Then my attention fell on his tie. I blinked twice, thinking my eyes were deceiving me. But no, there was actually a sea of little faces staring back at me.
Brenda noticed, too. “Your tie, it’s…full of babies.”
He glanced down at his chest. “My former nurse made it. She used to give me one for Christmas every year. It’s a collage of pictures of babies I’ve delivered. She had the photos transferred onto fabric.”
Aww… How can I be upset with a man who loves babies enough to wear a tie like that?
“I see things are progressing nicely.”
Brenda stared fixedly at the lollipop and panted heavily. “Nicely for who?” she muttered through gritted teeth. I turned away to hide the grin teasing the corners of my mouth.
Grant reached out to pat his wife’s hand. Her eyes widened. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped. “Only Molly touches me.” It wasn’t so much a statement as a snarl.
I winced as everyone’s attention turned to me. So much for staying in the background and not causing trouble.
Those blue eyes were suddenly cold as the polar ice cap.
“So this is the doula.” Dr. Reynolds’s voice was flat and hostile. He might as well have said, “So this is the virus you’ve been talking about.”
“Ms….” He waited for me to fill in the blank.
Our previous encounters hadn’t even registered with him. Maybe I can dislike a guy secure enough to wear babies on his tie.
“Cassidy, Molly Cassidy. How do you do, Dr. Reynolds. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.” He looked at me frostily. “Well, just as long as you stay out of the way.” Then he dismissed me completely despite the fact that Brenda was hanging on to my hand for dear life.
That went swimmingly, I thought, and turned back to Brenda, praying that not only would this birth be smooth and successful, but also that the chilly Dr. Reynolds wouldn’t toss me out on my ear.
“Why is this taking so long?” Brenda whined a half hour later. Everything seemed to have ground to a halt laborwise. “Doesn’t this child have any sense of time?”
“They usually don’t come out with a degree in time management,” Dr. Reynolds said calmly. “Or even a wristwatch.” He’d remained surprisingly close to the labor room, even staying to talk football with Grant and baby names with Brenda.
“Make something happen, will you?” Brenda, like many lawyers, was not accustomed to letting nature takes its course.
“It is happening,” Reynolds said with composure as he studied the printout from the fetal monitor. “Just more slowly than you’d like.” His unruffled presence spoke volumes. Even though he didn’t want me here, I felt better knowing that Brenda was in his hands. He is an approach/avoidance kind of guy—babies on his tie and fire in his eyes.
She cast her gaze around the room and it landed on me. “Then you do something, Molly.”
“I can read to you.”
Brenda’s expression grew peevish. “Sing.”
“You have got to be kidding!” her husband, Grant, bleated, but she stared him down.
Dr. Reynolds turned away and I could see the smirk on his otherwise gorgeous features.
“Show tunes.”
My mouth worked but nothing came out.
“Brenda,” I finally managed, “I don’t know any show tunes.”
“You’re a doula,” Dr. Reynolds interrupted. “I thought you do ‘anything’ for a client.”
“That’s not what I meant….”
They both stared at me. Brenda looked expectant; Reynolds, maddeningly amused.
If I did it, I’d make a fool of myself. If I didn’t, well, Brenda would be unhappy and Reynolds would have more fuel for the fire.
Never let it be said I don’t stand up to a challenge. Unfortunately I’ve never been one to actually memorize all the words to any song except for a couple, and they weren’t show tunes.
“‘The farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell, hi-ho, the dairy-o…’”
Later, Lissy and I recapped the delivery.
“You mean he actually said that? ‘Stay out of the way?’ What did your client think of that?” Lissy slathered peanut butter onto a stack of buttery crackers and ate them one by one.
“She had a lot more to worry about than my feelings. She was the star of the show and performed heroically. Anyone who gives birth to a ten-pound, one-ounce baby boy rocks in my book.”
“Still, ‘Stay out of the way,’ just like that? What a—”
“Don’t say it,” I warned. “Just because Reynolds doesn’t like doulas, it doesn’t mean he isn’t a good doctor. Frankly, after watching him in action, I think he’s a great doctor. He has so much compassion for his patients that it practically oozes out of every pore. He was gentle, kind, patient, encouraging and supportive, all necessary things when a mother is giving birth to a baby the size of my bowling ball.”
“You’re defending him?”
“He didn’t kick me out of the hospital.”
“I’ve heard he’s campaigning with the hospital board to limit the number of people in a birthing room. Everyone reads that to mean that he doesn’t want birthing coaches or anyone but spouses or the very closest family involved.”
“Maybe I showed him that it can be a good thing.” I cleared my throat. “Unless he didn’t like my singing.”
“Your singing? I thought you were at a birth, not the opera.”
“It was totally embarrassing,” I admitted, “but Brenda heard me humming once and told me I had a pretty voice. I never dreamed she’d demand that I sing to her during delivery.”
“No kidding? You sang this baby into the world?”
“If I’d been that baby, I would have hung on to my mother’s rib cage and refused to come out after listening to me for five minutes. My repertoire is limited. My mind went blank, and all I could remember was the theme song from The Brady Bunch, ‘Farmer in the Dell,’ ‘Jesus Loves Me’ and ‘How Great Thou Art.’ Brenda enjoyed it, but Dr. Reynolds’s jaw was twitching by the fourth or fifth time through ‘and the mouse took the cheese.’” I shrugged. “But whatever a client wants, including distraction, she gets.”
“When I have a baby I want you to be my doula,” Lissy said. “And I want you to start learning words to new songs right away. I would not deliver a baby to the theme song from The Brady Bunch. Do something more contemporary, will you? Or show tunes like the soundtrack from Les Mis or Phantom.”
Lissy washed down her peanut butter crackers with milk from my refrigerator and started to dig in my cupboards for candy. She’s as comfortable here as she is in her own home. Lissy and I have known each other for years. We met in an exercise class and bonded because we were the only two that had actually come to exercise and not to meet men. She and I in our ponytails and sweats had stood out in a room full of beautiful women in Danskin with full face makeup and hairdos sprayed so as not to move even during tae bo. After class, while all the others mobbed the instructor, a hunky guy with protruding veins and bulging muscles, to ask questions and to get a closer look, Lissy and I went to the juice bar and drowned our sorrows in chocolate-banana smoothies. We’ve been friends ever since.
Lissy is a nurse at Bradford Medical Center and the one who actually told me what a doula was and suggested that I should become one.