breathe. It seemed hours before it had ended, and there was a damp veil of sweat on her forehead when at last it had passed. It was definitely time to call the doctor, she realized, and she was a little startled to discover that the first contraction could be so painful. No one had warned her that it would start with such vehemence. In fact the doctor had told her that at first she probably wouldn't even know what the pains were. But there was no mistaking this, or the next one, as it brought her to her knees halfway back to the bathroom with the damp towels, and she suddenly felt a pressure so sharp and so heavy that she fell to all fours on the floor. She held her stomach and moaned both in pain and terror, and in his room Teddy thought he heard a strange sound like an animal moaning, but after a moment he decided it was the wind and went back to his studies, but a minute or so later he heard it again. He picked up his head and frowned, and then suddenly he realized that it was someone groaning and he heard the sound of his own name. Frightened, he stood up, not sure of where it had come from, and then realizing that it was Serena, he ran out into the hall.
“Serena? Where are you?” But as he stood only a few feet away around a bend in the hallway, she was in the grips of yet another pain so forceful that she was unable to breathe or speak his name again. “Serena? Serena? Where are you?” A terrible moan met his ears, and he hastened toward it, coming through the door of the baby's room and finding her in the bathroom doorway, crouched on the floor. “Oh, my God, what happened?” She was so pale and in such obvious pain that he felt his own knees tremble. “Serena, did you fall?” Instinctively he reached for her pulse and found it healthy, but as he held the delicate wrist in his fingers, he saw her face contort with a pain so terrible that he winced as he watched and tried to take her in his arms as she screamed. But she fought to keep him away from her, as though she needed every bit of air and each touch was painful, and it was fully two minutes before her face relaxed and she could speak to him rationally again.
“Oh, Teddy … it's coming … I don't understand … it just started …”
“When?” He was desperately trying to gather his wits about him. He had only seen one childbirth, although he had already carefully studied all the chapters in his textbook on the subject, but he didn't feel at all equal to the task of delivering his own niece or nephew and he knew that he had to get her to the hospital at once. “When did it start, Serena? I'll call the doctor.”
“I don't know … a few minutes ago … ten … fifteen …” She was still trying to catch her breath and was sitting propped against the wall, as though she no longer had the strength to move.
“Why didn't you call me?”
“I couldn't. My water broke, and then it just hit me so hard, I couldn't even”—her breath began to come more quickly—”speak … oh, God … oh, Teddy …” She clutched at his arm. “Another … pain … now … ohhh …”It was a terrible groan of pain, and he held her hands in his own and watched her helplessly. Instinctively he had glanced at his watch when it began, and he saw with utter amazement that the contraction was over three and a half minutes long. He recalled what the textbook had said, when he read it only a few days earlier, that in general, contractions lasted from ten to ninety seconds, and it was only in rare cases that they extended past that, and that when they did, it was frequently in unusual labors, with frequent, prolonged, and violent contractions, which generally shortened the labor process by several hours. The more brutal the pains, the quicker the baby would be born.
With a look at Serena he ran his handkerchief across her forehead as the pain ended. “Serena, I want you to lie here. I'm going to call the doctor right now.”
“Don't leave me.”
“I have to.” He was going to ask for an ambulance, he was sure