Worth the Wait

He was late, then again, its Benedict, the man is perpetually late, how he ever manages to be on time escapes me. But today, of all days, he had the worst timing ever. Of course, its not his fault the baby decided to come early, it seemed as though she had his bad timing, at least she wasn’t late though…she just happened to be two weeks early and Ben was now rushing to get to the hospital from Cardiff. Thankfully his parents had come to stay with him while he was away, just in case I needed something. Wanda had taken to cleaning the house and Timothy took over anything else that had to be done and I appreciated it more than they would ever know. I had woken up this morning, my back hurting, as it so often did these days, then as I rolled myself out of bed I found myself doubled over in pain. I had shouted for both of my in-laws and thankfully it didn’t take them anytime at all to get to me, Timothy beating Wanda to the room by mere moments. Wanda figured out what was happening before I even had the chance to assume that I might be in labour and within five minutes had me dressed, and was leading me down to their car while Timothy carried my bag, that Ben had made me pick weeks ago, and locked up the house.

By the time we reached the hospital both myself and Wanda had tried to call Ben multiple times, with neither of us having any luck, this meant that he was most likely on set and had his phone off so we left multiple messages telling him to call and the last message told him just to meet us at the hospital. As a last resort I called Amanda, if anyone could pass on the message to Ben it was her, she always had her phone on, even when shooting, just in case the babysitter needed to get in contact with her. She had answered on the second try and I could hear her shouting for Ben to get his ass in a car and on his way home. It normally takes just over two and a half hours to get from Cardiff to London and he should have arrived twenty minutes ago, of course that is assuming he hadn’t gone to the house first, which if I know him like I know I do its likely that he did. If he didn’t hurry up though he was going to miss it completely.

When we’d arrived I had been 7cm dilated, since I had failed to progress at all, the only changes being that my water had broken and I was in more pain than I’d ever experienced in all my life. The doctor was now talking about performing a cesarean because of the lack of progress. I really didn’t want that, but if the doctor thought it needed to be done then I was more than willing to listen but I wanted to wait until Ben arrived, knowing that the man has wanted children for years, if he were to miss the birth he’d never forgive himself. If he didn’t hurry up though I wouldn’t have a choice. I just want my husband here. As another contraction started I rolled myself on the side, breathing deeply, trying to get through it. Wanda looked at me with sympathy, knowing exactly what it was I was going through, as Timothy paced back and forth. “Dad, could you please sit down, you’re making me nervous.” He really was, he hadn’t stopped since we got here, once in a while he sat for a minute or two before starting again. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll sit.” I tried not to laugh at the poor man; he didn’t know what to do.

I sat up when Doctor Brighton walked into the room. He made Timothy leave before once again checking to see if I’d progressed or not. it was one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world and I was more than happy when he pulled away from me and placed the sheet back over me. “Well my dear, I think we should get you into an operating room, you haven’t progressed at all and I’m not comfortable waiting any longer. I desperately wanted to wait for Ben, I needed him here with me but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. “Okay, if that’s what you think we should do, can I have my mother in law in there with me? Since my husband isn’t here yet?” If I couldn’t have the Ben, I’d at least want the next best thing and she was just as comforting as Ben was. He nodded and left to get ready to perform the surgery, nurses made their way into the room, preparing to move me. Wanda had been let back into the room and I explained what was happen. “You’ll be fine dear, they know exactly what they’re doing and just think of it this way, you don’t have to push out a bowling ball sized human now.” Wanda always knew what to say, she had voiced exactly what was on my mind, it was hard for one not to be nervous when dealing with surgery when its only your life, but when there is the potential for a loss of both, even though it was routine. It’s a scary thing surgery.