And I Thought I Loved You Then

Chapter One: The Waiting Game

DECEMBER 23rd, 2013

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, and folks dressed up as Eskimos…”

Sidney jerked awake as the familiar Christmas song, accompanied by the grating whistling from the janitor sweeping the floors outside of the private hospital room, tore him out of a peaceful, yet unsatisfactory sleep. His brown eyes swept around the room, his mind struggling to orientate itself as it took in the birthing suite’s surroundings.

Located on the fourth floor of Magee Women’s Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the spacious and brightly decorated room was more welcoming and attractive than most hotels he visited on the road. Sky blue walls, white wainscoting and pale grey carpeting in the ‘living area’ of the suite, along with a natural wood entertainment unit that hosted a plasma television and DVD player across from the slate grey faux suede couch that he’d stretched out on earlier with the promise of just resting his eyes.

And that was…

Blinking sleep out of his burning, weary eyes, he cast a glance down at the watch that took up residence on his left wrist.

Two and a half hours ago.

Groaning loudly, Sid ran his hands over his unshaven face before placing them behind his head and staring up at the ceiling. They’d been there, in that exact suite that assured them privacy from the prying eyes of other patients and members of the general public, for nearly twelve hours. It had been half a day of pacing and relentless worrying. Of making phone calls home to tell his visiting parents and sister -who’d come down from Nova Scotia just two days before to spend Christmas holidays with their son and his family- that nothing had changed and the nurses and doctors were unsure of when any action would take place. That while things had slowed down, the cramping and the spotting that had occurred at home and sent them scrambling to the hospital the evening before had been enough of a scare to secure a permanent spot up on L and D.

“Frosty the Snowman, was a jolly, happy soul…”

Propping himself up on his elbows, Sid’s annoyed stare burrowed through the closed door. The nursing staff, who had decorated the front desk with a small, colourfully lit and decorated tree and silver and blue tinsel, had also been playing Christmas music on a portable stereo since they had first been shown to their room. They’d been given a slight reprieve when the clock had hit ten and the lights had been dimmed on the ward and patients had bedded down. Save for those in private rooms or expectant fathers assisting their significant others through the various stages of delivery.

The music was getting on his nerves. It was the same CD of twenty songs. Over and over again. And he was half tempted, in his irritable and tired state, to march down to the desk, snatch the damn CD out of the player, drop it on the ground and smash it into a million and one pieces.

Sighing heavily, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and brought a hand up to the back of his neck. Grimacing as pain shot through his shoulders and down his back , his fingers working at kneading away the tension. The couch wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. And he certainly hadn’t planned on making it his bed for the past two and a half hours. But lack of sleep over the past two weeks -worrying about his wife’s health at the last stages of what had been a high risk pregnancy, the impending birth of his first biological child mixed in with being away from home on a road trip- had finally taken it’s hold on him. Two weeks away from the estimated due date, he’d returned home anxious for both sleep, and a chance to spend some time with his family.

The scare the night before, when Autumn had complained about intense cramping and had discovered the bleeding, had rattled him. As had witnessing her in a near blind panic when she’d frantically shook him out of a sound sleep with tears streaming down her face, her entire body trembling and a pleading, agonized tone to her voice. She’d always been the high strung one in the relationship. The one who allowed their emotions to take complete control and who often panicked at even the smallest of things. But seeing her like that…it had terrified him. And a thousand and one horrific thoughts had been steam rolling through his mind during the drive to the hospital. A normally twenty five minute trip that had stretched into two hours thanks to the inches of snow that blanketed the city and the ferocious winds and relentless blizzard. The pain had thankfully subsided before they’d even reached the end of their street, but had been replaced by contractions and what Autumn had declared, the worst back labour she’d ever felt in her entire life.

The doctors had given the all clear, yet they’d been sent up to the ward and she’d been hooked up to a foetal monitor to be on the safe side. The near constant presence of the nurses had, over the hours, slowed to a trickle when both dilating and contractions had dropped off considerably. From midnight on, Autumn had remained at seven centimetres, and her OB had decided it things hadn’t progressed considerably by ten in the morning, it was as he said, “Time to bring out the big guns” in form of medication to speed things up. If that didn’t work, the last resort was a c-section. And after eight and a half months wrought with illness, complications and hospital stays, the sooner the whole ordeal was over, the better.

Issuing another sigh, Sid ran his hands over his face and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes in an effort to wake himself up further. Swinging his legs over the side of couch, he stood up and yawned noisily, then stretched until his back and shoulders cracked before heading across the room. Six short steps saw him departing the homey atmosphere of the living area and entering the ‘business’ side of things. Where his wife of two and a half years rested comfortably on her right hand side in the hospital bed, her face turned towards the window.

Autumn’s waist length chestnut hair shimmered against the stark white pillowcase and sheets, and while her long, dark eyelashes fell softly on her pale cheeks, there was a peaceful, angelic smile curving her lips. With no makeup gracing her features and the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose on full display, she appeared years younger than a woman set to turn thirty-one in a matter of four months. And as her chest rose and fell with each steady breath she took, her left hand, an IV taped firmly in place on the top, rested protectively on her pregnant stomach.

