“Come here, please! Here!” I yelled at the top of my voice combined with beckoning hand gestures to people nearby.
I had driven the car like a mad Formula 1 driver – navigated the heavy traffic on the road, faced the oncoming cars and meandered my way through dangerous bends. Thanks to the car’s ABS (Anti-lock braking system), as I have had to slam the car’s brake on several instances of over speeding to this hospital’s entrance.
You could see the bewilderment look on the people’s faces outside the hospital as I jetted out of the car immediately after arriving at the hospital’s entrance and made my way to the back seat in a rush.
This unplanned drama had driven attention towards my direction. Two young men and a woman rushed towards the back seat of my car to offer help. So much was the adrenaline running through my body and the evident confusion on my face, as they helped carried my wife through the glass door of the hospital.
The hospital was unusually crowded but I couldn’t care less. She held me tight, she was heavy and covered in sweat all over. Although her tummy was really protruded; the doctor had assured us that she wasn’t due for delivery until another two weeks.
“Tosin!” She cried out as she squeezed my hand simultaneously. I was confused. Yes, I had a right to be. After all, it was our first child and all the seminars we attended and the watched videos did not fully explain in details of what to do when something like this happens.
“Please put her on the stretcher,” the nurse said, as she was gently placed on the stretcher by the men who had offered to help. While I was still trying to figure out the details in my head and the state of things…“ please stay here”, one of the nurses said, as she was wheeled into one of the Intensive Care Units.
Nine hours ago, we had planned an evening outing together once I’m back from a business appointment. We had scheduled three things; to watch the new blockbuster film at the cinema, have an assorted dinner in our favorite restaurant and attend the weekend Smooth Jazz Party to cap an eventful Friday evening outing.
She was already prepared for my arrival at the house. You could smell the flowery scents of her worn perfume as she hugged me on arrival. She was dressed up in a black and red laced colored overall dinner cloth, layered with thinly textured gray colored linings across her cloth in a zigzag pattern, and combined with a somewhat forest colored camouflage medium-heeled shoes.
If you weren’t informed earlier, you wouldn’t have noticed she was pregnant, as the dress did a great job in concealing her protruded tummy. She looked beautiful and elegant with the heart-shaped pendant around her neck and her pretty smile. You could see the anticipation on her face and the tone of excitement in her voice as it’s been a while we’ve been out together.
With a dash of water on my face, a dab of cologne on my pulse spots, a well-combed Afro hair, a white dinner shirt and a charcoal tuxedo donned, combined with an Oxford laced black shoes, a classic black bow tie around the neck and her smacked kiss on my lips; I was ready in a jiffy.
It was around Twenty-five minutes in the heavy traffic, with about fifteen more kilometers of distance to the Cinema place, that I noticed her continuing jolting and expression of discomfort as she slouched in the car seat.
“Is that a kick?” I asked her. She did not respond. “Are you OK?” “…road sickness?” “…the babies?” I kept asking incoherent questions as I drove through the slowly moving traffic on the road. “Aaah! Wrrhh…” She clasped both her hands on her tummy and screamed deeply with her eyes closed, “…I think it’s happening”, she voiced out.
“Now?” I queried, as I started looking at both sides of the road through the side windows of the car in search of a nearby hospital, as our booked hospital is located in the north direction of our present place.
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