This story is for readers over the age of 18 only, and contains explicit sexual situations and adult language. The writer is not responsible for any "discomfort" caused to the reader by this language and these situations.

©2001 by WILDBEARIES

Future Perfect - Section 11

I swear to God, the next time I get kidnapped, I’m just going to avoid the police, ignore the advice of the “experts”, save my own ass and just crawl into my own bed at home. After riding the horse on the city streets, hunting for a kind police officer to help me, what finally got me some notice was a concerned citizen calling to complain that a crazed man covered in dirt, with cuts and scrapes all over him, was letting his horse eat the petunias. This after I rode for a couple of hours through all kinds of neighborhoods, being unlucky enough to choose what were probably the only areas in the whole of London without a phone booth, police call box or patrol car. Petunias, I ask you!

Before I finally made them believe my story, the officers who arrived to check on the flower-eating horse complaint had started giving me the fisheye. I'm sure my dirty, bloodied state didn't help, and neither did the fact that I was so hoarse by then that I couldn't make myself understood. Oh, and when I threw in what my name was, they gave me the "Yeah, right, mate, and I'm the Queen of France" look. Somehow, though, I must've looked sufficiently desperate that they called it in instead of just throwing my ass in the back of their radio car and hauling me off to the hoosegow. The looks of shock on those two blokes' faces when they realized I was who I said I was and the victim of what I had told them about were priceless. I just wish I'd been feeling more like laughing at that point.

Given my state of fatigue, both mental and physical, I refused to get off the horse. Then up came the blokes from Scotland Yard bearing my wife, the news that they had already arrested Idiot Ira and his equally idiotic cronies, and there was Lynn, looking gorgeous in her green running suit. She grabbed me by the foot though, which really hurt given that every bruise and scrape on my body seemed to have locked into my flesh with metal teeth. I had intended a graceful dismount from the horse, picturing it in my mind as being somehow noble and maybe even a bit heroic. Especially given the crowd of reporters who came nosing around after listening to the calls on the police band radio. Instead, Lynn asked me to get down and I fucking fell off the horse. So much for heroic nobility. I landed in a heap at my wife's feet, too tired to even care that God and everybody were snapping pictures and yelling out questions.

To add insult to ignominy, they stuck me in hospital for two bloody days. Lynn helped them keep me there. I was really peeved about it at the time, but I can understand her point of view - she felt I needed them to poke, prod, stick and examine me in every orifice and surface of my body. I felt I just needed some VB, a good meal with steak, veggies and maybe something sinful in chocolate and I’d be fine. What I got was an IV needle in each arm drippin’ this transparent sugar water into my veins, sedatives and an army of student doctors paradin’ by my room, “just happening” to “need” to look at my cuts and bruises. Interesting that a lot of them were female.

I could have cared less about bein’ nice to them. Lynnie finally rescued me about mid afternoon of the second day when I got in an argument with this old beast of a nurse who wanted to shove a catheter up me because she said I had bloody urine and they wanted to keep track of it. I’m not sure this nurse had ever seen a bedside table get thrown across a room before, but the clang when it hit the far wall was really satisfying. Oh, and she took off running with her fucking catheter, too, which was even more satisfying.

So anyway, between Lynn and Steven and my security people, we moved our home base from the Atheneum to a small, private hotel out near Pinewood, and Lynn came to bail me out of the hospital. Seems I wasn’t welcome any more or some shit like that. Good riddance to them, I say.

Of course, there was an army of reporters and photographers camped out at the Atheneum that probably wondered why I never made an appearance there once they realized I was sprung from the hospital. The whole ridiculous story was all over the news and the tabloid telly shows, even Ira the Incompetent got interviewed. His reasoning for the trying whole stupid kidnapping thing was that he couldn’t get a decent security job any more, for which he blamed me, and since I was handy, I got elected to be the victim. He was so dense, he never realized the money would be marked, or that only the top layer of money in the sacks was even real and the rest was just bundled paper. He never realized that he couldn’t get a decent job because he was so fucking incompetent and untrustworthy that I’d had no choice but to fire him when he worked for me. Now I get to come back to the UK at some point in the future to testify at the trial of him and his band of merry men.

Since my face was bruised up and I was walking like the 2000 Year Old Man for a few days there, the shoot had to be extended an additional week until I was at least presentable enough to go back in front of the cameras. Good thing we’d been ahead of schedule up to that point, because that way we finished on time. I was never so happy to attend a wrap party as I was for Botany Bay. Even Diane Dimante was nice to me. I guess it never hurts to arouse the mothering instinct in women, you just wouldn’t believe it would make some of them so much nicer than they’d ever been.