While Autumn - a former social worker at the children’s hospital located in the same medical centre where they now waited for the arrival of their first child together- had come into his life unexpectedly and had transformed it beyond his wildest dreams, she had been anything but an easy ‘conquest’. Put off by their five year age difference and the overwhelming and monotonous attention that followed him everywhere, it had taken three months of friendship and numerous attempts at asking her out before she finally agreed to a date.

“And just one,” she’d stressed. “Because anything more wouldn’t be a good idea. No matter what we’re feeling for each other. The two of us? We just wouldn’t work.”

A private person, while she had been admittedly attracted to him, she had had no desire to launch herself and her then seven year old son Ryan into the public spotlight. And even after embarking on a relationship, the scrutiny from some of his team mates, friends, family and members of the general public had been too much for her to bear. She had finally crumbled after reading some of the nasty, horrific things that were being said about her and her son on the internet by who she referred to as ‘insane, obsessive, delusional fan girls’ and had walked away from him. Leaving them both lonely and miserable for nearly half a year.

He’d come back to Pittsburgh from his summer off, determined to achieve two things in his personal life. The first was to get her back at any cost. The second was to learn how to properly balance a relationship and his career. While she had always been good at accepting that she’d never be first, and probably not even second or third in his life, he had readily admitted that she had deserved so much more than what he’d been willing to give her. He’d been immature and relatively inexperienced when it came to commitment. And a lot of soul searching over a two months period had made him realized how empty his life was without her in it. And that she’d been the first woman he’d met since he began his career that didn’t want or expect a free ride from him and who accepted that long term absences came with being his girlfriend. That was rare. And he knew that if he didn’t pull his head out of his ass and at least try to get her back, he’d spend the rest of his life dwelling on what if’s.

Things had moved relatively quickly after they’d gotten back together. They were living together by that November and engaged that New Years Eve. At the end of the summer of 2011, they’d returned to Pittsburgh husband and wife after exchanging vows in a quaint ceremony in Halifax attended by only ten people. Starting a family had proven to be their hardest challenge. Although Sid had legally adopted Ryan, he and Autumn had wanted nothing more than to have kids of their own. He wanted a big family. His mother had been one of eight kids and he would have been perfectly happy with at least half a dozen. Autumn had looked at him as if he was insane when he’d made that particular announcement on their honeymoon. Four was her limit, she’d said. Take it or leave it.

Three miscarriages in a year had nearly devastated them. And in the late spring of 2013, just when the doctors had suggested that she was incapable of carrying to term and they try their hand at either surrogacy or adoption, Autumn had come up pregnant again. There and then they decided that if they were lucky enough to carry to term, it would be their own and only child together. She was getting her tubes tied and they’d turn to adoption if they wanted to expand their family any further.

Under the watchful eye on one of the best obstetricians in the state and through strict limitations put on her activity, the pregnancy had somehow, despite several scary moments, made it.

Now, it was all a matter of getting the kid out of there. A baby girl that they’d decided to name Sydney Patricia, a feminine take off on his own name. And who had a the most impossibly pink nursery done in a Hello Kitty theme at their Sewickley, Pennsylvania home. The big joke now, other than the betting pools going on between his team mates over what the baby would weigh and if he’d faint in the delivery room or not, was that they were all going to be in for the shock of their lives when the kid popped out and proved to be a boy. The worlds biggest, male Hello Kitty fan right from birth.

Walking around the side of the bed, Sid slipped his feet into a pair of well worn yellow Crocs he’d sat in front of the night stand earlier, then reached out and ran a gentle hand over the top of his wife’s head. Smoothing the hair away from her face, he leaned over her sleeping form and placed tender kiss to her forehead before grabbing a half empty bottle of water from the bedside table and walking over to the window. Uncapping the plastic bottle in his hands, he drank down its remains, grimacing at the foul, lukewarm taste before reaching out with his left hand to peel back the edge of the insulated curtains and peek outside.

Behind him, Sid heard the rustling of sheets, accompanied by a soft, dreamy sigh that was soon followed by his wife’s voice. Sounding tired and more than a little uncomfortable.

“Is it still snowing outside?” she asked.

“It’s Armageddon out there,” he replied. “No one is getting out in this. Looks like it’s just going to be me and you, babe. You’ve got me all to yourself.”

“Wow…for the last four years, I’ve gone nearly ten months out of every year waiting for you to say those words. And when you finally do say them in December? I’m too fat and bitchy to allow my body to follow my mind into the gutter.”

“Pregnant,” Sid corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“My waist line tells me fat and pregnant are the same thing. I’ll be so very happy when I can see my own feet again. And tie my own shoes. And get into the bathtub on my own.”

“I thought you liked having me as your personal slave,” he teased, as tossed the empty plastic bottle in the direction of the trash can in the corner. A frown covering his face as his shot missed by a few inches and the bottle fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Personal sex slave,” she informed him, watching as he journeyed over to pick up the bottle that had skidded underneath her bed. “Two totally different things.”

“Gotcha…”

“And with a three point shot like that, the reason is apparent why you’re NHL and not NBA.”

