Whose Fault? (Editing)

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Six." Max said, "we should be there in a couple minutes."

As we were heading into the hospital, another contraction hit, causing me to stop in my tracks. This one lasted longer, not by much but I had been counting the seconds they lasted; it had been a whole minute.

When I was able to move again, I heard Max's voice say, "six minutes." By the time I had gotten a room and machines all hooked up to me, I was having another one.

It took five hours for the amount of time the contractions lasted to increase. The last couple of hours after that were the worst. I don't even think from that point on I was completely present.

Childbirth was a pain that I did not think I could ever go through again. Everything was excruciating and in my head it was all so chaotic. So many people were talking: one was yelling, other voices mumbled loud enough for me to hear, there was one that was a frantic kind of calm.

"Push!" A voice shouted.

"1, 2, 3, 4..." Another counted.

"You can do this," from the frantic yet calm voice.

"Again!"

"1, 2, 3..."

"You're so so strong!"

The voices all jumbled together as if they were all happening at the same time, the pain that ripped through me didn't cease and I was still trying not to panic as the sweat matted my hair to my head and dripped down my neck. I just wanted to scream from frustration and pain. There were several times that I did.

"You're doing amazing."

"Another, Wren!"

"2, 3, 4, 5..."

"One more!"

"1, 2, 3, 4..."

"You got this, Wren!"

Then everything stopped.

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There was a second where everything was calm. The pain I'd been in for hours had significantly lessened, the voices stopped, and I felt like I could breathe again. For a split second.

Until I realized there was no crying infant.

Then everything hit me like a ton of bricks.

I tried to focus on the voices of the doctors and nurses, but only got snippets at a time.

"Time... 21:47:13."

"Umbilical cord... neck."

"70 seconds."

"Not breathing."

"Mom... distress... rate... spiking."

I could feel my throat closing up. I may not have heard every single word they said, but I knew what was happening. I had read about it, if a baby wasn't breathing at birth within the first three minutes that passed they could have severe brain damage, after six minutes the baby was declared brain dead.