“RYAN!”
I jumped at Dawn’s scream and almost fell off of my boyfriend’s lap. We were sitting on his couch.
My parents were at some expo in Pennsylvania for couples who had multiples, either pregnant with them still or parents of them, and they took my triplet younger sisters and brother with them. I was staying with Will for the four days they would be gone, which just started this morning.
Now it was around nine at night and Dawn was screaming from upstairs.
Ryan ran up the stairs from the kitchen and I settled back into Will’s chest, hoping to get back into my near-sleeping state I was in before Dawn startled me out of it.
“It’s too late for her to be screaming,” Will muttered into my hair, placing a kiss there.
“Tell me about it,” I whispered.
“AHH!”
We both groaned. Now Ryan was screaming. Then he came running down the stairs and started looking around frantically for something.
“Bag, bag, where’s the damn bag?” he was mumbling to himself.
“What are you looking for?” I asked him tiredly.
“Dawn’s hospital bag,” he told me quickly, referring to the bag of clothes and other stuff Dawn had just finished packing earlier today so she would be ready for when the baby came.
“Why?” Will sounded genuinely confused.
“She says it’s time.”
My eyes widened along with Will’s.
“It was in the bathroom down here the last time I looked,” I called to him; he was on the other end of the house now.
I heard him running to the bathroom and then Dawn started coming down the stairs while holding her huge stomach.
“I’m going to have my baby!” she squealed when she reached the living room.
I had no idea how she could still be so happy when I knew from my mom that she was gonna be screaming some more soon.
“Good luck,” I told her fervently.
She frowned. “You guys aren’t gonna wait in the waiting room or something?”
“I guess we could,” Will said very slowly.
I got up off his lap and went to find my flip flops.
“Yay!” She would have been bouncing in happiness if she could have.
“Found it!” we heard Ryan exclaim triumphantly.
“Oh, good,” Dawn said. “Let’s go.”
She and Ryan went out to the car while we yelled through the house to tell everyone else that it was time. It sounded like a stampede was taking place as they all ran to the door from wherever they had been in the house. Cynthia and Robert went with Dawn and Kevin drove the rest of us in the minivan.
We got separated in the traffic and then got lost in the labyrinth of different parking lots, so Dawn was already in a room by the time we got inside. Cynthia was waiting for us just inside the doors to tell us where to go. We followed her to the room Dawn was in and Cynthia seemed more apprehensive as we got closer.
Then we heard Dawn’s screaming and cursing and we knew why.
“We’re gonna go…in the waiting room,” Will half suggested, half announced.
He grabbed my shoulders and turned we made a U-turn in the middle of the hospital hallway to head for the waiting room we had just passed.
We were waiting in that waiting room with everyone but Ryan, Robert, and Cynthia for what felt like forever, Dawn’s yells and profanities just barely audible. The room had emptied except for us by midnight. By then we were all exhausted. Kirsten and Kevin were asleep on each other’s shoulders, the same as Casey and Scott. I had pulled up two chairs in a row and was lying across them with my head in Will’s lap. He was snoring lightly with his head leaning back against the wall behind him.
I finally fell asleep a few minutes later.
It was fairly light outside when I woke up again with everyone else because a nurse was asking us why we were still there.
“Sister’s having a baby,” Kevin muttered sleepily before dropping his head back onto Kirsten’s shoulder and starting to snore again. She rolled her eyes but patted his head anyway.
The nurse left the waiting room and a few seconds later, Cynthia walked in smiling.
“Come on,” she said softly and ushered us all to Dawn’s room.
We walked inside, afraid that she would still be screaming, but instead she was cradling a bundle of white blankets in her arms, smiling down at it gently.
If that wasn’t an “aww” moment, I don’t know what is.
But then Kevin caught sight of Ryan out cold on the recliner and started sniggering.
Dawn looked up and said, “Apparently he doesn’t like blood,” with a shrug.
I pulled Will closer to her bed so I could see the baby with the little pink hat.
“Aww, Dawn! She’s so cute!” I gushed, making her smile more.
“Thanks. Her name is Alexandra Morgan,” she announced to the room with a smile.
Will put his arm around my waist as my eyes widened. Dawn nodded and I smiled.
I looked down at the tiny sleeping baby and knew that the name fitted her perfectly. She looked like she was going to be very smart when she got older, yet would most likely have Dawn’s bubbly personality.
But before all that she would wake them up religiously every two hours for the next month.