“You’re a comedienne,” he grumbled, and finally snatching the offending object up off of the floor, successfully tossed it into the trash.

“You didn’t marry me for my sense of humour,” Autumn declared, then winced and rubbed her stomach in slow, smooth circles as a particularly vicious kick caught her near the navel. “And speaking of a sense of humour…it’s a good thing you have one ‘cause those Crocs…”

“They’re good for my knees,” Sid reasoned. “And I’m not the one with the neon pink ones at home.”

“But yellow? You couldn’t have picked black?”

“I need some kind of cheeriness considering I’m spending my life with you,” he teased, then leaned down to kiss her softly.

“You’re lucky you’re so cute, you know. Otherwise I’d be slipping the nurse a Benjamin to throw those things out when you’re not looking. And since when are your knees hurting you?”

“They’re not. But better to be safe than sorry, right? And my back is killing me. I fell asleep on the couch. Totally uncomfortable.”

“Oh you’re uncomfortable,” she took a deep breath, and releasing it slowly, carefully rolled over onto her back. “Next time, how about you carry the baby and I’ll hold your hand.”

“Next time?” Sid arched an eyebrow as he slipped into the bed beside her. “I thought I was never allowed to sleep in the same bedroom with you again? Or come within a five foot radius?”

“You didn’t really expect me to have the willpower to follow those rules, did you?” she snorted.

“Autumn…you have no willpower when it comes to me. Which explains why we are in the predicament we’re in now.”

“The predicament we’re in?” she laughed. “Okay…and what is going on with this child?” she frowned down at her stomach. “What is wrong with your daughter? Why doesn’t she want to come out? It’s been twelve hours, Sidney. And she doesn’t want to budge.”

“Well,” he fought to keep a straight face as the explanation, a direct quote from Friends, immediately popped into his head. “…maybe it’s because you made such a good home for her she doesn’t want to come out.

“Now is not the time to go all Joey Tribbiani on me!” Autumn cried.

He gave a sheepish grin and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulled her tight against his side. “It was Ross, actually.”

Autumn gave an exasperated sigh. “You know why this is happening, don’t you? Why your daughter is being like this?”

“I love how when you’re all tired and hormonal it’s just my daughter.”

“She’s like this because you have strong genes! Because you passed down everything evil and nasty! Because you, from your own father’s mouth and my own experience, are the most stubborn, hard headed man on the planet! She’s just like you!”

“Good…that means she’ll be devastatingly gorgeous.”

“Oh that’s it!” Autumn laughed, then winced as another flurry of activity erupted in her belly. “See? You’re getting her all upset. But insinuating you’re the good looking one in this relationship. Hurting her mommy’s feelings like that.”

“Hey…if anything I’m putting myself down. Because it means if she gets my looks and you’re brains, I’m technically saying I’m the stupid one.”

Her eyes were narrowed as she regarded him. “Nice try…” she grumbled, then laid the side of her head against his.

“Soon…” he promised, stroking her shoulder reassuringly and turning his face towards her to press a kiss to her temple. “It’ll be over soon.”

“Not in time for Christmas though,” she remarked.

“We’ll have to celebrate after Christmas. But my folks are with Ryan and they’ll make sure that Santa doesn’t forget about him. And we both know how the sunrises and sets on grandma and grandpa as far as he’s concerned. Especially grandpa. Everything will be okay, Autumn. Don’t worry about all of that. Just worry about you and the baby.”

“Give your daughter a talking to,” she ordered. “Get in practice now for when she’s thirteen and wants to wear make up and miniskirts and brings home her first boyfriend.”

His eyes widened. “Thirteen? Hell now. We’ve already discussed this. Sydney and I. I already told her no boyfriends until she’s thirty.”

“You know what’s going to happen when she hits puberty?” Autumn asked with a giggle. “Your dad will move in with us permanently and buy you matching shot guns so you two can sit out on the front porch and wait all night for her to come home.”

“Never mind shot guns, landmines on the front lawn.”

“Okay…now you’re just…” she gasped loudly as a ferocious contraction ripped through her, and closing her eyes, gripped the front of his grey t-shirt tightly. “…now you’re just inciting her. Causing her to reek havoc on my insides…”

“Maybe it’s a sign,” Sid said hopefully, and laying a hand on his wife’s stomach, attempted to soothe the pain away. “She’s getting impatient. And in that case, she’s your daughter.”

“Let’s just each accept a mutual responsibility and call a truce,” Autumn suggested. “We both had the fun, let’s both take the blame.”

“Deal,” he agreed, and pressing a kiss to her temple, rested his chin on the top of her head and closed his eyes. “Feeling better?” he asked.

Autumn nodded.

“Doctor will be here soon to check on you.”

“I know…” she sighed, and closed her eyes as well when the pain finally subsided. “Let’s just…let’s just sit here. I need to feel…I need to feel safe. And you’re the only one that’s ever made me feel that way.”

“Nothing’s ever going to happen to you,” he told her, and tightened his grip on her.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, after several minutes of silence passed. “Are you thinking about how far we still have to go?”

“Actually…” he pecked the top of her head. “I’m thinking about how far we’ve actually come.”