If and Only

If an Only

January 31, 1510

Katherine's labor is progressing slowly. It is her first, and no one, not even her, expected it to be easy. A nursemaid wipes the collection of sweat building on her brow. The room smells like an apothecary's dream but all she can focus on is the pain. The excruciating pain of bringing a child into life. She feels as though she being torn open from the waist down. All she wants is her mother. She feels the sensation to push, just as midwife told her. She bends her knees under the thick covers and blankets of her bed. One of the maids pulls back the covers at the end of the bed to check her progression of her labor, and she wants to scream that she knows it's time to push and wants to push.

Push...push...push. She moves herself up on her elbows, begging and hoping that it was time. "Your Majesty, it is time." Thank you, God. Her nurses bring her out of bed to the groaning chair, and this situation becomes more realized to her. The danger she was in; the danger the child in her belly was in. She roughly fall into the chair and widens her legs as a maid gets between them, ready to catch the heir that resides within her body. She bears down and that sensation of being torn apart only intensifies. The harsh pain her mother and her sister had gone through stays at the forefront of her mind; the pain Henry's mother, and even grandmother, is at the forefront of her mind. How did they do this? Think of the prize at the end.
"Push down, milady," one of the midwives said, "Just push down". Katherine gripped the arms of the chair and push down. Down, down, down. A nurse wipes the sweat from her forehead with cool water as she keeps pushing. She pauses to catch her breath during the relaxation of her muscles, and then pushed down on the next contraction. She pushed, she pushed, and then finally she felt something fall from her and the pain was over.

The nurses wrapped as wiped off the child as it began to wail loudly. Katherine was so relived to hear the cry and she slumped in the chair. "The babe? What is it?"

"A girl, Majesty," the nurse says nervously, aware that girls weren't always accepted immediately as a boy due to the matters of succession.

"A beautiful girl," Katherine says, still catching her breath from her labors. "A precious jewel." She held her hands out. "Let me see her. Please. Please allow me to see my daughter." The nurse wrapped up the child and walked carefully to the chair and handed the baby to Katherine. She held the baby in he arms, trying to soothe it and was in awe as the baby calmed. She held the baby's hand while holding the child in her arms. Ten fingers, ten toes. "A Tudor rose." She kissed the baby's forehead. "A precious Tudor rose."

January 1st, 1511

—

Her next pregnancy was smooth uneventful. There was no fear that she might have lost the child early in the beginning and fear that her belly was no longer full. She goes into labor the night right before the end of the year. She thinks of her first child, her daughter, and her husband, the king, as she lies in the bed. She hasn't seen them since her confinement. She hasn't see anyone but her team of nurses and midwives during her confinement. It was relieving to see the people she considered friends. She still wished her mother was here to help her, guide her through this pain. How in God's name did she do this so much and so often? This time she recognized when it was time for the baby was ready to be introduced to the world. "Quickly, help me to the chair." She throws her thick covers off of her then reaches out to one of the women in the room. "I know this time. It's time for him to join the world." She didn't know for sure it was a boy; she only hoped. They needed a boy, to secure the line. Conversely, though, her mother, a woman, secure Castille and was a warrior woman. Women weren't fragile little flowers and unable to defend themselves. But Henry wanted a boy, and she loved Henry. She wanted to give him what he wanted. If that was a boy to secure a Tudor line, then she must have a boy.