NOTHING BUT A BAD TASTE. (✓)

27. EPILOGUE

( unedited )

MAYA FELT A ROCKET OF WETNESS shoot out between her thighs, and looked at Ebén with horror. Baby Girl Cástro was a least two weeks early—and whilst Maya had been reassured that she could storm into this world at any time, it never crossed her mind that she would be this early. She was hoping that she had a few more weeks—to get her shit together.

But Baby Girl Cástro decided today she was going to flip the agenda and enter the world on her terms.

Maya's eyes were raddled but she didn't show it, as she sat beneath the liquid, trying to coach her body to breathe through each tug on her uterus. In that very moment, sex didn't seem so appealing if this was the end result. Every point of her body felt like a flaming forest fire, and her short burst of breaths were only making her huff more. She needed something strong enough for her to blank out but knew the worst was yet to come.

This was just the tip of the iceberg.

Contrastingly, Ebén was not operating with a cool head—running helter skelter, trying to locate Maya's hospital bag that she had packed and then repacked as a result of her nesting. Anything hospital-related he saw, he flung and stuffed it into the overloaded hospital bag—not wanting a situation to arise where they ended up at the hospital without the very thing they were supposed to have.

He heard Maya roar like a buffoon from the distance, so much so, that it almost scared him. "EBEEEN!"

"I'm here, baby. I'm here," Ebén came dashing in—dropping the stuffed bags to the floor, and met his wife on his knees. Sweat had pooled her forehead, and she was panting like she had no air left inside her airway. "What do you need? Tell me what you need,"

Her nails dug hard into his forearm, "I need my uterus back. This... baby is about to rip me into two." She felt another wave of contractions—harder than the last, and was spread out against Ebén's arms on all fours, trying to breath through each wave.

"Let me tell Rhodes to call your doula."

Just as Ebén was about to get up, Maya thwarted him by biting the inside of his left bicep to keep him planted, "Don't you dare leave me. Please." The bite was not strong enough to cause a mark to show, but desperate times truly called for desperate measures.

"I'll just be a sec, Bonita."

"Ebén. UUGRRH, please." She felt something hard pressed against her uterus, this time—it felt like a stomp, and not a pull. Her eyes rolled back, and not in the same way they did when Ebén and his manhood sheathed in latex were strapped inside her, "I don't think this baby can wait, Eb."

"Wait... as in, she's...?"

"I can feel her head in between my legs. I... think I need to push," breathed Maya, rolling her hips in a circular motion to reduce the compression she was experiencing at the top and bottom bit of her uterus.

Ebén gripped Maya's waist from behind—clearly panicked, but was doing his best to shield it from Maya. If he had had all the time in the world, he would've wait for the doctor, for the doula, for somebody else with a bit more experience to coach them through it. But he didn't have time.

He just had now.

He pooled together towels he had haggardly stuffed in her hospital bag—now redundant, and lay them in front of Maya to allow for a safe landing. He scooted on his knees, directly facing the ejection site. Right now, he felt squirmish but he could see the tip of her head—and it was that which hurled him into action.

"Baby. I can see her head. Think you're gonna need to push for me now," His hands acted as stirrups for her legs, watching for any movement of her head.

Maya's lips were pursed tight as she attempted a push which felt like she was moving a boulder rock, "I can't, Ebén. I'm tired. I'm so tired,"

"Baby. You can do this, I know you can." His fingers weaved with her hands, offering Maya an assurance that she wasn't pushing alone and in vein. Ebén was here—to coach her through it. It now seemed that all those episodes of Greys Anatomy that they had spent watching; now seemed to pay dividends.

Maya's temples bulged as she released another push that felt more forceful than the last but not so much. She yelped to the high heavens, as she pushed and pushed—she could now feel her shoulders.

"Almost there, baby. Push, push, push." Ebén coached, Maya was just mere millimetres away from meeting their baby and all she needed was one final push and Baby Girl Cástro would be there.

And that she did, with all her might—she pushed and heard the sound of a thunderous baby wail.

"You did it, Mamas. You did it," Ebén cried, clutching this tiny, 7 lb baby girl in his hands that epitomised everything that was beautiful about life and love.

Maya sink for a moment and let herself breath, taking the reality of what she had just done. She was a wife, a mother—somebody's mother, building life with the love of her life. There was truly nothing sweeter than this. After taking a pair of scissors to cut her umbilical cord, Ebén brought Baby Girl Cástro swaddled in cotton to Maya, to take in the life she just created.

"I'm goin' to love you forever," Maya sobbed—staring back at her tiny human who suckled her mouth. "Now, we gotta come up with a name for her."

"Sierra Ines Cástro," said Ebén—having settled on the name for a good while.

"I absolutely love it."

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

You really thought I was about to leave you before givin' you one final chapter. No way! This book has been a joy to write ( both the first and the second ). I've truly enjoyed reading all your comments about Ebén and Maya and hope you've enjoyed the story as a whole.

This is me signing out—love y'all millions.