Radiant Eclipse

It was the worst pain of my life. Why did I do this? "It's your fault!” I shouted at Johnny in between deep breaths and frantic pushing as he just laughed and shook his head at me, his left hand on my shoulder and the other on my exposed knee. “I want the drugs!” I hollered, four hours into delivery as my doctor, a man of about forty one with graying blond hair and blued eyes, sat the opposite end of the hospital bed and had his hands in a place no one's hands should be.

“We are too late in the delivery to do that, now, Miss Nelson,” he told me in a calm voice, like he wasn't bringing a new life into this world, but rather he was just watching Sunday night football with his buddies. Of course I got the dill-hole to be my doctor.

“I fell back on the bed and breathed heavily, my hair caked to my face in sweat that was hard earned and totally gross. I felt gross. Everything was wet and sticky and nasty, and the room felt like it was over ninety degrees. “Can we please take this friggin' sauna and turn it up to, oh I don't know, Alaska!” I screamed at the lazy nurses walking around the bed.

“No need to shout-” my doctor began.

I shot him a glare that ended his sentence as Johnny said, “hey! No one paid you to give advice. We're paying you to deliver our baby, and if Vickie here doesn't mind me saying it, I think she wants to tell you one little thing. You're not the woman here, ass wipe. So don't even try to tell her to calm down when her lower extremities are obviously in horrible pain and you've got it warm and cozy up in here.”

The doctor looked at Johnny like he was a moron, but didn't argue, and nodded at the scared looking nurse in the corner near the thermostat. She also didn't argue, but quickly turned the dial up in a frenzied manner.

Hours passed by painfully after that, as Johnny kissed my cheek and forehead constantly, reminding me often enough that after this he would pay for me to do whatever I wanted, making me giggle, which made me realize how bad it hurt. I just ended up crying again and again as I squeezed Johnny's hand as hard as I could, which didn't hurt him at all.

“Just give me a few good pushes, Miss Nelson, and this will be over-” Dr. Martin started, before he was cut off by a nurse whispering something to him, I looked at Johnny with wide eyes and fear written across my wrinkled forehead when he looked back at me. “We need you to lie down, Vickie, all the way down,” he said hurriedly as I followed his orders.

“What is it? What's wrong?” Johnny questioned.

“One of the babies has the chord around their neck,” the doctor rushed, as I felt myself hyperventilating.

“One?” Johnny asked in a cracked voice.

Dr. Martin smiled. “You're the father of triplets,” he explained as Johnny's eyes rolled back into his head and a nurse caught him on his fall backwards.

“Wuss,” I cried, as the doctor stuck his hand where I definitely didn't want it at a time like that, but I knew he was saving my baby as I calmed down. “Are they okay?” I wondered.

He smiled. “Now they are. One giant push for me, honey, okay?” he said.

“Not. Your. Honey-AHHHH!” I yelled, as I felt a shot of pain run throughout my body and torso. But the pain fell away as I heard a high-pitched cry, like the kind you were happy to hear in my situation. It was sweetly melodic, like the greatest song ever heard, and it was a noise that erased every mistake I'd ever made in the past. It blotted out everything wrong with my family's past, too, like white out on a screwed up term paper. All those nights of insomniac thoughts of what my point was, why I was here, it was for this moment. For the moments I'd forever be sharing with Johnny.

“It's a girl,” Dr. Martin told me, wrapping in a clean blanket after getting rid of all the gunk and mess from her small frame.

Nestled in my arms, her eyes closed as her pink lips opened to let out toothless cries, she held her small velvety hands out before her, and I brushed the dark hair on her head in one direction when her hands grabbed hold of my index finger. I was so caught off guard I gasped, then started crying when I realized Dr. Martin had to take her away in order to deliver the other two.

Oh sweet Jesus... was all I thought.

I gave several more heart felt pushes, and then I heard it again. Another cry that welcomed home another child that I would hold dear to my heart for the rest of my life. This time Dr. Martin introduced my child with, “A beautiful boy.”

At this time Johnny came to and after seeing the commotion, was handed our daughter to cut the umbilical cord, tears running down his face as I gave a last shove that felt like my whole body would just stop functioning altogether. That's when Dr. Martin said it: “Another boy. Congratulations, Miss Nelson, Mr. Seward. You're the proud parents of a trio now.”

One after another Johnny cut the cords and I waited as I listened to the cries of children being washed for the first time over running water in the adjacent bathroom. The nurse handed me the girl, all quieted and lavender-scented, a pink cap on her head and a pink blanket wrapped around her frail body. Johnny handed me the second son, with a bald head and tanner skin than the other two, while he nestled our youngest, wearing a green cap rather than the blue one his brother wore, and sporting black spiked hair.

That's when the nurse cleaned up the bed and the area quickly before allowing our families to enter. My father exploded through the door and just about fainted when he saw the triplets. Marcus, too. Johnny had a younger brother, roughly eighteen, who just said, “Holy shit,” with the consequence of his father smacking him in the back of the head and saying, “Where's your-Holy shit!”

We laughed as Johnny allowed his dad, a man about the same age as my father with black hair and green eyes, to hug him as tight as he could without touching the baby, kissing the infant's silent cheek and forehead.

“I need a picture of this,” my father laughed, holding up his camera as I giggled. Johnny positioned himself so that the triplets and us were in the picture perfectly. I looked at Johnny and kissed his lips.

“I love you, Johnny,” I said.

He smiled. “I've always loved you, Vickie.”