Try squishing different parts of your stomach, like you’re dealing with the most difficult poop of your life.” The nurse demonstrated, balling up her fists and curling her body in, only to let out a long, loud fart. Surprised, she popped up, then shrugged. “See? If you push hard enough, things happen down there!”
Wyatt stared at her, horrified, and then started cackling, laughing and crying. “Ow, don’t make me laugh! Oh my gosh, you just...”
“Keep doing that, Wyatt!” Dr. Evan yelled from Wyatt’s feet. “The baby is crowning.”
Wyatt squeezed my fingers painfully. “I can’t... there’s no way... fuuuuuuck!” His words were interspersed with laughter until the last one, and a second later, Dr. Evan lifted a sticky, tiny baby into the air.
“He’s here!”
He? I leaned my head against Wyatt’s. “You did it, fluffy. You did it. Our little boy is here.”
“Boy? It’s William?”
I nodded, startled to see tears drop from my face to Wyatt’s. “I’m sorry, let me wipe that...”
But then Dr. Evan was laying William on Wyatt’s chest, and neither of us could look at anything else. His hair was almost not-there, a little blond like his papa. He was pink and wrinkly and beautiful.
I kissed Wyatt’s cheek. “Good job, Papa. He’s here. He’s safe. You did that.”
“I did that?”
“You did.”
“He’s safe. He made it.” The wonder in Wyatt’s words overcame his exhaustion, overcame his pain.
“Hi, William,” I whispered. “Welcome to the world.”
“Where are my boys?”
Mom’s excited squeal pulled me out of a doze, slumped over the side of the armchair. I hadn’t intended to fall asleep. I’d only texted them, what? Forty, forty-five minutes ago?
Mom dropped her tone to a too-loud whisper. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“No, come in!” Either Wyatt had already been awake, or he was coming to consciousness much faster than I was. Which seemed insane, given how much his body had been through in the last twelve hours.
“I’m awake.”
I stood to give Mom and Shelby a hug.
Shelby peered around me. “I’m not here to see you, doofus. Where’s my nephew?”
I didn’t even take offense. William was much cuter than me. “Oh, he’s—Wyatt! Where did the baby go?” I pointed at where his bassinet had been. “He was right here just a few minutes ago!”
Wyatt laughed softly. “The nurse came to take him for some checkups, and you were so peaceful I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“But we’re supposed to protect him. How can we protect him if he’s not—“
Right then a nurse knocked on the open door, rolling in the baby bassinet. “Here we are! Your little man is looking good. I’m going to get the results of the tests printed out, and then we can go over them, but nothing to worry about. Everything was in normal range.”
“He’s so precious!” Mom crooned. “Can I?”
I scooped up the tiny form, so precious and fragile and handed him to Mom.
“Oh! Look at his itsy-bitsy hands! They grow so quickly, it’s so easy to forget how tiny they are at first. And his little hat! Look, Shelby.” Mom knelt next to Shelby so she could see him clearly.
William made an “Eh! Eh!” noise, and I thought Mom was going to melt into the ground.
Shelby waved her hands in the air more than normal, a clear sign of her excitement.
“Do you want to hold him, Shelbs?”
“That might not be safe. I might break him.”
“That’s nonsense,” Wyatt said before I could. “You’re his aunt! He needs to know his family.”
“Why don’t we shift you over to the chair, Shelbs?”
While Mom held William in the corner, I helped my sister into the chair and bolstered her right arm with pillows to support her and the baby. Then Mom gently laid him in the crook of Shelby’s arm. I squatted in front of her, in case William rolled off, but he stared up into his aunt’s eyes in wide-eyed fascination, and she stared down in the same.
With her arm propped, Shelby’s muscle spasms were lessened. She lifted her left hand, and though it shook as it always did, she brushed his cheek as gently as she could.
“He’s so soft. I didn’t know he’d be so soft.”
I pulled his hat down over his ears. “And he can’t stop looking at you. He likes you.”
Shelby was stiller than I’d ever seen her. “This is the first time I’ve held a baby.”
As her statement sank in, there was a moment of silence. Shelby had missed out on so much in life. Some because of her cerebral palsy, some