"WHERE THE HELL ARE THE BAGS?" Keign panicked.
"Breathe honey, just breathe."
"I'm calling an ambulance." Jordan ran towards the house phone.
Today was the day. 9 months of pregnancy, 9 months of chaos. 6 months of things going wrong and today was the very last one. Because it wasn’t February 14th. It was February 4th.
My induction wasn't for another 10 days.
The babies were coming early and at the most inconvenient time.
The day of my baby shower.
The house was all decorated for the occasion, mum had gone all out. Guests were meant to start arriving at 3:00pm, which was in an hour, but all this had to be cancelled because I was in labour.
“Rye, do you want some water?” Keign asked
“No.” I said.
“What about something to eat?”
“I DONT WANT ANYTHING!”
I was rocking back and forth leaning against the counter, shaking and sweating profusely. I was in so much pain.
It felt like I was being crushed from the inside out. Like period cramps but much MUCH worse. The area around my bump was tight, my lower back killed and I could feel pressure moving further down. My waters had already broken. This was the most excruciating pain I had ever felt in my entire life.
“That was a strong one.” I took deep breaths as the contraction subsided.
“You’re doing well, Rye.” Mum said calmly. She was stood by my side, rubbing my back and helping me control my breathing.
Keign was rushing around getting the hospital bags and calling family members, informing them of the cancellation. Jordan had just got off the phone with the emergency services and was stood outside the open front door, looking out for the ambulance.
My contractions were now every 3 minutes. They were getting closer and closer together. I felt like I almost had no breaks in between.
Sirens alarmed loudly down the street. They sounded close so they must have been around 2 minutes away.
“Mum. They’re here.” Jordan said a minute later.
“Ok.”
A familiar looking paramedic ran into the house.
“Hello, Rye we are going to take you to the hospital, okay?” It was the paramedic that had been to our house when The incident happened. It was Liam and I was glad because I liked him.
I nodded.
“Can my mum come with me too?”
“Yes, but it can only be you and one other person.” He said as he walked me over to the sofa.
Three more paramedics came in with a portable hospital bed with straps hanging off the side. Deja vu. It was like I was thrown back to September, when Louis had to be carried away in a stretcher.
“LOUIS!” I gasped.
“We need to call Louis!” I yelled and grunted. I was mid-contraction and being strapped on to the bed.
“Oh yeah, I’ll call him when we get in the ambulance.”
“No, he’s at school in an exam. We need to pick him up.”
“Me and Jordan can pick him up before we go to the hospital. Just call his mum and let her know.” Keign said.
But I didn’t have his mum’s number. I only had the house phone number.
They were lifting me up on the ambulance platform. It was sort of like an elevator. I was screaming, and crying in pain, so they gave me a gas and air tube to breathe in.
“Rye Parker, you need to calm down.” A paramedic said.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! I’m having twins!”
I felt more pressure moving further down and then something else.
“They’re coming! I can feel it! THEY’RE COMING OUT!”
They still hadn’t left my road yet and the door was still open. I was extremely agitated, we needed to leave NOW.
“Didn’t you hear her?” mum said.
“They’re coming. WE NEED TO GO!”
Liam shut the door and then we were off, zooming down the London streets with the sirens on. Cars moved out the way, creating a clear path for the ambulance to go through. Mum grabbed my phone and called Louis' house number.
It rang and kept ringing.
“No answer.”
“Try the... AGH!!!” I grunted in pain.
“Try the school.”
She quickly dialled the school number, I was surprised she still knew it off by heart, but I guess she had a lot of school phone calls for me in the past. She put the call on loud speaker.
“Hello.” She said.
“This is Mary-Rose Parker.”
“Hello.” The receptionist said.
“My daughter is in labour and my sons are driving to the school now to pick up Louis Jayson.”
“OK and why are you picking up Louis Jayson?” she asked.
“Because he is the father of her children and needs to be here.” Mum said.
A female paramedic in the ambulance had began to check how far dilated I was. It was a weird feeling, but I didn’t care. I was in so much pain, I just wanted the babies out of me.
“Around 7 centimetres dilated. The heads aren’t out yet.” She said to Liam, he scribbled it down in a note book.
The line had gone quiet for a moment and mum was panicking. I knew I only had 3 more centimetres to go until I was able to push. My waters had only broken an hour ago and I was already 7 centimetres. I didn’t have much longer to wait.
“Hello?”
“Yes, I’m still here.” The receptionist lady said.
“So, Louis Jayson is in his ALevel maths exam right now. Do you think you could wait another 10 minutes?”
