ABERDEEN, WA
"TRAE, I'M SERIOUS, please keep breathing," Lindy said nervously, holding onto her brother's shoulders as they half-ran through Grays Harbor Community Hospital, tailing behind an in-labor Allie who was being pushed down halls by nurses in a wheelchair. She was crying out in pain, the sound bouncing off of the walls.
"I AM breathing," Trae snapped, but it came out as a half-hearted wheeze. Lindy, who had gained enough experience in delivery rooms to know how haughty new dads could be, rolled her eyes.
"Okay then, don't listen to the one who's a nurse!"
She'd gotten the call early that morning that Allie was experiencing labor pains. She'd instantly suggested that they go to the hospital, but Trae had stupidly waited for her to arrive, not taking Allie's pains for what they were since she had only just entered her eighth month of pregnancy.
After Lindy had made the two hour drive to Aberdeen, she was outraged to see her brother and sister-in-law still sitting in their home as she swung by to grab their things. Allie's discomfort had gotten out of control and she'd been panting, pleading with Lindy for answers.
"When I said go to the hospital, I meant it!" Lindy had yelled, herding them to the car where she insisted that she drive. Trae was trembling head to toe.
The entire ride to the hospital had been filled with Allie's increasingly loud moans of pains. This gave Lindy little opportunity to think about the fact that she had not found a way to let Kurt know where she was going. If he showed up at her place that night, he would be arriving to an empty apartment.
With the help of Lindy, Trae managed to guide Allie out of the car and through the sliding glass doors of the hospital. At this point, Allie was practically screaming in pain, hunched over and wailing like an injured animal.
"Is this normal?" Trae asked, shooting a panicked look at Lindy.
"Trust me, it is," she told him soothingly, though she still remained frustrated with him for not having rushed Allie to the hospital as soon as she'd said so. His excuse had been that they wanted Lindy there since she specialized in 'babies.' Lindy had scoffed at them. How stupid could they get? A hospital had as many "baby specialists" as they could ever want, but they had wasted their time on her.
"Try to be excited," she urged Trae, rubbing his arms in the way that she saw sports coaches do to their athletes on television. "You're about to find out if you're having a son or daughter!"
Trae and Allie had decided not to find out the gender of the baby, opting to be surprised upon the delivery. Lindy had liked and supported this idea, always taking Allie's phone calls when she had questions concerning what 'gender-neutral colors' she should include in the baby's room.
"That's a little hard when it sounds like my wife is being murdered with a chainsaw," Trae groaned. Allie's shriek of agony punctured the hospital hallway and Lindy grimaced. Labor was not a pretty thing and she knew that firsthand. She couldn't even begin to count how many times her eardrums had nearly been split inside of delivery rooms.
The doctor who evaluated Allie was quick to inform Trae and Lindy that she needed to give birth now — her cervix was dilated to the maximum stretching point. Lindy's blanched with fear.
"What is it?" Trae said, worriedly turning to his sister. "Why are you making that face?"
"Labor and delivery nurse?" the doctor, a female, asked kindly. Lindy nodded in response, too horrified to speak as she pressed her fingertips to her lips to silence her groan.
