CLASS OF 2000
Chapter Sixteen
Jack drove through
the streets of Palm Springs as fast as he could, trying to get Rose to the
hospital on time. Rose clutched the handle above the door and looked at him
nervously, but he didn’t understand why until a glance at the speedometer told
him he was going eighty miles an hour--on the city streets. Fortunately,
traffic was light at this hour.
Down the street, a
green light turned to yellow. Jack drove the gas pedal down farther, determined
to beat it, but it was already red when he went through the intersection,
narrowly missing colliding with a pick-up truck.
"Jack, slow
down!" Rose, Molly Brown, and Thomas Andrews shouted in unison.
Jack looked at them
oddly, as though he couldn’t understand why they would want him to slow down,
until he saw the flashing lights in his rearview mirror and heard the siren.
Reluctantly, he pulled over.
Rolling down his
window, he asked, "Is there a problem, officer?"
The cop just looked
at him. "License and registration, please."
Jack handed them
over. The cop read them over quickly. "You were going eighty in a
thirty-five zone."
"Sir, my wife
is in labor. I’m trying to get her to the hospital."
"First baby,
huh?"
"Twins."
Rose had been
listening with her eyes closed. Squirming to find a more comfortable position,
she groaned under her breath, then mumbled, more audibly, "Dammit!"
Jack was still
arguing with the cop, trying to get out of a traffic ticket. Annoyed, she
leaned toward them.
"Can we please
get going?" she interrupted. "My water just broke."
The cop looked at
Rose’s pleading face and sighed, waving them on. "Get going," he told
them. "But drive more slowly, or else you might wind up landing all of you
in the hospital."
"Yes. Thank
you, officer." Jack quickly rolled up the window and drove away.
*****
About ten minutes
later, Jack pulled into the hospital parking lot. After dropping off Rose,
Molly Brown, and Thomas Andrews at the door, he went to find a parking space.
Five minutes later, he joined them, taking Rose by the arm and leading her to
the admitting desk.
It wasn’t the
hospital Rose had planned to have the babies in. She had filled out all the
admitting paperwork at the hospital in Santa Monica over a month earlier, and
her own obstetrician had been alerted to the fact that she was to give birth
there soon.
Jack led her to the
admissions desk in the emergency room. Since it wasn’t where Rose had planned
to have the babies, he thought that the emergency room was the best place to go
through.
The nurse at the
admissions desk was writing something in a file when they came up. She glanced
up at them, her eyes widening as she recognized them.
"Are
you..."
"Jack Dawson
and Rose DeWitt-Bukater, yes. Rose is in labor. We were performing at Casino
Morongo when she went into labor--right on stage." The nurse’s eyes
widened more. "Her water’s already broken, so it’s too late to drive back
to Santa Monica."
"Of course.
Have a seat. Someone will be with you in a moment. One of you needs to fill out
this paperwork."
"I can do
it," Mr. Andrews told her. "I’m her manager." He took the
clipboard and pile of papers.
A short time later,
Rose was admitted to the hospital. Jack accompanied her to the maternity ward,
where the doctor chased him out of the room until he had washed up and put on
scrubs.
By the time he
returned, Rose was lying down, covered by a hospital gown. Her eyes were
closed, her jaw tense as she weathered another contraction. She smiled when she
opened her eyes and saw him.
"Going to stay
with me, are you?" she asked, reaching for Jack’s hand.
I wouldn’t miss it
for the world."
For the next two
hours, Rose labored to give birth. The contractions quickly grew longer and
closer together. Jack, who had gone to Lamaze classes with Rose, tried to coach
her.
"Breathe...that’s
right...pant, pant, pant...like a dog on a hot day."
Rose tolerated him
for a while, but after an hour she had had enough. As another contraction
ripped through her abdomen, she gripped his hand so tightly that he winced,
then, without warning, pulled it toward her mouth and tried to bite his
fingers.
He yanked his hand
away. "Rose!"
She glared at him.
"It’s your fault I’m lying here in pain."
"It’ll be over
soon. And besides, it’s not entirely my fault. You could have said no."
