I Knew It From The First Time

"Are you kidding? I'm going to need more than this." Jack smirks to himself, holding up an entire roll of toilet paper. Cass insisted that we at least play some games at the shower and since I was the only one with a baby belly, I got pinned with the game where you guess how many sheets of toilet paper it takes to wrap around me.

Alex nudges Jack. "Take some and pass it over."

Jack takes half the roll, much more than needed, laughs and hands it over to Alex who looks at me in sympathy and gets a considerably smaller amount to make me feel a little better about the size I was. I waddle to the other side of the room where pink and blue cupcakes sit, stuffing one into my mouth.

"How many more are on the agenda?" I ask, rubbing my temple.

"Well so far you've made it past the Nursery Rhymes game and the baby food tasting. Currently the Toilet Paper game and upcoming -" Cassadee pauses, checking her clipboard and glancing over at the bouncer where Delilah is quietly sitting next to Rian, "Baby trivia, Baby Relay, you know the one with the strollers, and the Binky Toss."

I groan. "Can we do presents and then continue with games? My feet are blowing up from all the standing."

Cassadee steals another look at Delilah and then over at the piles of presents in the corner. "After Baby Trivia, okay? You can sit for that one."

"Deal." I sigh as Cassadee collects what's left of the toilet paper and I stand in the center of the room as person after person wraps toilet paper around my stomach. I wasn't in the mood, what with my contractions kicking my ass and my baby kicking my side, but for Cassadee's sake, I pulled it together.

"I have this one in the bag, Jamie." Jack winks as he holds out his long strip of toilet paper.

"Hurry up, you jackass." I smile at him.

Jack is in the process of looping the roll around my left side when I hear it, when I feel it. Pop. That was what it sounded like. Just 'Pop'. And then a warm trickle down my leg. And then another noise. This time from Alex who gave a small gasp and pushed the chair over from standing too quickly. I looked down at my soaken legs and the front of my new turquoise dress.

"Oh my God." I blush. "I think... I think I just peed my pants."

Cassadee shakes her hand and runs toward me, pushing Jack aside. "No, no, nothing like that. Jamie, your water broke."

"What?" I put my hands below my stomach. "No, I don't even... But... I feel..."

"Does this mean I won?" Jack asks, still limply holding the paper in his hands and smiling.

"Oh my God. Move." Alex leaps over the table dramatically and looks at me, gripping my hands. "Do you feel okay?"

"I just said that, didn't I?" I look around, everyone's faces in awe. Why am I so calm? "We can wait it out. Finish the shower I mean. This type of thing takes hours right?"

Cassadee snorts. "You say that now."

"I don't want to ruin the party, Cass." I mumble.

She smiles delicately at me. "No worries, come on now. Alex will take you to the car and rest of us will meet you there. Jade, do you mind cleaning up a bit?"

Jade nods, staring at the puddle beneath me, terrified. I take that as a 'yeah, sure, I can stay'.

Alex grips my arm and begins walking us toward the car, helping me into the passenger seat, and yelling instruction to Rian, Zack, and Matt. Something about bringing the bag packed by the door and sorting the presents later. I couldn't hear him over the sound of myself trying to breathe through a sudden and sharp contraction.

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"Well, well, well." Dr. Shane snaps a glove onto her hand. "Sooner rather than later, huh?"

"A bit." I groan, rolling over. "Don't I get something for this?"

"The pain?" She asks.

Alex looks at me, rubbing his hands through his hair and then stroking my own hair from my face. "We were doing well for about an hour and then it was just sort of sudden."

Dr. Shane pats my leg, insisting I lift them so she can feel the dilation. "I can't give you much now Jamie, but give it just three more centimeters and we'll get right onto that epidural."

I groan in response. And pain. Mostly pain. Rian gives a concerned look to Cassadee, but she just pats his chest in comfort.

"This is all very normal. No reason to be concerned. Some women are just prone to a painful and hard labor, but once you push through these next few centimeters, you'll be walking down Easy Street."

With that, she leaves and promises to check back in an hour. The boys come prepared this time with things to do, but it's obvious that being in the room with me is taking a toll on their board game strategies and TV shows. Alex constantly smooths out the blanket laying lightly over me, pushes my hair from my eyes, runs for ice chips, massages my back, whispers sweet things in my ear. None of them help.

"It's alright, love. Just a little while longer, okay?" Alex whispers, kissing my neck.

"This isn't supposed to happen. We have two more weeks." I grimace.

Alex stays quiet for a minute. "It's going to work out."

But I can tell from the tone in his voice that he's scared, maybe more than I am, but he's better at putting up a front. I grip his hand tighter and lean up to kiss him. He gently reaches over the bed so I don't have to lean forward and places his lips onto mine.

"I love you. So much." He says lightly with our noses brushing as Jack mumbles something in the background about 'be careful or we'll have another one'.

"I love you too." I smile and the baby kicks a little in agreement.

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*14 hours later*

At this point, I have not stopped crying. I was trying, trying so hard, to keep it in, but then I gave in. Everyone sat looking concerned, taking turns now, running errands and getting food and nurses and pulling blankets from the gift shop, just so Alex could stay with me. And the tears were forcing their way down my cheeks as small little sobs escaped my throat.

"Shh. Shh. Shh." Alex kept whispering. And I knew it was sweet of him, but I just wanted everything to stop. The noise and the crying and most of all the pain. Why wasn't I there yet? Why was it 14 hours and I was stuck at 6 centimeters, even after the medicine that meant to speed this process up.

Dr. Shane enters the room with Flyzik and Jade by her side. She gives me a concerned look and checks the monitors.

