*Sasha*

“You’re doing great, baby,” Lucas’s calm, grounding voice whispered in my ear. He held my hand tightly and kept dabbing my forehead with a damp cloth.

Doctors and nurses swirled around me for what seemed like hours. The entire time, I felt like I was splitting in two, right down the middle. They all kept telling me it was normal and to keep pushing, but I didn’t think anything about this was normal….

I pushed and pushed and it never seemed ...