Epilogue

          As a loud crack of thunder echoed through the house that hot August night, the baby started to cry from the other room. A newly slender Annie and a very pregnant Andrea were sitting in the living room of Nick’s beach house in Florida, watching TV, or rather trying to watch TV between the intermittent disruptions of power from the storm blowing outside.

          “I’ll get him,” huffed Andrea as she hoisted herself off the couch and onto to her feet.

          “You can barely walk and you’re not even going to be able to bend over the crib and pick him up,” protested Annie as she made a motion to get up only to realize that she was still “attached” to the breast pump she was using to express milk for the baby.

          “Annie, it’s okay. He’s in the bassinet instead of the crib anyway because I couldn’t bend over the top of the crib to lay him down in it when I put him to bed,” Andrea responded laughing as she rubbed her enormously swollen, past-due belly. “And besides, you’re busy collecting important nutrients for my God-child.” She gave Annie a silly grin as the baby screeched again.

          Andrea shuffled into the downstairs bedroom where baby Dre had been sleeping peacefully until the thunder woke him up. She picked up the two and a half week old infant and rocked him gently, her round belly making the perfect shelf to rest him on as she did so. She hummed to him softly and within a minute he had drifted back to sleep. As she waddled back out into the living room after laying Dre back in his bassinet, she noticed Annie was done pumping and was looking at her watch anxiously.

          “What’s wrong sweetie?” Andrea asked her cousin already knowing the answer. “You know how long it takes them to make a food run, they always get sidetracked by something,” she continued, not waiting for Annie to answer her.

          “Yeah, I know, but don’t you remember what happened the last time a food run took this long?”

          Andrea remembered all too well; that was the night that Annie went into labor a week early. Nick and Alex had gone on the usual late night food run, that night it was to Mr. Chow’s because the girls had wanted Asian food and neither Nick nor AJ had remembered to grab a cell phone before they walked out the door. Ten minutes after the boys had left, Annie’s water broke while she was standing in the kitchen pouring a glass of milk. With no way to contact her husband or Nick, and with neither of the girls able to fit behind the steering wheel, Annie had to figure out an alternate way to the hospital.

          While Nick and AJ were sitting in Mr. Chow’s waiting for their order, completely unaware of what was happening at home, a group of girls had noticed them and by the time Nick and AJ were ready to leave twenty minutes later, Nick’s car was surrounded by fans. It had taken almost an hour for the restaurant to get security on the scene and clear the girls away. As they rushed though the door to Nick’s house expecting to find two cranky, hungry pregnant women, they found a note on the table instead. Nick and AJ ran through the door to Annie’s birthing suite as she was starting to push, and forty-three minutes later, Andrew Nickolas McLean, or Dre for short, was welcomed into the world.

          “I’m sure they will be right back,” Andrea responded with an uneasy feeling in her stomach. “At least this time they have their cell phones with them.”

          The girls sat and waited for another thirty minutes, Annie watching Andrea like a hawk, until Nick and Alex walked through the door.

          “Sorry ladies, a tree fell across the road on Jackson and we were detoured all the way out to Morgan and had to take Phillips home. Is everyone doing okay?” said Nick in one breath as he walked over to his wife and placed his hand on her belly.

          “Yeah, everyone is doing fine,” Andrea replied as she leaned her head back and Nick bent down to kiss her. “I don’t think this baby is even close to wanting out.”

          “I don’t blame him or her, I like being inside you too,” said Nick with a sexy smile.

          “Dirrtty,” Annie said as she pretended to gag, which caused Andrea to laugh even harder. Once calmness had once again regained control of the room, they all sat down to eat.

          During the middle of the night, Andrea was sick to her stomach and had emptied the contents of it a few times. I guess the Mexican food didn’t agree with me, she thought to herself and she rinsed her mouth out and walked back into the bedroom.

          “Are you okay baby?” Nick asked he sat up in bed.

          “Food just didn’t settle right, I’m okay,” she told him as she lay down on the bed and allowed him to hold her. He massaged her back and tried to make her as comfortable as a pregnant lady who’s overdue by a week and a half can be. Andrea lay in bed until morning, unable to find a comfy position and sleeping very little. She had a doctor’s appointment at 9:00 and hoped everything was going to be okay.

          “Andrea, we are going to induce labor,” her doctor told her the next morning. “You are almost two weeks past your due date, the baby is ready to come out, but for whatever reason, your body is not going into labor on its own. Go home, get ready whatever you need to, and be up at the maternity ward in an hour,” she instructed, and then smiled at Andrea when she saw the anxious look in her eyes. “By tonight, you’re going to be a mommy.”

          As Nick and Andrea walked out of the clinic hand in hand, thoughts of parenthood raced through each of their minds. Both had gotten a taste of it in the past two and half weeks with baby Dre, but now it was really happening to them. The car ride was filled with frantic conversation and list making, and phone calls to family members and friends. Today was the big day.

          Fourteen hours later Andrea was lying on the bed in her birthing suite surrounded by Nick, Annie, AJ, her mom, her dad, and two nurses.

          “Dr. Fletcher will be right in, and he will explain more. Just try and relax until he gets here,” one of the nurses said. It was almost 1:00 in the morning and Andrea had been stuck at four centimeters for the past seven hours, regardless of how high they upped the pitocin, or how strong and long her contractions were. The baby was also starting to not tolerate the labor too well and Andrea was exhausted.

          “Andrea, we don’t really have any other choice but to perform a C-section. The baby’s heart rate drops a little with each contraction and in my professional opinion I don’t see you dilating any further, no matter how long we keep the contractions coming,” explained Dr. Fletcher as she came into the room. “I know this is very disappointing to you, but in the interest of you and the baby, it’s best.”

          Andrea cried as the nurses stopped the pitocin and prepared her for surgery. She cried as they wheeled her down the hall and into the operating room. She cried as they stuck a needle in her spine for her epidural. But the most important tears she cried in those early morning hours were the tears of happiness that feel out of the corners of her eyes as she heard her baby cry and Dr. Fletcher say “it’s a girl”.

          Alexia Anne Carter was born at 2:02 am and weighed in at 8lbs, 8 ounces, and was 20 inches long. She was a perfect, healthy baby, despite what her mom had gone through during her pregnancy and as Andrea held her in her arms a few hours later, she thanked God for just that. She was not sure what else lay ahead of her, but at that very moment, she was home.