Normal Life
Chapter 3
By: Bella
"Everyone, out of my house! Paul, you're driving us to the hospital because you've got the best traffic record. Billy, Sandy, you're coming with. Joel, get your lazy ass up and find my camera. Trissy … uhh … hold the baby in!" Benji had immediately begun ordering everyone around in a panic. He then tried to lead Tristen out of the house and into the garage, but she refused.
"Gross, Benj! I have to change my pants," she protested. By now Sandy, Paul, and Billy had gotten into Tristen's SUV and Joel had just found their camera and was on his way to the garage as well. Their house was quickly emptying, and the sound of cars starting up all around their street outside could be heard.
"No time!" Benji said frantically. He ran over to the linen closet near by and grabbed a beach towel. "You can sit on this."
Tristen was extremely unhappy, but knew that when Benji was panicking there was no use in arguing with him. She got into the middle seat of her car and sat on the towel that Benji had laid on the seat for her. Paul was in the drivers seat, Joel was in the passenger seat, Billy and Sandy were in the very back row of seats, and Benji and Tristen were in the middle row of seats. They were quickly headed to the hospital.
"How do you feel, babe?" Benji asked worriedly, as he rested one hand on her stomach and the other brushed her cheek.
"Okay, I guess. I mean, I didn't know I was in labor until I exploded!" she said. "I felt a little funny, but I just figured it was from not having sex for three whole days."
This made everyone else in the car groan with disgust. Mumblings of "more information than I needed" and "fucking nympho's" could be heard throughout the car, as Benji and Tristen laughed.
"I'm so scared though, Benj. What if something's wrong? This wasn't supposed to happen for three more weeks," she said, fighting back tears.
"People go into labor earlier than this sometimes and their babies end up being completely fine. Our baby has to be fine. It's just eager to meet us is all," he said, trying to reassure both himself and his wife.
"It doesn't really hurt that much, I don't know what the big deal… HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK!"
The sudden outburst took everyone by surprise, especially Paul and Benji. Paul swerved, but luckily stayed on the road and didn't hit anything. Benji's ear suffered extreme damage, in his opinion, because it was the first thing Tristen thought to grab onto and squeeze when she felt the sudden rush of pressure.
"Hurts, hurts, pain, ouch, pain, pressure, hurts, fuck," Tristen said, closing her eyes and leaning into Benji. Still shocked and hurt from his recent ear trauma, he looked at her suspiciously and bravely offered his hand for her to hold onto and squeeze, hoping that she'd give his ear a rest. Joel turned around in his seat and snapped a picture of Tristen in pain and squeezing a horrified looking Benji's hand.
"Fuck you," both Benji and Tristen said to Joel at the same time, who smiled evily and turned back around in his seat so that he was facing the correct way. Once Tristen's contraction ended, she calmed down and took a big sigh of relief.
"Wow, that was a bitch," she said, returning to her normal self. She immediately begun to act as if nothing had happened, as everyone else in the car sat there shocked. Benji stared at her with his jaw dropped open, unable to believe what had just gone on. One minute he thought she was going to crush every bone in his body, and the next she was perfectly content.
"Umm… Trissy… do you feel better now?" Benji asked, confused.
"Yes, much," she said, leaning her head on Benji's shoulder. Her head brushed up against his ear and he yelped in pain.
"What's the matter?" she asked, looking at his bright red ear.
"I don't know. I think maybe someone crushed it with their freakishly strong hands! Good God woman, where'd you learn to grip like that?" he said.
"I'm so sorry! Oh my gosh, I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, babe!" she said, feeling horrible for what she had done to his ear.
"Next time, grab my hand, OK?" he said.
"OK, but you better give me your hand just in case I feel the urge to reach for your ear again," she said, taking his left hand and rubbing it and tracing things on it with her index finger. She laced their fingers and looked up at him.
"I'm so happy that we're having a baby," he said to her. "Everything is going to be OK."
"I hope so," she said, scared. Neither she nor Benji could shake the worry that something was wrong. Everything had been going perfectly for the past 37 weeks, but they didn't expect to go into labor so soon.
Suddenly Benji's cell phone rang. It was Matt. The rest of Pacifica, with the exception of Casey who was in Louisiana visiting his girlfriend, had been at the baby shower.
"Hello?"
"Hey man. How's she doing?"
"OK at the moment, but we had a little outburst here a few minutes ago. Are you guys on your way to the hospital as well?"
"Of course. We're following you, actually."
Benji turned around and looked into the car behind them. Sure enough it was Trevor driving, Matt in the passenger's seat holding a phone to his ear and waving, and Casey in the back.
"OK, good," he said, waving back.
"Oh, and Maggie's staying at your house to make sure everyone empties out OK and and to clean up for you guys."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that."
All of the sudden a scream from beside Benji could be heard.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Tristen shouted, squeezing Benji's free hand. The second surprising outburst had once agin caused Paul to swerve a bit, but again they got lucky and didn't hit anything. Everyone was scared for their lives now. Benji yelped in pain once again and threw his phone behind him to Billy.
"Umm… he'll have to get back to you," Billy said into Benji's phone, and then ended the conversation and placed the phone between he and Sandy.
"This is going to be a long ride," he said.
---
"We're done running tests, and I have good news, kids. Your baby is fine, its lungs are fully developed and its weight isn't quite where we would like it to be, but it will do just fine with time. You're going to have this baby tonight," Tristen's doctor said. Both Benji and Tristen sighed with relief and hugged each other. Tristen was already laying in her hospital bed and hooked up to monitors and medication. Her contractions were becoming closer and closer together, and she was dilated to 6 centimeters, which meant that she only had 4 more centimeters to go before she could start pushing. Benji kissed her and left quickly to inform everyone in the waiting room of the news. They had quite a crowd growing there. By now Paul, Sandy, Billy, Matt, Trevor, Casey, Jill, Tristen's parents, grandparents, and an aunt were there. Benji's mother, Sarah, and Josh were on their way.
When Benji returned to Tristen's room, he sat down next to her and looked up at her. She was breathing through a contraction with her eyes closed. He grabbed her hand and held onto it, massaging it. The contraction ended and she looked down at him.
"Thanks," she said weakly. "I wish this thing would just pop out already. I'm tired, hungry, sick of the pain, and I want to hold my baby!"
"Me too," Benji said, yawning and looking at the clock. They had been there for 7 hours.
"Any last minute predictions as to what the sex of the baby is?" she asked him. They constantly went back and forth over what the baby was going to be.
"As long as it's human, I'm a happy man," he said, smiling at his wife.