Of course, my Lynn, my tough little sheila, was a rock through all this. She put up with all my shit, bundled me out of hospital and into bed at the new hotel with nary a blink. I don’t know how she does it - put up with me, I mean. Guess it must be love, huh?

*********************************

I just listened to Russell’s tape recording. He’s partly right - I do love him, and it’s not at all a gentle thing like you read about in poems, it’s a really fierce emotion. I found during this whole kidnapping nightmare that I could easily kill to protect him or our baby if it came to that. It wasn’t just mothering instinct the way he means it - wanting to cuddle and kiss him and tuck him into bed. I felt like a mama grizzly bear and I would have cheerfully killed Ira and his whole group of bunglers if I’d been given half a chance. Those pictures of me crouching over Russell when he fell off the horse? All that was missing was my teeth bared in a snarl, and I was snarling internally, it just didn’t show. Touch my husband, would they? Just let me at them!

I agree, that wrap party was like being let out of school after the longest school term in your life. We only stayed for part of it, then raced back to the hotel, finished packing our stuff and got on the first jumbo jet to Australia. Yep, that’s right, we passed on the stopover in LA and totally changed our plans so we could just go back to the farm and flop in our own bed. I practically ran in the door when we drove into our own car park, and Russell was right behind me. I flung myself onto the bed and just grinned, bouncing on the mattress. “Home!” I said gleefully.

“Amen to that,” he answered, flinging himself down beside me. He still had some bruising where he’d been hit in the face, and he still moved a little stiffly when he was tired, but other than that, Russell was back to being, well, Russell.

It was winter in Australia, and I realized it was almost a year to the day from when I first met Russell in the bar of the Sydney Hilton, pretending to be the man who had just kidnapped him in London. Life sure can have some strange twists and turns, can't it? A year before if you'd told me I would be married to a movie idol, madly in love and lust with him, pregnant with his child and happily living in a tiny house in the middle of East Bumfuck, Australia I'd have filed papers to have you committed. But, here I was, and in exactly that condition. And I was so pleased with myself I could burst.

That first morning waking up after sleeping off some of the jet lag, lying in our bed beside each other was one of the most wonderful mornings of my life. To cuddle up to my husband - the gorgeous, the virile, the sensual, the kind, gentle and considerate - have I left any adjectives out? Oh yes, the surly, stocky (NOT!), strapping Russell Crowe - cuddling with him was just so pleasurable I can't even begin to describe it. Let me just say this much: he's mine and you can't have him!! But if you could, ladies - ah, you'd never get over it. But since you can't, and I can, I'll continue to tantalize you with bits and pieces of our lives to keep you interested.

The next few weeks I ate like the fatted calf being stuffed for Christmas dinner. Before September rolled around, I was so huge that I was convinced I was carrying at least triplets, though the doctor assured me it was just one baby and the rest was water weight. I felt like the Goodyear Blimp coming in for a landing every time I sat down in a chair or on the sofa. I should have had a "wide load" sign stuck to my ass, because it sure got wide. Russell loved it of course. I think he was the one who got the most pleasure out of my being pregnant. Sometimes I had to swat him one to get him to move his hand off my belly trying to feel the baby kick. "Not when we're in public," I would grouse at him.

"Well, everyone knows you're pregnant, luv, I don't see what the to-do is about. If I want to touch your tummy, I will."

"But not when we're walking down the boardwalk in the Botanical Gardens, Russell!" You can substitute any number of other places for "Botanical Gardens" - he did it everywhere from his folks' house to the shops in Coffs Harbour, sitting in his agent's office, riding horseback (before I was too blimpy to get on Minnie), lying on the pool deck looking like Moby Dick washed ashore. He had to touch. He had to listen. He had to caress. He had to walk around with a fatuous "Look what I did!" grin on his face much of the time, and I'll admit, he was so adorable I could have eaten him with a spoon, except that's how I got into this state in the first place!

I had to spend the last 7 weeks of my pregnancy mostly lying down. It was something about water weight gain, blood pressure and fatigue from carrying around the whole kit and caboodle. Russell thought this was just dandy because he could come into the bedroom or sitting room and either lie next to me in bed and think of inventive ways to have sex, or sit beside the sofa and think of inventive ways to have sex. Remember I mentioned that my being pregnant was acting like an aphrodisiac on him? Well, the bigger I got, the randier he got. "I never knew, " I teased him one night, "that you had a thing for Shamu."

