I get in on the other side and Bram drives us through the San Francisco dusk while Nicola and Steph chat about the baby.
“Well have you tried sex yet?” Nicola asks with discerning eyes. “I mean, I absolutely do not want to hear about it if you have but I have to ask.”
Steph and I exchange a glance. “Just this afternoon,” I tell Nicola, rather proudly.
“And nothing?” she asks.
Steph shakes her head. “No. An orgasm and that’s it.”
“Hey,” I nudge her gently on the arm. “It was an outstanding orgasm, if I recall correctly.”
“Yes, yes,” she says dismissively.
“I have to say it’s been nice not to have to listen to the both of you yammer on about your sex lives over the last few months,” Nicola says.
“Bloody right about that,” Bram adds under his breath.
“But,” Nicola goes on, “honestly sex is the best option. You don’t want to drink castor oil and orange juice, believe me. Just orgasm the next week away. At least you get to have fun sexing it up while you wait.”
Steph sighs. “You’re right. I just didn’t know how it would feel with the baby and Linden’s dick all up in me like that.”
“Can we not?” Bram asks, glaring at us with disgust in the rear view mirror. “Please?”
I laugh. “My lips are sealed.”
The restaurant Bram and Nicola take us to is in the Castro, a well-loved Mexican eatery with a flamboyant vibe. True to her fears, everyone in the restaurant stares at Steph as she comes in but at least no one asks when she’s due, if she’s having a boy or a girl, you know, the usual questions. Instead everyone just drinks margaritas and even Steph orders a virgin one.
“You know, you could have a Corona,” Nicola says. “I had one the day before Ava was born. It helped. Don’t know how, but it did.”
“A beer?”
“Yeah. I had a beer and the next day I was in labor. Totally fine.”
Steph considers that. “Fine, I will have a beer. You sure it can’t harm the baby?”
“Steph, even the doctor said that having the occasional glass of wine wouldn’t be harmful,” I remind her. “You have played it extremely safe the last nine months, hell even before you got pregnant. You want the beer, go for it. It’s Corona, it’s pretty much water anyway.”
So when the waiter comes back, Steph orders a Corona along with her virgin margarita and we all give a little cheer, happy to see her living a little, plus a toast to the baby that won’t come out.
Then we have a nice meal full of mariachi music and banter and spicy enchiladas, while Steph enjoys her beer with so much gusto that she looks like she’s having an orgasm all over again.
I take a moment to look around at the table. Bram, Nicola, Steph. This will be the last time in a long time that the four of us will be out having dinner like this. There is a whole world of 4 AM feedings and changing diapers and baby food ahead of us. There is a whole new world ahead of us, period.
And even though it saddens me to say goodbye to the life I know so well, I know that this next step is going to be even better. My world is going to explode in the most amazing way.
I’m going to be a father.
I think I’m finally ready.
“Ow,” Steph says as she bites into one of my leftover tostadas, adjusting herself on her seat.
“Too spicy?” I ask, my own face still hot from the cayenne.
She closes her eyes, frowning. Shakes her head.
“No, I –“
Suddenly a faint pop, like someone cracking their knuckles, fills the air.
“Oh my god!” Steph cries out, her eyes flying open.
The sound of water trickling to the ground, like someone knocked over a drink.
She stares at me in joy and horror. “My water just broke!”
And thus starts the most panicked restaurant evacuation of my life. It’s all a wee blurry but I’m sure I stood up on my chair and yelled, “She’s going into labor! I’m becoming a bloody dad right now!” before someone handed me a shot of tequila, which I quickly downed. Then another.
Then Bram bought a round of shots for everyone in the restaurant while Nicola and I helped Steph, who was babbling nonsense about being so embarrassed about the mess on the floor and wanted to apologize to the restaurant owner and the like. Somehow the three of us made it out to the car, while Bram paid for the bill and started dancing with the mariachi band like the crazy uncle he’s apparently going to be.
I can’t say the rest of the night was any clearer. I remember thinking I had to hold it together, that I kept doing the damn breathing exercises that had been prescribed to Steph. Not out of solidarity as she started to breathe through her painful contractions, but because if I didn’t breathe properly, I was going to pass the fuck out.
Nicola drove us to the hospital because Bram was too intoxicated and after they dropped us off, she went back to our apartment to get the bag we’d packed for the birth.
We were eventually brought into a delivery room – after I yelled at a bunch of nurses for being too slow, I mean my bloody wife is having a baby! – and then when the doctors were able to see her and asses her progress (everything that should be dilated is dilated and things are moving fast), it was time for her to get the epidural.
And this is where, I’m not proud to say, things got really bad.
For me.
For some reason there were a few doctors in the room, maybe some being trained, I don’t know, and one of them took my chair. Which meant I had to stand there and hold her hand and try to be strong but then the epidural team of three comes in