“We’ve just made it to the hospital, she is 7 centimetres dilated and about to give birth to his children! I think this is more important than his A-Levels!” Mum yelled.
“OK yes, of course. There are two boys that have just come in ; I’ll call Louis down now.”
“THANK YOU.”
Then mum hung up.
We were in the hospital now, I was being pushed down corridors and rushed into an empty hospital room.
The room was quite big, and had a decent size sofa. I was calmer now, the gas and air had helped a lot as well as mum being by my side.
A blond nurse came in with a name tag that read Maddison Smith.
“Hello, I’m Maddison and I’m going to put this strap around your belly. Its going to monitor the babies' heart beats.”
She did that, then put a pulse monitor on my finger. Three different lines of waves popped up on the screen. One was my heart beat and the other two were each of the babies.
Meanwhile, at Kingston High.
Keign and Jordan were pacing up and down the school reception, impatiently waiting for Louis.
Every time the door would open, they’d jump up expecting it to be him, but then groan when they saw it was another member of staff.
After three people had came out through the double doors, finally the fourth one was Louis. He barged through, breathing heavily with his rucksack swung over his shoulder.
“About time.” Keign rolled his eyes.
“Sorry,...I was in doing a test in the sports hall.” He said.
“It’s fine. Let’s just go.” Jordan said.
All three boys ran out of the reception, down the street, to where Jordan's car was parked. They hopped into the car and drove as fast as they could to the hospital.
“Has she had them yet?” Louis asked.
“No, but any moment now.” Jordan said.
“Is she okay?”
“What do you think?” Keign said coldly.
“Look, I don’t like you. The only reason I’m here right now is because Rye cares enough to want you to be there when the babies are born. I don’t have a clue why she’s wasting her energy worrying about you, but she wanted us to make sure you got there in time.”
“Fair enough.” He said. He had nothing else to say.
Keign’s phone rang and he quickly answered it.
“Rye? Is everything ok?”
“Yeah, I’m in my hospital room now.
The contractions are bearable with the gas and air. Is Louis with you?” I asked.
“Yeah, we are about 10 minutes away from the hospital.” Keign said.
“OK. And do you have my hospital bags?”
“Yeah, they are in the back.” “OK, thanks.” I said.
I was quiet for a moment. “Keign, can you do me a favour?”
“Anything.” He said.
“Can you pass the phone to Louis? I need to ask him something.”
“Rye..” he said, sort of angrily.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re being protective and I love that about you, but I’m having his children and we are going to have to see each other more often now. I can deal with this on my own.”
“Fine.” There was a slight ruffling sound as he passed over his phone to Louis.
“Rye?”
“Yeah, hi, I was going to ask if you could call Lilah and the others? I want them here too. I would do it, but my phone is dying.”
“OK, yeah I can do that.” He said.
He went quiet. We hadn’t talked since that night in the rain. It was awkward now and I knew him well enough to know that, when he went quiet, it meant he had a speech coming.
“OK, well thanks bye.”
“She’s gone now.” Louis said as he passed the phone back to Keign.
Keign took it without saying another word.
They were 5 minutes away from the hospital, but they were stuck in a bit of after-school traffic now that it had turned 3:00pm.
Louis took his phone out and thought about calling Eli, Eijai and Lilah. The gang that he used to be apart of. They wanted nothing to do with him now, he wandered if they’d even answer. So he tried to text them all instead.
-Rye’s in labour. Meet us at St Mary’s hospital.
He texted to all three of them and for the first time in a while, they answered.
Already?! OK I’m on my way. Eli and Eijai texted back the exact same thing.
Shit! OK, I’ll be there asap. Lilah texted.
2 centimetres to go.
Maddison had given me an IV. She said I had to walk around to get the babies to move down. If I stayed still they’d go to sleep.
So I was bouncing on this huge ball beside my bed.
“How are you feeling?” mum asked.
“OK right now, just tight.”
“Can you believe that you’re having two babies today?”
“No, I wish they could have waited a little longer until their due date.” I said.
“Yeah, you’ll be ok though, you’ve got the breathing technique down.” Mum smiled.
“Yeah.” I managed a small smile.
“You know, when I was having you and Keign, even though I was 27, I was still a very scared first time mum. We had Jordan, but I had never been pregnant before. I didn’t know what morning sickness was or Braxton hicks. And I didn’t have my mum to teach me, because she was in Barbados. I was very much like you. I know how scared you must feel about this all.”
I was tired of bouncing, so I got off and sat back on the bed. Mum sat beside me and pulled me into a side hug.
“How am I going to do this mum? With Louis and I.”
“Co-parenting is tricky, but as long as you think of the kids, everything will be ok. You are both smart enough to work this out.” She kissed me on the cheek.
