cab to speak to his colleague, I ask him if everything is okay.
“Everything is great. You did really well; well done. We’re going to get them both to the hospital now. We can take one of you with us if you’d like? I think she wants you there.”
“You go,” Ryan says, gesturing to his shirt.