He was lying facing me at the foot of the bed, our legs intertwined, having just finished fucking my brains out in a position I can only call, "lap to lap, seated position, opposite ends of the bed". I'm sure that will be an Olympic event one day. Russell can coxswain the Aussie team. It gives the term, "Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!" a whole new meaning.

"I love darling little Shamu," he claimed, sitting up to kiss my belly. "And Shamu's mum."

That earned him a swat on the bum as he got off the bed to turn off the television he had left on in the living room. He was always getting sidetracked. He'd come into the bedroom to bring me food or a book to read or some kind of busy work, he'd take one look at my mound of belly and BAM! He'd forget all about his errand and have to climb into bed with me to demonstrate his enthusiasm. I am not complaining, I'm just hoping he's still as enthused for me when I'm back to my normal weight.

I'd hate to think I had to be pregnant the rest of my life to keep his, um, interest up.

*********************************************

I just read what Lynn wrote. She's right. I found her bloody gorgeous while she was pregnant. I think I walked around with a permanent hard-on the whole last few months of her pregnancy. I couldn't get enough of her. That's why I'd put my hand on her tummy sometimes, even when we were in public, I just couldn't get over the gift she was carrying around inside her, and that I'd put it there. Then there was her looks.

Lynn has beautiful skin anyway, sort of a soft cream with peaches complexion, and this dark red hair that curls all over the place. She has huge brown eyes with miles of eyelashes, and I won't even go into detail on her mouth except to say "luscious" is the word that comes to my mind when I think of a description. And she's all herself, all real. She has laugh lines, and even though I helped her massage creams and potions into her tummy, she will have some marks from carrying our baby, and every one of them is a badge of honor and beautiful to me. Being pregnant enhanced her looks. Her skin was almost translucent, like a light was shining from within. I could suddenly see why all those ancient blokes, you know the ones who lived in caves and the like and who worshipped those fat-breasted, big-bellied goddesses had found them so damned worthy of adoration. If they were half as stunning as Lynn was, they couldn't help but adore them.

She might tease about feeling put-upon because I was randier than a billy goat then, but there was more to it than just the sex, which was mind-blowing in and of itself. See, there was this whole thing about her carrying my baby that just made me want to weep every time I thought about it. I'm not sure, if I could have gotten pregnant instead of her, that I would have had the courage and the fortitude to see it through the whole nine months, especially given that for most of it we were in a foreign country, living in hotels, which is hard enough without throwing in the whole kidnapping fiasco, the Diane Dimante unpleasantness and a whole lot of other minor stuff that happens on any film set. I would probably have hired someone to be pregnant for me and skipped on down the road singing a merry tune. But not Lynn. She is so damned brave I can't believe it.

Brave. Yeah, that's the word. Tough and brave.

The night her water broke, I was anything but brave.

***************************************

So there I am, blissfully contemplatin' bein' a dad - y'know the stuff: teachin' the kid to play footie, showin' him how to ride his first horse, showin' him how to spit and how to stand up while pissin' - all the stuff a dad shows his boy. I'm really getting' into that, in fact, I even went down to Sydney with Lynn and while she was lookin' at cribs and shi - er, stuff like that (I'm still workin' on the swearing bit) - I was over on the other side of the store pickin' out footie gear to fit a toddler, and a little duster coat and drover's hat. Man, they even had baby Blundstones! I got two pairs. When Lynn saw the number of parcels stacked up she about split a gut laughing. Then she said something that made my blood run cold.

"What if it's a girl?"

My heart dropped right down into my socks. I looked at her. I looked at the sales girl. They both had this "humor the daddy-to-be" look on their faces.

"Well, shit," I said, hands at my hips.

"Exactly," Lynn said.

I made her sit down and I went runnin' back through the store. I picked out some of those little pink horses with the long floss manes my niece always left lyin' around for me to step on. I picked out a doll bed with a canopy over it and a baby doll to lie in it. I got a complete miniature kitchen - sink, cupboard, stove - about as high as my knees and all the shi - stuff to go in it. I got stuffed bears and kittens and puppies. I filled three carts with stuff and wheeled it up to the front. I have no idea why Lynnie laughed like a kookaburra, but she did. I caught her and the sales girl rollin' their eyes at each other too. God, I hate it when women do that. Makes me feel like everyone's in on the joke but me, and I'm not because I've got the penis. It's bloody unfair!

