Chapter 12: Birth of a Calico

Captain's Log -

Patty woke me in the night to tell me that her water broke and that she was having crippling contractions.

After a good bout of adrenaline-pumped attacks of nervousness, I asked Patty what I could do for her, if she wanted to go to the hospital, did she want me to help her with breathing, did she want to lay back down on the bed . . . . endless questions that wouldn't stop pouring from my blubbering mouth.

She eventually griped at me to shut up and to go back to bed, that I was no help at all.  She would wake me when the contractions got closer together to take her to the hospital.

I forced myself to lay back down, though I had the strongest urge to jump, hoot and run to burn off the burst of energy that assailed me.  I eventually snoozed in fits while Patty paced the house, gasping and grunting quietly every so often in pain. I kept an ear to her for the moment that she'd give in and call for me to drive her to the hospital.
Dawn was barely lighting the skies with the first blushes of light when Patty woke me and we headed to the hospital.  Before noon, our daughter was born.  When asked what name the child was to have, the nurses cleaning her and swaddling her, I turned to Patty who laid slack and damp with sweat in the aftermath of birth.  Her eyes were closed and I figured she either slept or ignored the nurses.
I thought for a moment of a name, a name that meant the world to me.  I thought the best name for a Calico girl would be after my own mother, who had died when I was a toddling child.
"Una," I said through the lump in my throat, "Her name is Una Calico,"
The nurses swept her away, the doctor tended to Patty and I slumped in a nearby chair, feeling as exhausted as if I had given birth myself.
Worries about Patty and I abated with the joy I felt in the birth of our child.  All I can think of is how I am officially a father.
I have a daughter.  I fine, healthy baby girl named Una.

~Tom Calico