If and Only

If an Only

She's not sure if her labors are easy because it is following the rest of her pregnancy or because this is no longer her first. It still hurts and still feels like she's torn but it's somehow still able to manage the pain. She falls roughly into the birthing seat and spread her legs. She was past the modesty. She pushed down and paused once the contraction ended. God, let this child live like my first, she thought, and let me survive this. Everyone was aware of the risks of childbirth, even her husband's own mother succumbed to it. She pushed down again. This was war. War of her own, but war nonetheless. She relaxed after a long contraction, catching her breath. She waited for the next and pushed down again.

"I can see the child." The midwife looked up at her and nodded, a silent message that this was almost over and another child will be added to the Tudor line. "One last time, a big push."

Katherine pushed down one last time and felt the child slip out of her just as her first did.
"It's a boy! It's a boy! A New Years boy!!" The nurse said as she excitedly wiped off the child before passing him to his mother's waiting arms.

"A New Years a boy. A New Years Henry." Her husband and her already agreed that if it was a boy, he would be called Henry. If a girl was born, Elizabeth, after his mother. She rocked the child gently, calming the baby. She kissed his forehead and continued her motion. She was now a mother to two children. Two beautiful children.

—

September 17th, 1512

Isobel and Henry were both young. If anything bad happened and went wrong, they wouldn't as scarred by her death as Henry was of his mother's. She rubs her round belly as she was in her bed. Even with the contractions, she feels this child moving around, preparing to be born.

"Are you alright, Your Majesty?"

She nods a minimal nod. "Just thinking, as any expectant mother would." She rubs her belly again during a mild contraction and winces. The pains were getting stronger and she was mentally preparing to welcome her third child in less than two years. A boy, a bouncing boy at that, a young prince. She knows it's a boy but didn't tell anyone other than Lina, the one who helped her determine gender. She still remembers how Lina suggested the idea, one that was passed down and of some reliably, but rarely used, of taking her chamber pot and mixing it with barley and wheat seeds, and the relief she felt when the wheat sprouted. Another prince, she thought. She hadn't told the King; she wanted to surprise him and didn't want have him be relived and she, or they, were wrong. She knows Henry is with the children and nervous, trying to keep them but mostly himself, distracted as they waited. And that's what this is. Waiting. Waiting...Waiting....
The pains of her labor come closer together and she knows that it's time to meet her latest child. This is not her first experience but she is preparing for whatever God brings her to bring this newest life into the world. A child to her precious children. This time the nursemaid doesn't have to tell her to move to the groaning chair. She recognizes when the contracting in her body moves close enough together that it is time to meet her son. Her baby boy. She has hunched her plain nightgown around her waist quickly between contractions when she feels that she still has control of her own body. She knows her battle has begun: the one that a lot of women in her time undergo. She thinks of her own mother and thinks of how she managed all those times. To be fruitful and the symbol of Spanish fertility. But her mind also think of her husband's mother. She, too, was a woman who was fruitful, and she was taken from this world engaged in the same task.

"Your Majesty, please," one of the midwives say, bringing her back to the task at hand. Another nurse dabs her forehead, wiping away sweat. "You'll need to push soon."

"Katherine, we are all here with you." Lina wraps her arm around her and clutching her hand with her free one. "But you have to push."

Katherine nods quickly, red hair moving about her face. The pain is the part of this process that Katherine knows but still seems to unprepared for how the pain wrenches her body. She throws her head back as a powerful contraction forces her to push. "Lina!"