"Where are we going to put all this stuff?" Lynn wanted to know. Always the practical one.

"In the barn?" I tried. There was nothing for it, though. I knew we had to add on a nursery. "Okay, I'll talk to the builders." We were still in mid-agony getting the bigger bathroom and office added on. "The office can be the nursery, I surrender." We had argued about that endlessly. "But I'm having an office if it kills me." I decided to add more rooms on, the costs be hanged. After all, it wasn't as if I couldn't afford it.

"And a room for the nanny," Lynn said sweetly.

"You're having a goat in the house?" This was news to me. "For - for convenient milking or something?"

"I swear, for an intelligent bloke, you can be really thick sometimes," Lynn sighed. "A nanny, as in a nursemaid - for the baby."

"Ohhhh," I said, the light dawnin'. Then, "Ohhh, no, not another person in that house but us and the baby. I don't want some Mrs. Doubtfire type watchin' every move I make and tellin' me I'm not holding the kid right, or listening outside the bedroom door when we - well - just when."

We were havin' this discussion in the first class lounge at Sydney Airport, waitin' for the jet to be ready to go back up to Coffs Harbour. There was only one other couple in the room, and I could tell they were real interested in what we were talkin' about, but they were too nice to just sit and stare. They at least pretended to be readin' their books. When I said, "just when," I thought the woman would choke, she tried so hard not to laugh out loud. I walked over and tapped her on the shoulder, "It's okay, luv," I said when she looked up at me with tears in her eyes from stiflin' laughter, "am I right or am I right?"

"You're right," her husband said.

"You're not right," she and Lynn chorused like a bloody ventriloquist act. I looked at the bloke and we both just shrugged. Two sheilas against two guys - we were definitely outnumbered.

"Well," I finally said, realizin' it was a losin' battle, "maybe during the days when you're tryin' to write and I'm workin' on stuff. Would that be good enough?" I thought it was a major sacrifice on my part. The two girls made those "if that's the best you can do" faces. The other guy and I just stared at each other. I was outnumbered, outflanked, outvoted.

After a few minutes, I heard Lynn say, "Gotcha!"

Dammit to Hell, I was also out-joked!

*********************************************************
I love teasing Russell. Sometimes he's so naïve he'll believe just about anything. Like that day we talked about a nanny while we were at the airport. I did want one, just for when we were away from home, like traveling to publicize a film or the like. I didn't want a live-in helper, at least, not with just one baby. If, in the future, we had more that would be a different story. Like Russell says, it's not like he can't afford one.

I had told the obstetrician that I didn't want to know what sex the baby was, even though she told me it was pretty clear on the ultrasounds. "No, I want to be surprised," I insisted. She thought that was quaintly cute, I guess.

I decorated the nursery - which had been going to be our office - in shades of butter yellow and a kind of medium light green. Instead of frothy or butch, I settled for a sort of vintage look with an old-fashioned crib trimmed with cute kangaroos and ponies and the like, and the same little animals stenciled into a border on the walls all around. I put in a vintage chest of drawers painted to match and filled it with the sheets, little pillowcases, towels and the like. Then I found a similar one in the flea market in Coffs Harbour, and we dragged it home to hold the little shirts, onesies and tiny socks. Russell painted it the soft green and then "antiqued" it with sandpaper and a hammer so it looked about fifty years old. He found these old white porcelain drawer pulls and put them on it. I loved it. I chose yellow gingham curtains with soft green rickrack edging, and found a lamp with a base in the shape of a kangaroo to sit on the baby's night table. Then I found an oval braided rug with all the same colors in it for the floor, and Russell's mum and dad gave us his niece's old bassinet that turned into a changing table, and the room was complete.

"I hope the little bloke likes yellow," was his comment as we stood gazing at the finished room.

I elbowed him in the ribs. "Our daughter will love yellow," I informed him. After all, didn't the baby kick a lot less when I'd come into the nursery and just stand, gazing at it? No doubt she was absorbing the peaceful vibrations of my color scheme.

Russell just sighed.

******************************

Well, ya know, a bloke sometimes just has to keep his trap shut. By the time we finished the nursery, Lynn was having so much trouble with her feet and legs, that the doctor ordered her to bed for the rest of the pregnancy. I didn't like it. It scared me, frankly, but I went along with it because the doctor told me it wasn't that unusual and plenty of mums-to-be went through the same thing. I bowed to her superior knowledge. After all, the doc was a sheila too, I reckoned that gave her inside information.