Then there was two knocks on the door. I called ‘Come in.’ Louis and Jordan entered the room with Keign following behind them, carrying the two hospital bags.
A sudden rush of anxiety hit me as soon as mine and Louis’ eyes met. I quickly looked away, reaching over to my right wrist, to fiddle with my bracelet, forgetting that I didn’t wear it anymore.
Keign placed the bags onto the floor and sat on brown hospital sofa, Jordan sat down too. Louis just stood by the door, leaning against the wall and shuffling his feet back and forth.
“Thanks for bringing my stuff. Can you guys give me and Louis a minute?” I asked.
Louis' head shot up in shock.
“Sure. We’ll wait outside.” Jordan said. They all stood up and left the room, closing the door behind them.
Louis walked nervously towards me, with his hands in his black jean pockets and sat on the sofa. He was wearing a formal white shirt with his jeans and I had to admit, he looked kinda cute.
“Hi.” I said.
“Hi.”
“So, our babies are going to be born pretty soon. We need to figure out how this is going to work.” I said.
“What?”
“Co-parenting.”
“Oh yeah.” He said.
We were silent for a moment.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about..” I got up from the bed and sat next to him.
“What I should do with your birthday present. I didn’t want to throw it away so I thought I’d just give it to you now.”
I dug my hand in the front pocket of my bag, pulled out a small black box and handed it to him.
“Rye, I can’t accept this, I don’t deserve it.” Louis said.
“You don’t even know what it is yet. I could of given you a lollipop, just open it.” He smiled shyly and opened the box. His jaw fell slightly open.
In the box, was a bracelet like one he bought me, except this one had his name and a star beside it.
“A promise charm?”
“No. Its a non promise charm.” I said.
“I don’t understand.”
“A non promise charm, is a charm that means I still have feelings for you, but I am not making any promises. We'll focus on being good parents, be friends along the way and see how it goes. But this way, neither of us can get hurt because there aren’t any promises to be broken.” I said.
“OK.” He smiled.
“Is that a deal?” I held my hand out and he shook it.
“Deal.”
1 centimetre to go.
Half and hour later, contractions were now two minutes apart, but I was breathing through them easily. The twins, and Lilah were here and they were sitting on extra chairs spread out across the room. It was 5 o’clock now, mum ordered pizza to the hospital because everyone was starving. I was NOT eating the hospital food because it was disgusting and had not one ounce of seasoning.
“Ok, I have a question for everyone.” I said.
“Alright and what’s that?” Keign said.
“How much do you think each baby is going to weigh?” “10 pounds.” Eli called out.
“No you idiot!” Eijai slapped him at the back of his head. “That's about as big as a 2 month old baby.” We all laughed.
“I think around 6 pounds 3 ounces for baby A and 5 pounds 5 ounces for baby B. One is always smaller than the other.” Keign said.
Jordan cleared his throat then muttered ‘Nerd' under his breath. Keign shot daggers at him.
“I think around like 6 or 7 pounds.” Jordan said.
“Rye, do you even have names for the babies yet?” Lilah asked.
I looked over to the sofa where Louis sat next to her. He gave me a ‘Louis smile’ then winked at me.
“Yep.” I grinned.
“Oh, I want to know!!” Lilah yelled, excitedly.
“Nope. Not until they are born.” I gestured zipping my lips shut and tucking the key away in my pocket. Except, I didn’t have a pocket because under the covers I was just in my underwear.
There was a knock, then two midwifes came in. One was Maddison and one was Hazel.
“Hi, Hazel.” I smiled, reservedly.
“Hello, we need to check how far dilated you are. So everyone else can either leave the room or close their eyes.” She said.
No one left.
As the nurses examined me, everyone’s eyes were tightly closed, even my mum’s. I saw Louis peek and I threw a scrunched up paper towel at his head.
“OK, you’re 10 centimetres You can push now.” My heart plummeted into my stomach. I had been waiting for this, I wanted them to come out, but now.... I wasn’t so sure. I was terrified.
I pulled the cover back over me and told everyone they could look.
“Are you ready honey?” Mum asked.
“No. I’m scared mum.”
“I’ll be right here the whole time.” She walked to the right side of the bed and squeezed my hand.
Everyone else got up, ready to leave the room for the birth of my babies.
“You got this Rye.” Eli and I touched knuckles then he left.
“Rye, you can do this, you’re so strong. Just think of all the food you can finally eat without throwing up when they come out.” I chuckled, gave him a hug then he left.
“You’re going to be a great mum.” Lilah squeezed my hand before she left.
