You panic as you realize your due date, March 14, is right in the middle of a three game road trip for the NJ Devils. The thought of your boyfriend Damien missing the birth of his daughter made you feel sick, but you didn’t want to ask him to miss a game just for you. After all, due dates are not always accurate and she could be born at a perfectly convenient time when Damien was home and not playing. Before he left for their first game in Philly he kissed you good bye. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” He asks, holding your face gently in his hands. “Yes, don’t worry about me,” You say and try to force a smile, but you could tell he knew you were really anxious.
That night you watched his game with some of the other Devils’ wags. All of them who had kids told you their stories about husbands/boyfriends rushing home for the birth of their children. This didn’t make you feel better, so they tried to cheer you up. “Y/N, it’s hard, but you’ll get through it. When Max was born I thought Marty was going to miss it, but he made it in the end,” Martin Brodeur’s wife Genevieve said. “It’s one of the downsides of having a baby during the season,” she added with a smile. You shrug and try to relax a little and watch the game, but you can’t get your mind off it. Over the next two days you call Damien and text constantly, but you still feel so alone.
You twitch at every bump and kick, praying that’s she’ll wait a few more days until her daddy will be home. As the Devils game against the Panthers starts you look for Damien on the ice, but you don’t see him. ‘He didn’t get hurt, did he?’ You think and start to get worried. You start to text one of the wags to see if they know why he’s not there, when the door to your apartment open. You freeze, thinking there was intruder, and your heart starts to race. You grab a lamp, the closest thing you can find to a weapon, and carefully walk down the hall.
“Whoa, hun it’s just me,” Damien says and holds his hands up. “Damien!” You drop the lamp and run toward him. He wraps his arms around you tightly and you start crying, burying your face in his chest. “My coach let me miss the game. Sorry I surprised you… did your water break?” He asks sounding very worried. “No, I don’t think so,” you turn around and see a wet spot on the carpet next to the lamp you dropped. “Oh my God…” you whisper, suddenly realizing your legs are all wet. “You scared me so much my water broke!” You say and playfully hit him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” he frantically rushes around the apartment and comes back with a bag. “I got your overnight bag, we can call my parents once we get there, do we need anything else?” He asks and you shake your head. “I have no idea; I can’t believe this is happening!”
He rushes you to the hospital and you are escorted into a room. After changing into a hospital gown the doctor comes in to see how far you’ve dilated. “Only four cm, miss Y/L/N. It might be a few more hours,” the doctor says and then leaves the two of you alone. “I don’t know if I can take a few more hours of this,” you complain after another contraction. “Do you want me to get the nurse to give you some medicine?” Damien jumps up to get the nurse but you stop him. “No, I want to do this naturally. But you need to distract me. Talk to me, about anything,” you close your eyes and focus on your breathing as Damien babbles about hockey stats, the weather, the plot of some movie he saw last week- anything to keep your mind off of the pain.
Four hours later, you finally reach 10 cm. After another hour of pushing your beautiful baby daughter is born. “She’s perfectly healthy. Does she have a name?” The nurse says as he hands the baby to you. You look up at Damien and smile through tears. “Yes, we have a name: Emily.” You hand her to Damien and he smiles down at her. “I’m so happy you were able to miss that game; I couldn’t have done this without you,” you say. “Y/N, it’s just one game, they can do without me,” he smiles, despite the fact that the Devils had lost 3-5 against the Panthers. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
-Lila
