Turning Pages- Carina DeLuca

Turning Pages

Trigger warning- Might be hard to read. 

After Midnight...

"Only five?" Carina closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. "I thought I'd be further along by now." The couple had been in the hospital for over fourteen hours, and her labor appeared to have stalled. Several hours had passed and she was stuck at five centimeters. Although Carina knew every woman labored differently, the fact that Jo had told her her contractions were slightly advanced even though she was only five centimeters, didn't help.

"I'm sorry. It seems like she doesn't wanna come out yet." Jo smiled sadly. "We have a couple of options. Either we can wait for your labor to pick up on its own or we can begin Pitocin treatment to try and restart your labor." Maya and Carina's eyes shifted as they stared at each other.

"It's your call, babe." In spite of her desire to tell her wife to give in to the drugs, Maya knew it wasn't her place to do so. She had no idea how her wife had survived this long. She knew she would have been screaming for drugs hours ago.

"I said I didn't want drugs." Carina whispered. "As long as we're doing okay, I wanna wait and see if it happens on its own." Her determination to do it on her own was unwavering. She wanted to let her body do what it was designed to do. Despite the fact that it was being stubborn at the moment.

"It's up to you what you wanna do." Jo smiled. "I see no harm in waiting since you two are doing so well. Walk, try the peanut ball. Try some yoga. I'll check on you later, but if anything drastic changes, please let me know."

"Do you wanna try walking again?" Maya asked after Jo had left the room. Carina shook her head briefly before sitting up. Maya watched in confusion as her wife got on her hands and knees in the bed, rocking her hips as she attempted to breathe. After a few minutes, Carina reached out and grabbed Maya's hand as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"You're doing great, babe." Maya whispered as Carina let out another moan. Maya might have been turned on if her wife hadn't been moaning because she was in pain. As soon as it ended, Carina slowly lifted her head to look at her.

"Jo wasn't kidding, these contractions are coming closer together than they should be at this stage." Carina whispered. "That was what? Ten minutes?" Maya hummed in response.

"I think so. You had one just before Jo came in." She whispered softly. "But you're handling this very well." She smiled lightly. "You're doing much better than I would be, that's for sure."

Carina let out a single chuckle in response. "I'd like to try the ball." She breathed out as she became serious again, slowly sliding off the bed. Maya was surprised at her wife's calm and composed demeanor. Her reading prepared her for the dark side of labor, as she would call it. She expected a lot of screaming and yelling. There had been none so far, however. There was an eerie silence as Carina glided on the ball, holding her wife's hand. No words were exchanged between the two as Carina tried to focus on something other than the pain.

"I hope this works." Carina had an idea as she paused for a moment. Although she wasn't sure Maya would agree, it was worth a shot. "You know, there's something we still haven't tried." She bit her lip.

"What?" Maya asked, not catching on.

"Sex." Carina said bluntly. Maya looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Her ability to think rationally was clearly impaired by the pain.

"Carina! I think the pain is clouding your judgment. We can't have sex here." Maya almost laughed out loud. She didn't think a hospital room while her wife was in the middle of labor was an ideal romantic setting and she certainly wasn't thinking about sex at all.