"Easy for you
to say. You’re not about to give birth to twins."
Another hour
passed. Jack no longer tried to coach her, and Rose did not attempt to bite him
again. The doctor told her that the birth was progressing very quickly, but to
Rose it seemed like an eternity.
"Just be glad
you aren’t in labor for three days," the RN assisting with the birth told
her, earning an irritated look for her efforts to soothe her laboring patient.
Finally, just past
midnight on July 16, 2000, the doctor checked Rose again and told her it was
time to push. Rose didn’t know where she would get the energy to push, but her
body knew what it was doing.
For what seemed an
eternity, she pushed, though the clock on the wall told her that only ten
minutes had passed. In spite of the painkiller she had been given, it still
hurt, and she cried out several times as she struggled to bring the first baby
into the world.
Jack was at her side
the whole time, holding her hand. He watched as a tiny, redheaded baby emerged,
squalling, from its mother’s womb.
The doctor picked
the baby up. "It’s a girl!"
Rose struggled to
sit up more, wanting to see her baby. Her red-haired daughter wailed in outrage
at being pushed from her warm, dark, familiar home into the cold, bright
hospital room. As soon as the infant’s breathing passages were cleared and the
umbilical cord cut and tied off, the doctor handed the baby to her mother.
Rose looked at her
crying daughter, reaching to stroke a tiny cheek. "Hello, little
one," she whispered, watching as the baby turned her head in response to
the touch on her cheek, her tiny mouth searching.
A moment later,
Jack took his newborn daughter and held her for the first time as Rose bore
down again, struggling to give birth to the second baby.
The second birth
was much faster than the first. Five minutes later, the second twin emerged in
a gush of fluid as the second sac ruptured.
"It’s a
boy!" the doctor announced, holding up a tiny, blonde-haired baby. Rose
sat up, reaching for her second newborn.
About half an hour
later, Jack and Rose sat together in the recovery room, each holding a freshly
cleaned and swaddled baby. Rose was propped up in her bed, wincing when she
moved from the soreness of birth. Jack sat in a chair beside her.
Rose cradled their
tiny daughter, whose red hair had been washed and slicked down. A tiny pink bow
was attached to the top of her head. Jack held their son, whose arms and legs
waved wildly when he unwrapped the blanket, as though the infant were getting
used to the freedom of movement.
"They’re
beautiful, Rose," Jack told her, catching one of his son’s waving fists.
The baby clamped his fingers around his father’s thumb and held tightly to it.
"They are. A
girl who looks like me, and a boy who looks like you." She pulled the
neckline of her hospital gown aside to let her daughter nurse. Jack handed her
their son, watching as the two babies contentedly latched on to their mother’s
breasts, nursing blissfully. Their daughter’s waving hand caught the hand of
her brother. The two infants’ tiny hands gripped each other, tugging back and
forth for a moment before finally settling to rest against their mother.
"Do you
remember what we decided to name a girl and a boy?" Rose asked Jack,
pulling the infants from her breasts as they fell asleep.
"Maddy
Elizabeth and Avery Thomas," Jack replied, taking the babies from Rose and
burping them. "The question is, what will their last name be? You kept
your maiden name when you married me for professional purposes."
Rose looked at the
two babies sleeping in their father’s arms. "I grew up with a hyphenated
name. I think we should do the same for them. Maddy Elizabeth and Avery Thomas
Bukater-Dawson."
"That’s a
mouthful."
"They’ll learn
to say it. What do you think? Should we give them both of our names?"
He nodded. "I
think so. The Bukater-Dawson twins. Kind of catchy, isn’t it?"
Rose nodded
sleepily. "Maybe we can write a song about them." She yawned, the
exhaustion from the hard work she had done that night catching up to her.
"I think I’ll go to sleep now. Have the nurse take them back to the
nursery, will you?"
Jack leaned forward
and gave her a kiss. "Sure. You rest now. You’ve definitely earned it.
I’ll tell Mr. Andrews and Molly that the babies are here."
Rose smiled at him,
closing her eyes. Jack gave the babies to the nurse, and then headed down to
the waiting room to pass on the good news.