“It’s going to be hard, but it’ll be all worth it when they arrive.” Eijai said.
Then Jordan came over.
“Rye, I don’t have a speech, but good luck. We’ll all be outside rooting for you.”
“Thanks J.” He kissed my forehead then joined the others in the waiting room, shutting the door behind him.
“OK, are you ready?” Maddison asked.
I waved Louis over from the sofa, and held my hand out to him. He took it and squeezed it gently. I looked up to mum then back to Louis. They both nodded and smiled.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“OK, when you feel a contraction coming, you need to take in a deep breath of the gas and air then push.” Hazel said.
A contraction came. I felt it as pressure began to build up inside my belly, I took a deep breath in then pushed as hard as I could. Screaming from the pain.
“Very good, now push again.”
“ARRRGHH!” I yelled.
“I can see a head!” Hazel said.
“What, already?!” I said, breathlessly.
“Yes, one more big push and he will be out.”
I could hear mum and Louis on each side, cheering me on and saying “You can do it.” Although they sounded further away. The atmosphere felt tense with apprehension.
ARGHHHHHHH!! AHHHH!
“HE’S OUT.” Maddison caught him and he slid out of me. He was bloody and gooey and so so gross, but he was mine. He was my baby.
“Oh my gosh, he’s so beautiful.” Mum burst into tears when she heard his little high pitch cry.
“Rye, you did it.” Louis gasped, grinning down at me. I managed to smile a little but not much, because I was already exhausted.
The nurse cleaned him up, weighed him then brought him over to me. He was beautiful, he was amazing and he was so cute. He had teeny tiny fingers and toes, squishy cheeks and pink lips. He had a head full of black hair too and his light, golden brown skin was starting to show.
“He looks like you Rye.”
“I know I love him.” I said. He was still crying as Maddison walked round to pass him to Louis. Louis quickly took his shirt off and place our baby on his bare chest. He stopped crying instantly, as Louis cradled him in his arm. He stared down at him like he was the sun his world evolved around. The way he once looked at me.
“Alright Rye, time to push again.” Hazel said.
“OK.” I said, wearily.
“Ready...set...push!”
I pushed and screamed and pushed and screamed even louder. I had no energy left, but somehow I pushed one last time and he came out. His cry was the loudest. An ear piercing scream. That was going to be fun at night.
“That’s it. You have two healthy boys.” Hazel said.
Maddison cleaned up and weighed the second baby and Louis passed the first baby over to me. I put him under my shirt to lay against my heart. I laughed as he wigged around like a little worm, his mouth wide open. He was making little panting sounds.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“He’s looking for food. Take your shirt off and try to feed him.” Maddison said as she passed Louis the second baby to hold.
I did as she said. As soon as I moved into the right position, his mouth locked onto my nipple and he started feeding. It was a wonderful feeling.
“Louis, can you pass me the other baby?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He placed him in my left arm. I put him on my breast too and he did the same thing as his brother. Mum grabbed a muslin square from the bag and gently covered my chest with it.
“They can come in now.” I said.
Everyone all rushed back in, eager to see the newly arrived babies. They all huddled around the bed, closing me in the middle of the circle.
“They’re so cute.” Lilah whispered. She was grinning and flapping her hands around, about to burst with excitement as she watched the babies nestled into both mine and Louis' arms. Louis was sat on the edge of the bed beside me, holding one and I was holding the other.
“Congratulations you two.” The twins said.
“So, what's they’re names?” Keign asked.
Louis grabbed my hand and smiled at me, nodding.
Baby B had a full head of brown hair and one stray curl. He had Louis' nose and lips and weighed 5 pounds 5 ounces. We named him Kylen Joseph Parker Jayson
Baby A also had a full head of hair, but somehow it was black and a lot more curly. I was shocked to find that, although they were twins, they had different hair colours. They were both indeed fraternal twins, which meant the doctors had got it wrong. He was very similar to his brother, but I thought he looked more like me. He weighed 5 pound 8 ounces and seemed to wriggle a lot more. We named him Kai Louis Parker-Jayson.
They both had light brown skin and had the greatest family they could ever ask for.
Keign and Jordan as the best uncles and Louis’ sisters as aunties.
Eli and Eijai were who we had chosen to be godfathers and Lilah for a godmother.
Everyone in the room had been on the crazy journey with me for the past year. From the party, to The incident. The movie night and the gender reveal and even the break up. This year had been a roller coaster of emotions, but there was one thing I had always been sure of throughout it all. That we would survive.
In the end, I learnt that the bond you have with the family you’re born with is amazing, but the bond you have with the friends that become family? That’s a
completely different feeling.
The end