"Please! Don't do this!" Angie cried out. Tears streaked down the side of her face and into her sweaty hairline. She struggled hard against the restraints I was rapidly adjusting to contain her thrashing. The table shook under her so violently, I wondered if it would hold her weight. She didn't look comfortable on her back, not with how swollen her stomach was. "I don't know why you're doing this, but I'll pay you anything you want! Please!" She yelled over the rattling of the table.

"Hold still!" I yanked the rope harder on her wrist, causing her to scream out from the rope burn. My palm felt the burn as well. I was going to have to shut her up.

"Please! Don't hurt my baby!" She cried out with snot leaking from her red stained nose. "I'll do anything! Please have some empathy!"

This begging of hers was grinding against my nerves.

I took some rope and put it between her teeth, wrapping it around her head. I knotted it sharply into her damp hair. Her head whipped every which way as she tried her best to dislodge the rope from her mouth. She still begged, but the words were so smothered now that I couldn't really make them out. I assumed it was all the same annoying whining she had been doing before.

I had had my eye on her for a few months now. Monitoring every visit she made to the clinic for her prenatal checks. She was so close now. So ripe and ready to pop. She was also struggling. A poor, single, pregnant woman with no family and no one to assist her.

In other words. She was perfect.

It didn't take much to convince her to come with me. She already trusted me as her nurse. All it took was me offering her a friendly hand. Offering her resources and an eventual smash in the back of the head. She had dropped like a sack of potatoes. I really should have tied her mouth first, but restraining her limbs had to be my first priority. Go figure that it would stir her from her forced slumber.

As she jerked about, her hair painted a crimson smear across the table behind her head. I must have hit her harder than I thought.

"Relax." I placed my hand on her forehead in an attempt to soothe her. "I'm not going to hurt your baby. I'm not going to hurt you either. If you cooperate."

Her eyes plead with more tears. She was so frightened. She had no need to be. I meant what I said. I meant to help her. She was so young and all alone. She couldn't possibly raise a baby.

But me?

I could.

I had longed for a child for years. Seemed like my whole lifetime. Yet, the journey and the attempts were met with repeated failure.

Men failed me.

My body failed me.

It didn't seem possible.

That was until I met Angie.

Call it my rotten luck to work at an OBGYN clinic. Day in and day out, I would see expecting mothers come in with their little bundles of joy blooming within their wombs. All the while knowing that my womb was barren. Knowing that I could never experience what they were experiencing.

I placed my hand upon my stomach now, feeling a bit of disappointment as well as disgust for my failure as a woman to bring life into this world. My womb was useless to be so empty. I felt disemboweled... hollow...

What good is a womb that carried no life?

I was meant to be a mother. I was meant to create life. I was meant to hold my darling baby within my arms and feed them off my breast. That was my purpose. My calling. Without it, I was... what was I? Empty. I dug my nails into the skin of my abdomen in my frustration.

I couldn't let this get to me. Everything was going to be okay. I had figured out how to bring life into the world. Angie. She was my key.

I had spent so long with her already. It was as if I practically carried the child myself. And now... now, I would deliver her baby - my baby - and truly be the one to bring forth this child into the world.

My insides jumped within me now in excitement. Butterflies in my tummy, much like the flutter of a baby's kicks. I would be a mother soon enough.

For now, I just needed to get the IV into Angie's arm.

Watching me roll up with the equipment didn't settle her discomfort. She chewed viciously on the rope between her teeth. Her wrists were burned and streaked with red under her restraints, but still she fought.

"Shhhh." I cooed as I prepped my equipment. "Everything is going to be alright. We are going to induce labor. Within a few hours, you won't even be pregnant anymore. Isn't that exciting?" I couldn't help but smile. The thought made me feel like a giddy school girl who was finally about to get her pony. Within a few hours... I'd have my prize.

She thrashed madly in her attempt to prevent me from sticking her vein. But I had had more than enough practice. After the IV was set, the process finally began.

I was a tad bit frustrated that I didn't have all the equipment that we used at the hospital. I had only witnessed a handful of at-home births. But I had seen enough to know what I was doing. This was going to be a painful experience for poor Angie. But in the end, I knew she would thank me. I was freeing her from a strain she couldn't handle.

