CHAPTER TEN:THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGED
764 Words
The pain started in the middle of the night.
I was lying in our big soft bed when a sharp cramp hit me so hard I gasped and grabbed Mr. Raymond’s arm. He woke up instantly, his eyes wide with worry.
“Bella? What’s wrong?”
“It hurts… really bad this time,” I whispered, breathing fast. My stomach felt tight like someone was squeezing it. The baby was coming. I knew it.
Mr. Raymond jumped out of bed, quickly put on a shirt and helped me sit up. “Okay, breathe slowly my love. I’m calling the doctor and the driver right now.” His voice was calm but I could see the fear in his eyes. He moved fast — packing the hospital bag we had prepared, helping me change into comfortable clothes, and holding my hand the whole time.
The drive to the hospital felt long even though it was only twenty minutes. Every few minutes another contraction came and I squeezed his hand tight, trying not to cry out too loud. Mr. Raymond kept talking to me softly. “You are strong, Bella. You have been strong all your life. Our baby is coming and you are going to do great. I am right here. I love you so much.”
At the hospital they took me straight to the delivery room. The lights were bright and the nurses moved quickly. Mr. Raymond stayed with me, wearing the green gown they gave him. He never left my side. When the pain became too much and I screamed, he wiped my forehead with a cool cloth and whispered, “Push when they tell you, my love. I’m so proud of you.”
Hours passed like minutes and days at the same time. I was tired, sweating, and crying. At one point I looked at him and said weakly, “What if I’m not strong enough? What if something goes wrong?”
He kissed my hand and said firmly, “Nothing will go wrong. You are the strongest woman I know. You went from nothing to my wife. You can do this.”
Then the doctor said, “One more big push, Bella!”
I pushed with everything I had left. The pain was terrible but then I heard the most beautiful sound — a loud cry. Our baby was here.
“It’s a boy!” the doctor announced with a smile.
They placed the tiny baby on my chest. He was small, red, and perfect. Tears rolled down my face as I looked at him. Mr. Raymond was crying too — actual tears from the powerful CEO who used to scare everyone. He touched the baby’s head gently and whispered, “Welcome to the world, little one. I’m your daddy.”
We named him Raymond Junior — Ray for short. In that moment, all my worries disappeared. The fear about delivery, the pain, the past struggles — everything felt worth it.
The next days in the hospital were full of joy. My parents came to visit and my mother cried when she held her grandson. “He looks like you when you were born, Bella,” she said. My father smiled proudly and shook Mr. Raymond’s hand again. “You did well, both of you.”
Mr. Raymond was different now. He took two full weeks off work — something he had never done before. He changed diapers, rocked Ray to sleep at night, and looked at me with even more love than before. Sometimes at night when the baby was sleeping, he would pull me close and say, “You gave me a family, Bella. I never thought I could have this.”
But even with all this happiness, a new kind of worry started growing in my mind. Ray was healthy, but he was born a little early. The doctor said we needed to watch him carefully for the first few months. What if he got sick? What if being a mother was harder than I thought? And what about my husband — would he still look at me the same way when my body changed and I was tired all the time?
One quiet evening while I was breastfeeding Ray, Mr. Raymond sat beside me and watched us with soft eyes. “Bella, I want us to have a proper honeymoon soon — just the three of us. Somewhere peaceful.”
I smiled, but inside I wondered: Would our perfect life stay this way, or would new challenges come now that we were a real family?
TBC
- Writer