So I go on with my work, writin' a new screenplay about a naturalist who is tryin' to save some of the rain forest up in the north of Australia. Plus, I'm talkin' to Steven and his people almost every day as they're cutting "Botany Bay" and getting the music score added on. I had persuaded the people who did the Gladiator music to do my film, and the music was great. I told them I would do my best to see they got their Oscar this time around, although really, there wasn't that much I could do about that, the voting being the decidin' factor. But I was determined to get them as much good publicity as possible to give them every chance.

Anyway, I've lost track again. Oh, right - it was a real rainy winter that year and I was stuck indoors with Lynn, which worked out fine because otherwise she'd have been real bored bein' at rest most of the time. She got some real strange food cravings, though. I remember drivin' over to Mum's one night in a thunderstorm to get dill pickles because we didn't have any. My mum just laughed at me. It must be a thing with sheilas - they all think bein' a mum-to-be is somehow holy, and bein' the dad-to-be is a bit of comedy relief.

The only one who gets relieved is the wife. By the last couple of weeks of the pregnancy, I was informed by the doctor that I shouldn't "impose" myself on Lynn. I finally figured out what she meant on the way home from her office in the car. "Bloody hell," I said out loud.

Lynn just giggled. "Took you long enough," she said.

I was fuming. How the hell was I supposed to get by from then until six weeks or so after the baby came without - well, just without? "I'm not made of stone," I complained.

"Well, sometimes parts of you are," my innocent looking spouse says. Then she cackles like she's told herself the biggest joke and it's on me.

I just keep driving, bein' brave, thinkin' about cold showers, push ups and the like, countin' the number of weeks and just groaning. She finally put me out of my misery by reminding me of some important facts I was forgetting. But she waited until we were in bed that night to do it.

What she did was, turn out the light, then slide way down in the bed when I was just almost asleep, and do me with her mouth. That woke me right up, I can tell ya.

After, while I was pantin' and gaspin', she lies back on her pillow lookin' like a Cheshire cat. When I had my breath back, I rolled over, slid down, and did the same thing to her. I figure sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, right?

Right.

*************************************
My water broke in the middle of the night a week after what we had thought was my due date. I was dreaming about being out in a boat and somehow falling out, having to swim to shore. I woke up and the bed was soaked.

I knew right away what it was, and the fact that a really hard labor pain hit me right about then drove the point home. I reached over and jostled my unconscious spouse. "Russell, it's time."

He snuffled and sighed and woke up just a little. "What?"

"It's time." I sat up and another cramp hit me. "Ouch, dammit."

Russell went flying out of the bed like he'd been shot from a cannon. While I just sat there gaping at him, he went running around our bedroom like a lunatic, grabbing up his clothes, my clothes, a pillow, his shoes, my shoes, and the whole time he's talking a mile a minute. His hair was sticking up all over the place and he was just wild-eyed. I think my mouth fell open in shock.

"What?" he yelled, and dropped everything to come running over and kneel in front of me, "Do you need to breathe now?" he asks me, "Pant now, Lynnie - pant!"

Two Lamaze classes and he's the expert on rhythmic breathing. And we had decided not to go for natural childbirth because he got too excited and wanted me to do everything five minutes ago.

I stared at him, "Russell, help me up, I need to go to the bathroom."

"Oh," he said, disappointed, but he helped me up and got me aimed toward the bathroom. I felt like the great white whale by then, and I waddled like a very large penguin. He helped me so I wouldn't just list to one side and fall off the john, then ran back into the bedroom and picked up all our stuff off the floor where he dropped it and went running into the living room with it. I followed after him, stopping to pick up my already packed suitcase from its place by the bedroom door.

"Russell, I only need what's in this bag," I said in what I hoped was a reasonable voice. He didn't hear me, he was on the phone in the kitchen shouting to Terry that we had to drive me to the hospital, I was about to give birth "right away". I just sighed and went back in the bedroom to change into a pair of the very large sweats I'd been wearing for the past few weeks. I had them in every color. I had pink ones on that night. A large, pink whale, Moby Pepto.

So Russell and Terry bundled me into the Rover and Terry - thank God! - drove us to the hospital in Coffs Harbour. Russell called Dr. Sossi on the cell phone and told her we were coming, then we were there and I was carried into the hospital by my very keyed up husband, who insisted I could not, abso-fuckin'-lutely, ride in a wheelchair because the parking lot pavement was bumpy and I might fall out. I didn't ask him what would happen if he fell over that same bumpy pavement and dropped me. Why tempt Fate?

