Rebirth (Twilight Saga - Pregnant with the next generation)

Chapter 29: Nascita di un nuovo sole; The Birth of a New Sun/Son ~

The first faint and sinister inklings of doubt began to shroud her mind and blacken her vision. It had been 14 hours since her water had broken that morning.

It was approaching 3 o’clock in the morning and she was barely dilated 3 centimeters.

Esme leaned against the back of the couch, breathing shakily. But another contraction tore through her and she groaned through her teeth “C – c – Carlisle, please, mmgh, p-please get our baby out. I-I’m trying so hard, but I know that I’m not going to be able to give birth to our son Carlisle. I don’t have the strength to stand nevertheless push when the time comes".

She shivered and her eyes closed before she spoke again. “Take care of our son Carlisle and let him know that I loved him more than anything else in the world”.

“Esme, Esme! Don’t you dare use past tense with me. You are strong enough to have this baby. I promise you that you will birth our son and see him grow up into the good man that BOTH of his parents have taught him all his life to be”.

She tried to moisten her lips to speak but he pressed his finger to them, his eyes telling her to save her strength.

She managed to sleep for a little while after Carlisle had persuaded her to try and drink some more and she woke up feeling minimally better late the next morning around 9:00 am.

It was encroaching on close to 54 hours of labour – 2 and a half days to get to 5 centimeters. Knowing Esme would become less able to deliver the longer she was in labour Carlisle tried everything he could to get her to dilate faster but she seemed stuck at the 5 cm mark.

She lay on her side on the couch in the living room with a pillow propped between her knees. Her back was in agony from the relentless contractions and Emmett seemed to best be able to press on the right spot on her back that alleviated the pain and pressure so he had dutifully stayed leaning over the couch for the last several hours as she writhed and moaned – her cries growing in pitch as the birth pains intensified her agony.

Rose sat by her head and bathed her face and burning forehead with cool water wrung out on a washcloth and brushed her matted and sweat damp hair back from her face so that she felt vaguely human again ironically.

Carlisle cursed himself and paced the room when he wasn’t supporting Esme through a contraction. He felt like crying himself; seeing his proud and unreservedly strong wife dying in front of him, struggling, dying to give birth to his child. And still she tried to apologize for being a burden.

The blanket Bella had wrapped her in was quickly growing crimson with each shallow gasping breath she took. Carlisle hated himself as he checked her again but his gentle fingers felt no resistance in the band of flesh that enclosed her womb.

“Es honey, we need to move you to the bed, you’re fully dilated to ten centimeters, we’re going to see our baby soon” he stroked the side of her face coaxing her back to consciousness.

Despite the fact that she was fully dilated, the baby still hadn’t moved down far enough, and the pushing it would take for the head to descend would take hours if she was flat on her back; so Carlisle held her hand and braced himself around her shoulders as she walked up the stairs trying to bargain with gravity.

Esme grit her teeth as she took the stairs one at a time.

As she moved her leg up to the next stair she doubled over as the baby shifted inside her, which with the strain of contractions and the lack of the cushiony layer of amniotic fluid felt like her insides were tearing and twisting around the baby.

All of a sudden, Esme stopped, her eyes taking on a vacancy that spoke of complete inward concentration. Still gripping his hand tightly she dropped into a crouch, roaring and moaning with the next contraction. It was so unlike Esme that the rest of them stood dumbly for a moment in shock.