I came down to the end of the table to get between her legs. How I wished the baby would simply come on its own. But everything that is worth anything is worth working for. And this was going to be a lot of work. As well as a lot of mess.

I prepped my area. Lying tarps down under Angie and around the floor. I wanted to keep things as sanitary as possible to protect the baby.

It wasn't too long before Angie's contractions began to really settle in.

At first, it caused her to bite harder onto her rope and clutch at the sides of the table. Each roll of the contractions causing her to lose her breath temporarily. She begged more behind her gag. As if suddenly, I would simply change my mind and release her.

I couldn't.

Not now.

I was so close.

Every time Angie writhed in pain, I felt my own heart tighten with anticipation. While part of me felt envious. While her pain looked to be unbearable, it was also the pain of a real mother in labor. Pains that I would never have. Pains that a woman earns and endures to bring life into the world.

I approached the side of the table and held her hand. She tried to fight me off only for a second before another wave of contractions hit her. She squeezed my hand so hard it felt as if she had rearranged my knuckles. And yet, I thrived under the pain. This was the closest I would come to the same pain. This was the pain of my baby arriving. I wanted to feel it. If I could have taken her pain away and onto myself, I would have done so. Instead, this was all I had. I felt my insides tense up each time she squeezed my hand. My own make-believe contractions.

I never let her hand go throughout her struggle. Not yet. It wasn't time yet. They had to be closer together.

Her contractions picked up as the hands on the clock moved ever onward. The closer they became, the more excited I became. I could have danced every time I saw her writhe and scream. Angie looked horrible. I didn't know if these new screams and tears were from the kidnapping or the labor. Perhaps she had enough for it to be both.

And yet, I was so overwhelmed with anticipation.

There was much to be done.

I made my way back to the end of the table. After several checks and even breaking her water, I found fear at last. All my hopes dashed in a matter of seconds when I felt tiny, little toes instead of a head. The baby was breached. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. How could this have happened? All her previous checks were normal?

I began to pace back and forth, trying to think. What to do. I wasn't equipped for this. She needed a hospital. I couldn't turn the baby myself. It was hard to think with Angie screaming out in pain. I couldn't think.

Time was running out.

The baby needed to come out.

I grabbed a knife from my kitchen and walked back towards Angie. My mind was numb to the screams, and she again tried to plead through the gag. I hadn't planned on this. I hadn't wanted to harm Angie during the process. But I had come too far to lose this baby. If I had to choose one or the other, I knew who had to go.

I pushed her gown up to expose my new area of focus. There weren't enough tarps lying around for the mess that I was about to make.

Angie threw her head back and dug her nails into the table as the blade drew a dark crimson line down her abdomen.

"I'm sorry." I said dully. I couldn't offer her any false promises now.

It was hard to make clean cuts while she jerked and yanked at her ropes. I couldn't really blame her. Even through my gloves, I felt the warmth of her insides. I plunged my hands inside of her to remove everything within my way.

I was so close.

Innards littered the table. Angie's screams were gurgled with blood. She choked as her screams became weaker. I peeled her open like a banana, her insides on full display.

Finally.

My baby.

I found him.

I gently cut him free from her womb and lifted him out into the world.

I rubbed his chest and back, clearing his mouth and nose. He still needed to breathe.

Come on.

Come on.

Breathe.

Cry.

My hands were shaking as I worked. My baby still needed to cry for me. To bring air into his lungs. I cleared more fluid from his mouth and rubbed more on his back. Fear clutched at my heart and soul as I worked frantically with him on the side.

Angie had finally stopped screaming and gone still. Not that I was paying that bloody mess any mind now. She was no longer of use to me. A pile of debris that needed to be cleared away and nothing more.

Finally.

His cry came in the form of a high-pitched wail. I suddenly realized my own face was streaked in tears. His cry. It was the most beautiful sound that I had ever heard. His little face was pinched up in his shrieking. I couldn't have been happier. Joy overflowed through my veins.

I held him close to my chest and lowered myself to the floor. Sitting with him, rocking him. I was covered in blood and other fluids. And yet, I was thrilled. Beyond thrilled. My baby. My beautiful baby boy. He was here. He was mine.

I sobbed tears of joy, and he cried into my chest. I felt whole. Complete. My purpose was here in my arms. With tiny little pink fingers wrapped completely around my heart. My soul restored.

I touched his little face and smiled. I was a mother.