“Nope,” I say. “Nope, nope, nope. Marty, I swear to god, if you finish that sentence, I will have your balls on a chopping block, and you will never get to have your own children!”
“It’s the daddies!” Marty cries into the phone. “How we doing this fine morning?”
“We’re fine,” Otter says, though he sounds like anything but, given that he’s squeaking.
“Is there a small cat traveling with you?” Marty asks. “Because whatever that was, it sounded like a small cat.”
“That was Otter,” I say. “He’s… excited.”
“Oh, you guys are adorable,” Marty sighs. “You’re going to be the best daddies ever. Well. Until I’m a daddy, and then we can share that title, okay?”
“Marty,” another voice says in the background. “Maybe now’s not the time to talk about other babies.”
“You’re absolutely right, my love,” Marty says. “We can save that for later.”
“Is that Megan?” I ask, baffled. “I thought she was giving birth!”
Marty chuckles. “Oh, my poor, naïve daddies. She’s in the early labor phase. Water broke, but she’s only dilated a couple of centimeters. This part will probably last a little while. Babies don’t just fall out, you know. After that, it’s the active labor phase, when her cervix will dilate up to seven centimeters. Can you just imagine. And then it’s the transition phase, when the cervix will get all the way up to ten—”
Otter and I are both staring at the phone in horror while it sounds as if it’s being shuffled from one person to another. Then, “Bear? Otter? It’s Megan. You know. Your surrogate?”
I almost smack my head against the steering wheel. I don’t, but it’s close. “Hi, Megan.”
“You’re having babies,” Otter breathes, and I almost smack his head against the steering wheel.
“I am!” Megan says cheerfully. “The contractions aren’t too bad yet, but they’re coming regularly. We’re sitting around waiting to get this show on the road. When you get to Sacred Heart, you’ll want to head up to the prenatal unit on the fourth floor, okay? They know you’re coming and ow ow ow, okay, here is a good one. Ohhh, that has some bite to it.”
“Did you just have a baby?” Otter asks frantically. “Did one come out yet?”
“Who are you and what have you done with my husband?” I demand.
“Tell them it doesn’t look like you’ll need an episiotomy,” I hear Marty
say in the background.
“Oh god, no,” Megan says to him. “I would rather wait until they get here so I can see the look on their faces.”
“What the hell is an episiotomy?” Otter asks. “Is it bad? It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“It’s not bad,” Megan assures him. “Well. Mostly. But it’s not used a whole lot anymore, and only in special cases. It’s to help avoid vaginal tearing. They make… a bigger opening. By slicing.”
“Women are so hard-core,” I whisper to Otter.
“But,” Megan continues. “The babies are positioned head down, which is how they’re supposed to be, so I don’t see that being an issue. If there’s any repositioning, there will be a C-section most likely instead. I really hope it doesn’t go that direction, because I want to do this naturally.”
“It’s no water birth, but it’ll do,” Marty says. “Should we talk to them about what can be done with the placenta?”
“Now you’ve scared them,” Megan sighs as Otter and I both choke horribly, because what.
“We’ll be there in an hour,” I manage to tell her. “Do you need anything?”
“Adult diapers?” Megan asks.
“What?” Otter and I both screech at the same time.
But Megan and Marty just laugh at something we don’t quite understand.
IN THE movies, anytime anyone gives birth, there’s this great big splash of the water breaking, immediate contractions, and the woman is wheeled into the hospital in a wheelchair, clutching her stomach and breathing like she just ran a marathon. Cut to the next scene, and her feet are in stirrups, and everyone is telling her to push, and maybe she’ll get snarky with a really deep voice, demanding a goddamn epidural before she kills someone, and the father of the child will be standing next to her, grimacing as the woman breaks his hand. A few minutes later, the baby comes out, looking sparkling clean with a full head of hair, and the anonymous doctor in scrubs and wearing a mask says, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” and then the dad cries and the mom cries and they hug the baby, who appears to actually be a wrinkled burrito, and they all look amazing and live happily ever after.