The first couple of hours were pretty routine. I was fitted out with all the usual monitors and things, and they made me really comfortable in the labor suite, which was a kind of bed-and-breakfast-and-baby room like a hotel. Russell's mum and dad drove in after sunrise, and I had Russell, Terry and their folks at my beck and call. I mostly slept though, I knew I was going to need my rest. When the pains got really strong, and when I went into what Dr. Sossi called "failure to progress", I started to be really uncomfortable.

"Why isn't she progressing?" Russell wanted to know.

"Her cervix isn't dilating enough," Dr. Sossi explained to him for the tenth time in an hour. She was patience itself, thank God! "Sometimes it happens. We're monitoring her and the baby, Mr. Crowe, so please don't get upset, you'll only get Lynn upset and that wouldn't be good."

"Russell," he told her after she had called him "Mr. Crowe" a few times. "Just call me by my name, okay? 'Mr. Crowe' is my dad." He gave Dr. Sossi one of his nicest smiles. I think her eyes glazed over for a minute there before her professional manner clicked back in.

"Okay, Russell. We're monitoring her really closely. If things look at all odd to me, we'll move to Plan B."

Plan B was some chemical assistance to make my contractions a bit stronger. That didn't work either. I was worn out by then, and I think Russell was very scared because he shut up and just held my hands, whispering to me how much he loved me and how brave I was and how the baby was going to be perfect and I wasn't to worry. I wouldn't have, but towards the last before we went to Plan C, he was looking so pale, and he had tears running down his face - that's when I started to get frightened for myself.

Dr. Sossi came in, read all the monitors, and said briskly, "Right, off to surgery. You're having a Section, Lynn."

So they put some stuff in my IV bag and started rolling me down the hall, Russell running to keep up, the whole time telling me I was his sheila and I was tough and everything was going to be fine and not to worry. When Dr. Sossi stopped him at the operating room door, I thought he was going to fight her, but she just sent him off with a nurse to get into sterile scrubs, so he behaved himself.

**************************************************

I got led into the operating room, dressed up like Dr. Kildare, and they made me stand about five feet away from where they had Lynn on the operating table. I moved so I could see her face, but she was looking okay, so I breathed a little easier. Then the nurse handed Dr. Sossi a needle that I swear was a foot long. They calmly turn Lynn onto her side and put this, this WEAPON into her spine. I must have made some kind of noise because Dr. Sossi looked over at me when she was done and just said, "Saddle block, Russell, so she doesn't feel anything."

I gulped and nodded, hidin' the fact that my stomach was knotting and unknotting. Women are so fuckin' brave, it just amazes me. I was wishin' already that I had not insisted on bein' there and had just stayed in the waiting room with everyone else like they used to do it.

So Dr. Sossi and another doctor, the baby's doctor, I found out later, all huddle over her and I hear Dr. Sossi say, "Scalpel" in this calm, professional voice. And everything goes white, and I'm on the floor before I know it.

A male nurse walks over, grabs me under the arms and drags me off to one side out of the way, then he holds this smelling salts thing under my nose - amyl nitrate - and phew! I'm back, only, I decide to stay out of the way and just sit on a stool the bloke gave me. I think he was grinning at me, but with that bloody mask on, I couldn't say for sure.

After a few minutes I hear Dr. Sossi say, "Suction," then she holds up something that I can't see and hands it to one of the nurses, and they wrap it in a little towel thing and weigh it. I hear her tell Dr. Sossi, "Seven pounds and six ounces."

I jumped up, practically dancing in place, and Dr. Sossi takes the bundle from the nurse and walks over to me with it. I swear, I could see her grin right through her mask, as she hands me this little red, squirming, squalling bundle and says, "You have a daughter, Russell. Don't drop her."

I just held the baby and laughed and wept and looked, wanting to shout and sing and dance around the room with her. I settled for touching her little round face, noticing she had Lynn's long eyelashes, and these tiny fingers and toes, and a little pink tummy. God, she was beautiful! I walked over by Lynn when they had her stitched up, and she was looking tired but happy. I put our daughter down on her mother's chest and we just grinned at each other like idiots. "It's a little sheila," I said, like she didn't already know.

"Yes," she said, humoring me.

I kissed her about a dozen times, then bent and kissed the baby about a dozen times. "I love you," I told her, "I love her, too."

"Jocelyn Kate Crowe," Lynn announced. Named for my mum and her best friend, two beautiful women, both excellent role models for our little Kate to aspire to.

I didn't think I could be this happy.