Wednesday, June 11, 2008
University of California, Riverside
Rose walked slowly in the direction of her lecture hall, her swollen stomach preceding her down the sidewalk. Awkwardly, she moved along, struggling to balance her heavy backpack and her heavier middle.
Her second child was due any day now. A part of her wished he would hurry and be born, while another part hoped that he would wait until after graduation, just three days away.
The previous June, Jack and Rose had begun to consider having another child. Lizzy had been almost three years old, certainly old enough to deal with a new sibling, and they wanted to enlarge their family. It hadn’t taken them long to decide to increase the size of their family, and by September Rose was pregnant again.
They weren’t entirely certain of when the baby had been conceived, although Rose always maintained that it had happened the night early in September when they had been out alone together and had stopped in a secluded turnout on a mountain road to look at the stars. One thing had led to another and they had ended up in the back seat of the car.
A few weeks later, Rose had realized that she was pregnant. Jack was delighted by the news, although he wasn’t so sure that the night in the car had been responsible. Since neither of them could be sure, however, he didn’t argue with her.
Things had been calmer for them over the past year. Rose had continued her political activism, but more cautiously, avoiding getting arrested again. She’d gotten away with it once, but next time she might not be so lucky. Now she worked with campus organizations with goals similar to her own and had started her own blog on the Internet, attracting enough attention that her writing had been featured on a some other websites. She had also continued singing, writing her own songs on occasion.
Mari had been released from jail after a week of waiting for them to affirm that she was indeed a citizen of the United States. The judge had sentenced her to time served and had given her twenty hours of community service, which she had served by assisting in botany department field trips, something she would have done anyway. Rose had laughed, pointing out that community service wasn’t supposed to be fun, but Mari had just shrugged and told her that she’d served her sentence and was done with it. Disgusted with the whole thing, she had joined Rose in her political activism, focusing mostly on environmental and immigration issues.
Rubbing her back, Rose made her way into the lecture hall and maneuvered herself into one of the front seats. It was too much trouble to wiggle into one of the seats farther back, even though there would be no lecture today, as it was the last day of class and the final exam.
As she filled in the answers on her final—a political science final, and she only had one more exam to go—she shifted uncomfortably, rubbing her back. Mentally, she reminded the baby that, while she wanted him born soon, she didn’t want him to make an appearance in the middle of a final exam.
It’s probably just false labor, she reassured herself. When she had had Lizzy, she had occasionally suffered from false labor pains, but this baby seemed unsure of when he wanted to make his way into the world. She had been experiencing occasional pains all week, but they had never progressed into labor, and since the doctor said that both she and the baby were fine, she chose not to worry about it.
The test took about two hours complete. By the time Rose finished it and went to hand it in, she was beginning to suspect that she wasn’t experiencing false labor this time. Now, the baby seemed to be eager to make his way into the world.
As Rose handed in her exam and turned to leave, she was suddenly convinced that the baby’s birth was imminent. Something seemed to give way inside her, and she stared in surprise for a moment at the puddle of fluid at her feet.
Giving a sheepish look to the wide-eyed professor, Rose hurried up the aisle as quickly as she could, heading for the exit. Placing a hand on her middle, she sent a silent request to the baby that he stay put just a little longer.
Before she could leave for the hospital, she had to find Mari and ask her to watch Lizzy for the rest of the day, and she had to find Jack. He wouldn’t miss the birth of their second child for the world.