I'mma posting like a fiend!
She’s been having the same dream for the past week. Sleeping in uncomfortable chairs in waiting areas and hospital rooms, the same dream has been playing across her sleep like a movie that won’t go off the air. She’d be mad, or upset, or frightened by it but…it’s a good dream.
In the wake of all the disasters, and all the catastrophes, she’s a little bit frightened that she’s having such a good dream. She expected to not be able to sleep at all, like Alex or Christina, but she is, soundly and deeply. And she’s dreaming. Good dreams too, which in itself is rare always. But the dream is beautiful in fact. It’s perfect and wonderful and magnificent; every time, she wakes and hopes the dream will come true.
She’s in labor. Her ankles are swollen and her face is blotchy and sweaty. Derek is holding her left hand and he has the biggest smile on his face. He whispers the stupidest things into her ear and she just nods, distracted. Her body contorts and contracts, but she embraces it with a fierceness she’s never before experienced. She welcomes it, thanks it, because it’s going to give her the most precious gift ever.
Christina is there too, the worst labor coach to ever step foot onto the Labor and Delivery Floor. In between statements of utter disgust and descriptions of how wrinkled Meredith’s face is, though, Christina is a strong ball of support, a demanding force that won’t let her give in or give up. And though she won’t let Meredith squeeze her hand in time to the contractions, “Dude, seriously Mer, surgeon hands here, no.” she knows exactly what is going on and exactly how to help.
Alex is there too, in a position that should be awkward for all parties involved, but isn’t at all. Because he’s Alex, and he makes snarky comments about this being the closest he’ll ever get to having sex with the hospital slut. Christina slaps him atop the head and mutters about “Evil Spawn” while laughs ‘til tears are coming from both of her eyes. Alex may seem like he’s rather be anywhere but here, but his skilled hands are diligent and cautious, and his eyes watch every monitor, every vital, like the hawk he once wrestled for. And though he won’t let anything go wrong, and nothing does, he has Addison on speed dial and wouldn’t even hesitate to call.
Mark and Owen wait outside, taking bets from passing nurses and aides and orderlies. Birth weight, height, time of birth, amount of hair, god parents, years of therapy that will be needed: all are pools that can be played. Half will go to the winner, and half will go to the day care center at the hospital. At ten hours into the labor, the tally is well over one hundred people betting, and over two thousand dollars in the pools.
Lexie and April have been decorating and redecorating the nursery for months now. At first it was just a pure sky blue (for the boy that they’ll be having), but then Lexie couldn’t decide over African animals or rain forest animals, and April thought they should have more fire trucks, so they painted giraffes driving fire trucks with brightly colored toucans on top of them. But then someone made a passing remark about how the baby will grow up to be a doctor just like his parents and Lexie spazzes and freakes. She remembers four articles that had talked about the effect nurseries have on a baby’s adulthood and changes the decorating scheme to involve stethoscopes and red crosses and plush teddy bears with doctor’s coats in the white crib. But then Mark said the boy would probably be an astronaut just to piss of his parents, so April stuck seventy glow in the dark stickers to the nursery’s ceiling. The child Meredith is carrying has already had more careers before leaving the womb than most have in their whole life. Derek repaints the room a light blue and bars the girls from reentering.
She gives birth to a son at 3:37 on a warm Tuesday in April. He’s as bald as his baby’s bottom with the lightest shade of blue eyes she’s ever seen. Alex hands her her son, a hefty nine pounds and seven ounces and she cries as she holds him. He’s perfect.
“Hi, beautiful.” She says, “Hi.”
Derek is crying and Cristina is crying, and if Alex would look at her he’d be crying. They name him Jacob Thomas Sheppard (a name that has no connections to anyone, because they want their son to live his own life) but everyone is calling him Jake by 4:30.
Mark and Christina are named god parents (they had both called dibs and Lexie and Alex just shrug), and in tear chocking moment when it is just her and her son, she asks George to be his guardian angel.
And then Meredith wakes up, in Derek’s hospital room, or Alex’s, or in a waiting area because someone’s having tests done. And she cries. And they are both happy tears and sad tears. Because she wants it’s so bad, and it all seems so beautiful.
She wants Derek holding her hand, and Alex delivering her child and Christina being her support and Mark losing two hundred dollars because Sheppard babies can, in fact, be born bald. She wants it. She wants Jackson to end up being her gofer for seven months because Derek is busy, bringing her smoothies from down town and fries from Joe’s; she wants Bailey to be the voice of doom, recommending they watch Tuck for a couple of nights to get the feel for it. She wants it all.
And Meredith knows she’ll have it. She’ll wait three months like she knows to do, and then they’ll try again. And she’ll someday cradle a little baby in her arms, hair or no hair, and whisper “hi beautiful” to them.
So she closes her eyes, and drifts back to sleep, content and ready to believe.