LITMIR.BIZ

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for the contraction to diminish, then positioned the fetoscope to get an initial heart rate. She delivered babies at the local hospital, not in their clinic, and electronic fetal monitoring wasn’t available here.

      “Oh, and call for standby ambulance transportation,” she added. After the birth, both mother and child would need to be admitted to the local hospital for observation. René bent her head and concentrated on timing the strong and steady beats. One hundred and thirty beats a minute. Good.

      René stared into Claire’s stressed-out green eyes, sending her calming thoughts. Only thirty seconds later another contraction mounted, and perspiration formed around Claire’s honey-colored hairline. René continued listening for abnormal deceleration of the baby’s heart rate with the contraction, and was relieved to find a normal variation. Only a ten-beat dip.

      Jason lurched back into the room with the IV supplies, and when his hands proved too shaky to stick his own wife, Jon stepped in and started the IV as Jason titrated a tiny amount of morphine into the line to help ease Claire’s pain in between the contractions. She didn’t want Claire too relaxed when it came time to push; the baby could come out floppy instead of vigorously crying.

      The labor went on for another hour and a half, when René felt the rigid beginnings of a massive contraction. Now fully effaced and dilated, Claire had moved into transition.

      “Push,” René said.

      Though Claire seemed exhausted, she gave her all. This time the head fully crowned. When the next contraction rode in on the tail end of the first, René continued her encouragement. “Use the contraction, Claire,” René said. “Push!”

      Jon hovered at René’s side. “I’ll get a basin for the afterbirth,” he said. “Are you going to need to do an episiotomy?”

      “Don’t think so, but get a small surgical kit for me just in case.” She intended to do her part to slow down the passage of the head to avoid any tissue tear.

      Jon dashed out of the room as if he were the expectant father, and when he returned, René put him to work tracking the baby’s heart rate through the fetoscope so she could concentrate on the birth. Not only was he fascinated with the listening device—typical of him—he was most likely figuring out a way to make a better one.

      All was well, but the contractions came so quickly and hard that Claire didn’t have time to relax in between. Wringing with sweat, she looked exhausted, ready to give up. Along came another contraction.

      “Bear down, Claire! Push! Push!” René urged, as she cupped the baby’s head in her hands and moved it downward as Claire pushed with everything she had. Her legs trembled and she let fly words René hadn’t heard since the last Lakers basketball game she’d attended.

      She slipped the umbilical cord free of the baby’s face, and assisted as first the head, then one shoulder and then the other, slipped out. No sooner had the mouth cleared the birth canal, than the baby cried.

      Obviously relieved after delivering the hardest part—the head—Claire wept.

      René glanced up long enough to see tears fill Jason’s eyes. “Oh, my God,” he said. The room went blurry for her, too, but she couldn’t dwell on the swell of emotion taking over; she had a baby to finish delivering.

      The baby slipped out, and René skillfully caught him, as she’d done so many times over her career, but this one felt more special than all the rest. It was her partner and friend’s baby. This infant sent her dreaming of birthing her own baby, of daring to hope she’d get the chance.

      “It’s a beautiful boy,” she said, wiping the baby’s mouth and face with the warm and soft blanket that her new assistant, Jon, had handed her. He gave her another. After a quick check of the perfect little body, she wrapped the baby up as if the most precious thing in the world, and Jon produced a syringe bulb to suction the baby’s mouth and nose. He’d thought of everything. Had he thought of his answer yet?

      The baby continued to make a healthy wail, music to her mother-longing ears. René laid the newborn on Claire’s stomach, and pressed to feel for another contraction, then prepared for the afterbirth. Jon held the large stainless-steel basin in readiness.

      Jason hovered over Claire and the baby, as they laughed and cried together. René was too busy to hear everything they said, but knew love had been mentioned several times. And the name Jason James Rogers, Junior.

      She glanced at Jon and saw the familiar look of wonder that new life always evoked. He met her gaze and held it, adding a smile. Could he read her thoughts, her desires? His short-cropped salt-and-pepper-brown hair had always made his eyes look intense, but she’d never seen that fiery excitement there before. Did he understand how she felt? How every cell in her body cried out for the chance to be a mother?

      New life. Nothing compared with the wonder. Especially if the newborn belongs to you. Jon glanced back at the happy family, and she prayed they might perform a silent miracle on her behalf.

      Jason kissed Claire’s forehead, as a distant siren rent the air. René could practically palpate their bonding. There was something about a baby that changed everything, that turned lovers into a family, and sealed a bond outsiders could never fathom. She’d seen it countless times, but this time it plunged straight into her heart.

      Her chest clenched and ached for what she longed for, for the answer she depended on to provide the portal to her dreams. She couldn’t look at him again for fear she’d beg him to say yes.

      “You want to do the honors?” She’d double clamped the umbilical cord and held it with gauze, handing Jason sterile scissors from the suturing pack. For a general practitioner, he looked apprehensive. She gave him an encouraging wink. When he’d finished, she applied the plastic clip on the baby’s end of the cord and smiled at the squirming newborn—healthy and strong, though small and a good three weeks premature by her calculations. Babies were nothing short of a miracle; she’d been convinced of that since her first delivery.

      There went that clutch in her chest again, the one that made it hard to breathe. She couldn’t look at Jon, but felt his gaze on her.

      “Congratulations, man,” Jon said to Jason. Memories of his wife giving birth flashed before his eyes. Nothing had awed him more, or given him greater satisfaction, than seeing his daughters brought into the world.

      He didn’t have to look at René to know what she was going through; she’d thoroughly explained her deep hunger for motherhood to him last night. How must it feel to deliver babies for everyone else, and at the end of the day still be alone?

      Jason grinned so hard his eyes almost disappeared. Claire patted his hand and welcomed the baby to her chest with the other. From the corner of his eye, Jon watched René’s reverent gaze as a pang twisted in his gut. He couldn’t take it. Couldn’t take the feeling or the implication a simple answer of yes would bring, so he bent to gather the soiled towels and stuff them into the exam room hamper.

      The air was too thick with yearning and he’d never been the kind of guy to make dreams come true, just ask his wife. He needed to change the mood. “Do we get paid overtime for this?”

      Not usually one to make light, his joke made everyone blurt a relieved laugh. Combined with Claire and Jason’s euphoria, joy filled the room from every angle, and against his better judgment, the feel-good rush fueled a growing desire to grant his coworker her biggest wish. He couldn’t let it influence him. His decision would be made the same way he made all of his medical determinations, based on logic and common sense. Nothing less.

      René looked at him, the makeshift assistant, while the lovebirds and new baby continued bonding. Her expression had changed, as if she understood how much pressure she’d put on him, and how unfairly the perfect timing of this birth had played in her favor. A warm smile appeared on her face, as if the sun had cracked through thunderclouds. How could he not smile back?

      “You’re not bad for a novice,” she said.

      So she’d opted to keep it light,

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