Come hold me tight

 

It was supposed to be brunch with the mothers (actually Boone's mothers, one of them was Alfie's) On Mother's Day. However, Zoey and Alfie didn't make it. 

Actually, the labor pains started long before Zoey realized it. She thought her lower back was just tender. But she said she was OK. Alfie thought differently. He took her pulse, and she thought he'd lost it. 

"What are you doing?" She'd fretted.

"Something I saw on TV." All he'd been watching on HULU was 9-1-1 lately. This did not sit well with Zoey. Wondering if she'd ever see a professional at this rate.

This was not a good distraction, but he timed the labor pains and he waited an hour before he called the hospital.

"Just as I suspected, they think it's too early for you come in," he said as if he didn't like it at all. He said she should take a shower and get comfortable. It was the start of a very long Saturday night before Sunday ever arrived. By then they were at the hospital.

"Oh, God I can't do it," she finally explained she couldn't get comfortable. Especially with all those machines and by then Alfie's family arrived like it might be a football game. But Alfie pushed them out of the birthing suit. He said Zoey needed her privacy.

Of course, he gave her a pep talk. "I know you're tired, but you've made it this far."  In spite of being so angelic she thought he might be a football coach. They were in matching track suits. Well, she was in a hospital gown by now, but they arrived in matching outfits.

And just when she thought it might be another twenty-four hours of false alarms going off and nurses and even doctors telling her, just a little longer. Well, it wasn't. And she managed to have Lucas Gage, who was almost nine pounds. It happened to fast. And somehow she forgot about all that misery when she saw him looking at her with Alfie's eyes that he'd been waiting for this moment too.