Ignoring the peanut gallery, I rush to my wife’s side, bringing her hand to my mouth, kissing each of her knuckles in tandem. Then, I kiss her forehead, the tip of her nose, and finally her lips. “I can’t believe we’re having a baby today.”

“Right now, actually,” doc says, popping up from beneath the sheet shielding Li’l Bit’s business. “You’re complete.”

“Complete?” I stare at my girl, waiting on clarification while listening to the doctor in the background suggest to the ladies that it’s time to head out to the waiting area just down the hall.

Sweat beads on Sammi’s brow. “This is it,” she says, eyes wide. “It’s time to meet our little bean.” She’s white with fear but also teeming with excitement.

Before I know it, there are two nurses in the room, breaking apart the bed and pulling stadium lighting down from the ceiling and aiming it at her crotch.

Everything happens so fast. There’s none of that nervous pacing like in the movies. No time for passing out cigars. I just walked into the damn room and it’s go time.

“She’s crowning, guys,” a redheaded nurse announces after having a peak under the sheet. “Someone get Dr. Ruby back in here, stat.”

When the doctor returns, the nurse moves to the opposite side of my wife’s bed from me. She tells me to keep a hand on her back and when she’s given the order to push, I’m to help lift her into a sitting position.

Seems easy enough. And I’m glad to have an assignment, because right now I have enough nervous energy to climb the fucking walls.

“All right, Sammi,” Dr. Ruby says, rolling her stool to her spot at the foot of the bed, “on the next contraction I want you to give me a big push.”

“But I—I don’t know how,” she whines, looking around in a panic for guidance.

“You just grab the back of your legs and sit up and strain like you’re having a bowel movement,” the nurse opposite me instructs.

“Hah!” I choke on a laugh, instantly recognizing those instructions. “You got that, love? Same way you removed that butt plug the other day.”

“Oh no, you didn’t.” Leslie, the nurse, sucks in her lips, trying not to laugh while shaking her head.

The glare Sammi aims at me is lethal. “I think I might actually hate you right now.” But knowing I distracted her from her fear for even a minute is worth the temporary disdain.

Dr. Ruby keeps her poker face firmly in place, not reacting at all to my nonsense. “Push!” she says, then starts counting back from ten.

Li’l Bit’s face turns almost purple as she puts everything she’s got into forcing this baby out.