"Okay, honey, I'm going to check just once more. Hopefully you've gotten that extra centimeter down." She bites her lip, sharing a habit of mine, and shakes her head. She looks up at Alex, as if he is more capable than me of hearing this right now.

"What is it? Is she seven?" He asks rapidly.

Dr. Shane shakes her head and I close my eyes so tight it hurts as another sob pours out of me. "No."

"What does that mean?" Jack asks the question on everyone's mind.

"We're going to have to pull an emergency C-Section here." She shakes her head and swallows. "Now, I don't want to scare you, but this could mean that the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck. But even if this isn't the case, the baby may be stuck in the birth canal, which is, well, not good either. We're going to begin prep immediately."

Alex shuts his eyes and licks his lips. "Okay. Okay."

"We're going to be okay right? Right?" I look up at Alex and begin to panic, looking toward Cassadee. "Right?"

"Yes, you'll be just fine." She nods, but I can see through it. I lay back in the bed and watch as Alex stays still as a statue, staring at the wall until Dr. Shane returns, scrubs in hand with an entourage of nurses yelling orders.

Someone puts my hair up in a cap and Alex dresses quickly in what they have handed him, mumbling over and over again. And before I have time to collect myself, I am being wheeled out of the room into a different one, brightly lit, as Alex runs alongside the bed, holding my hand and looking hard at the doctor.

A sheet is pulled up between myself and the doctor and a hard amount of pressure is put onto my stomach.

"What's going on? Alex?" He turns away quickly and looks me in the eyes.

"You're okay, alright?" He keeps staring at me and I wish he could pull down his mask and smile. "You're okay, love."

"The cord is wrapped around his neck!" Dr. Shane yells. "Clamp! Clamp!"

"What?!" I scream and try to sit up, but Alex holds my shoulders down gently.

"No, baby, please, stay put, okay?" But tears are slipping down from his eyes and Alex, Alex does not cry.

"Oh my God, oh my God, no." I lay back and just start to bawl as Dr. Shane yells different things out.

"Okay! Okay! Here he is!" And over the sheet I see her lift him up, but it is so sudden and she rushes him away so fast that I don't see him after all.

"What's wrong?" Alex says it to himself at first and then louder. "What's wrong?!"

Dr. Shane doesn't take her eyes off of what she is doing on the other side of the room. "He's not breathing."

Alex's grip tightens on my hand and my heart stops. Neither of us move.

"Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on, little one. You can do this. Take a breath. Breathe, little one." She begs the baby to give us something. "Come on!"

After what seems like a century, she turns toward Alex and I, with tears streaming down her face. And I know what she is going to say. Alex takes his mask off.

"Don't. Please." He begs, as if this will help. As if this is going to draw a breath from him.

"I-" She begins. But then, just as she is about to apologize, it happens and all the air rushes through me again - a wailing cry is heard from across the room. She turns quickly and attends to the baby. "Yes! He's breathing! He's breathing!"

Dr. Shane cleans him off a little and places him on the blanket in front of me. Alex kisses my forehead and he is crying now harder than I have ever known he could, taking in long breaths and kissing my forehead as well as the baby's.

"I love you. I love you. I love you." He keeps saying.

"Hi there, hey baby." I smile and stroke his small cheek.

"That's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard." Alex chokes as the baby continues to cry. "You're beautiful."

And it was true. He was beautiful. He already looked like Alex. He had a head full of hair, light brown and every bit of Alex's features. Even when his face was scrunched into a crying hysterical one, you could see that the mouth, the nose, the dimples, they were all there. But he had my eyes. If there was anything he possessed from me, it was those eyes.

"Six pounds, three ounces. 18 inches. He's a tall guy. Ten fingers and ten toes." Dr. Shane smiles.
"I'm going to take him back now, just for a moment. I need to make sure he's alright. He did give us a bit of a scare, after all."

Alex follows her over to the small glass-like bed where she runs small tests on the baby and gives him various shots. He smiles the entire time, nodding as Dr. Shane calls out good results. When she is finished, she wraps him into a blanket and tucks a beanie onto his head, handing him to Alex, who brings the baby back over to me.

"Have you got a name for this little guy?" One of the nurses asks as she stitches me up. The baby has stopped crying and he stares up into Alex's face. Alex glances at me.

He smiles at me and I think about it. We had just decided what was now yesterday morning, before the baby shower, while in bed. We lay there and looked over the list. Throwing out new ones and giggling and arguing slightly.

"Liam. Liam is my favorite." He grinned, propping himself up to lean on his arm and look at me.

"I already gave you Jackson as a middle name, Alex! I get first choice in first names." I argued.

"Liam means strong willed! That's perfect! And it just sounds good, Liam Jackson Gaskarth. It's perfect." He sighed.

"I don't know." I joked. "I really like unique names, for example, I've been thinking of Jalex. Your fans seem to love it enough, why not name a baby after it?"

"That's not funny!" He yells, but he holds his laughter back. "Don't even joke about that one!"

"Jalex Jackson Gaskarth." I laugh loudly.

"You think you're funny, don't you?" He growled and rolled over me, holding himself in a push up above me. "You aren't."

Alex placed his fingers on my sides and began tickling me until I couldn't breath, begging for him to just let me take a breath of air. He let go, kissing me, long and good, before he brushed some hair behind my ear and went to shower.

I snap back into reality. The nurse awaiting her answer. I nod.

"We just decided yesterday morning actually. Liam. Liam Jackson Gaskarth."

Alex beams, kissing the baby's cheek again. "Welcome to the world, little Liam."