As an ER nurse, I’ve delivered a few emergency births, but never a male birth and never on the Lunar Shuttle. And never eight-months pregnant myself. But when the new chef — Ricky Valdez — went into labor, a quick scan of the ship of HVAC repairmen, robot technicians and mining engineers made it clear I was the only option. I thought I could slow things down until arrival.
I was happy for the distraction. Ninety minutes left and I’d been standing, sitting, pacing, standing, sitting, pacing — make that waddling — for an hour, unable to find comfort in any position. Ricky and I were due the same week and we’d made a bet on who’d deliver first. Looked like he won. Or lost depending on the outcome.
I lay Ricky down in the narrow middle aisle. He copied my slow breathing. Tinted windows on the right eased the sun’s glare. On the left, clear windows for stargazing helped pass the time. Otherwise, the ship was just straps for standers and side seats in a long tube.
I’d convinced Buzzy I could squeeze in one last two-week moon shift to help pay for the delivery. I had a good body for pregnancy but my brain couldn’t stand the waiting. That’s why I loved the ER. Always busy in the moment: calming, diagnosing, deciding when to act and when to get help. Moving fast, but never hurrying. Getting completely outside of myself.
Ricky’s contractions were strong but settled into six-minute intervals. I wiped the sweat from his forehead. He seemed like a hero to me — my new low expectations of a hero being a man who kept his promises. Buzzy’d agreed to have our second baby, but when the time came, chickened out. Found studies of messed up post-delivery womb removals and questions about the long-term impact on men’s pelvises. Even though the success rate of the womb/vagina implants and extractions was over 99%. “I’m terrified!” he finally admitted. “Can you please have the baby?” He’d owe me for the rest of our lives.
***
Everyone on board contributed something: coats, blankets, even cobbling together tools, just in case–HVAC cutting shears, soldering irons, hobby knives, mining clamps, sound sensors, and a bunch of stuff I didn’t recognize. Maria, an engineer, played soothing music. Hal from HVAC sterilized the tools. Ed, a robot tech, talked about robot wombs and all the synthetics that’d soon make human pregnancies unnecessary.
Unnecessary was an interesting word choice. Despite my swollen ankles, flattened feet and pelvis that felt like it would fall off, I never thought of not delivering our own baby — or having Buzzy do it. It gives you a head start on parenthood. Buzzy was missing out, although I’d never tell him that.
Ricky, however, was all in. He said he’d had two procedures to expand his womb due the baby’s size. He was a big guy and should have known not to get the medium womb just to save a few bucks. “Live and learn,” he said.
It was a nice moment. Everyone sharing stories, laughing, offering advice, helping Ricky stay calm until we arrived–a reminder of how good humanity can be.
Angela from HVAC called off the time between contractions. But when the baby’s heart rate dropped, everyone got quiet except for a ripple of whispered curses. This baby couldn’t wait. I cut off Ricky’s shirt and pants with HVAC scissors only to find–Surprise! No vagina! “Ricky!” I shouted.
“It was another forty thousand!” he said. “We just didn’t have it.”
I stopped Ricky before he said, “Live and learn,” again and cooed into his womb as I surreptitiously opened a MedTube how-to video–synching the sound to my earbuds so Ricky couldn’t hear the long list of disclaimers at the beginning. Suddenly the donated tools lined up on the shuttle floor looked cave-man primitive. There’s no way Caesar was born by Caesarean in 100 BC or whenever. I don’t think he invented the salad either.
Thirty minutes left. Time seemed to both speed up and slow down. Ed held the mining sensors monitoring the dropping heart rate. The globe of Ricky’s stomach was too still. Aligned with the video, I sliced the skin above the pubic bone, washed the blade and sliced vertically to separate the abdominal muscles. I pried them apart to get to the uterus. Behind that thin layer was a baby. In distress. Probably pushing right against the wall.
I hesitated. Ed nodded encouragingly. Maria turned down the music. The fellow-passengers gave a row of thumbs up. I rubbed my own stomach for luck, trying to imagine Buzzy in this very position. No way! Chickening out was the right decision. I signaled Ed to separate the muscles.
“Almost done, Ricky,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he whispered, his eyes wide in terror.
“I got it,” I whispered. “Live and learn.”
That made him smile. I took three slow breaths and, like a sniper, tried to time the slice between heartbeats. The razor-thin line down the uterine wall opened like a broken zipper to reveal the baby — arms wrapped around her knees ready to cannonball into the world. To a chorus of soft ahs, I scooped her out and massaged her chest and feet.
The ship was silent. The vastness of space out the window made us feel insignificant and at the same time in awe of this little miracle.
The baby gasped twice, then filled the car with her first wail. Ricky cried. Ed smiled like he was the dad. The ship filled with cheers and clapping as I clipped, tied, cleaned and sewed.
“Ten minutes left!” Angela shouted.
Ed wrapped the baby in a blanket, laid her on Ricky’s chest and said, “You did it!” addressing both Ricky and me. “An ambulance’s waiting at the landing station.”
“Good,” I said, feeling dizzy from the effort. I took a breath to steady myself. “Because my water just broke.”
Jack Powers is the author of two poetry collections: Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar (2018) and Still Love (2023). His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle and Salamander. His fiction has appeared in Abyss & Apex, Flash Fiction Magazine and Fiction on the Web. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes.
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