Noortje’s POV

I was 2 weeks past my due date. Two freaking weeks. Tony and I were supposed to have our baby in our arms already, but Spud decided to stay in longer. I didn’t even have any signs of labour and it was starting to get annoying. The doctor even told me that if I wasn’t going to go in labour soon, they would have to induce me into it. Last time I went there, which was on my due date, they had told me I hadn’t even dilated. It was so annoying. I just wanted to be able to hold our little baby. The nursery was already finished; it definitely being one of the best surprises Tony ever had for me. Everything was so beautiful: a cream wall white furniture, and everything was elephant themed, meaning that there were 3 white elephants painted on the wall above the crib and an elephant plushy was placed in the crib. It was perfect.

The tour finished a week ago and Jaime, Mike, and Vic came over today. They had hoped to see the first PTV baby when they came back, but that obviously didn’t happen. At least Spud was in the right position and not in breach position. So I didn’t have any complications with that.

And today was no different. I wasn’t having any contractions while we were all in the living room talking about tour stories. All I was doing was sitting there like a normal pregnant person while listening to other people talk.

Then, Mike suddenly asked a pretty good question, “wait, what are we going to do after the baby’s born? Will you continue touring or are you going to quit the band?”

I hadn’t even thought of that, “I don’t know. Of course I won’t be able to tour for a couple of months, but after that it’s either I quit or we bring a baby with us.”

“And then there’s the problem of not really being able to sleep in bunks with a baby,” Tony added, “and all the crying. What about what we do during the shows?”

“We could turn the back lounge into a bedroom,” Jaime suggested, “and have one of the crew members take care of the baby during shows. The crying, we’ll just have to deal with.”

“We could make it work,” Vic smiled, “it would suck to have you quit after only being with us for a year and a half.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I sat up after I had realised that I was slowly sliding off the couch, “let’s first get this baby out of me, though.”

After that the tour stories continued. I was trying to listen, but I just couldn’t get into it anymore. So, instead, I quickly went to get my phone to scroll through social media and act like I was listening. I wanted to text my brother anyway, so it was a good excuse. After going upstairs and getting it from the charger next to my side of the bed, I went back downstairs. But it didn’t go as I expected it to. Vic came out of the bathroom and we scared the shit out of each other.

“Oh shit,” Vic breathed out, “you startled me.”

I just stared at the wall behind him.

“Noortje, are you ok?” he checked if there was anything behind him. When he saw there was nothing there, he looked back at me.

“My water just broke,” I said, still completely in shock.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” he looked around frantically, “Tony!”

Tony came to us slowly. He had no idea what was going on. Just when he was about to ask us what was going on, it hit me. I grabbed onto Vic shoulder and groaned in pain. Suddenly everybody knew what was going on. It hurt so bad! Weren’t the first couple of contractions supposed to be more like period pains? This was definitely nothing like period pains. The pain lasted for a minute. Since when I was in labour! These were not early labour contractions. I was full out ready to give birth.

“I’ll get everything in the car,” Tony tried to stay as calm as possible, “Vic, can you get something for Noortje to change into?”

Vic nodded and ran upstairs after I told him to get me a pair of underwear and some pants, pajama pants were also ok. Tony was busy putting the baby car seat in the car and got the overnight bag with baby stuff in as well. While he was still fumbling with placing the car seat in properly, Vic came back and I change right in front of him. I didn’t care if he would see me half naked, I just wanted to get out of the wet clothes.

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Tony’s POV

We decided that Vic was going to go with Noortje and I incase we needed any help, and when we finally brought Mike and Jaime in the loop, they said they would go to the hospital in Mike’s car. Our whole family was going to be there. Well, band family, I didn’t think calling my mom and sister now was a good idea. Isa would freak out and Noortje wouldn’t be able to handle it.

I had already covered the seat with a towel and helped Noortje get in the front. Vic put on her seatbelt while I quickly got in the driver’s seat. Noortje seemed to be in so much pain whenever she got a contraction. I wanted to help her so bad, but I knew I couldn’t do anything but support her. She had to do the work while Vic and I were by her side.

Everything seemed to be going ok, except for the occasional scream from Noortje. But it didn’t last as long as I would have hoped it to. I had just gotten onto the highway when things started going wrong.

Noortje let out the loudest scream she had, “I can’t hold back anymore!”

I moved the hair that stuck to her skin out of her face, “it’s just 45 more minutes.”

“I can’t fucking do that!” she threw her head back as she let out another yell.

“Vic, can you recline her seat and put her hair up? There should be hair ties in the front pouch of the bag.”

Vic did as I asked without hesitation. This was only about making Noortje as comfortable. The amount of work we had to do didn’t matter. If I would have asked Vic to deliver the baby, he would have probably done it. But we weren’t that far yet. Noortje was only having contractions, the baby wasn’t coming just yet-

“I can feel the head!” Noortje panicked after having squeezed the sides of the seat again.

Ok. So the baby was coming. I pressed down the gas pedal and started speeding. If I went this fast we would be able to arrive in 25 minutes instead. I wasn’t going to go any faster. It was possible, but I didn’t need the pressure of making this even more illegal than it already was. Driving any faster would be way too dangerous with the traffic at this time of day, anyway.

The handsfree in the car started ringing and I pressed a button to answer after seeing it was Jaime. Did something happen to them?

“Guys, you’re speeding,” Jaime warned, “like seriously speeding.”

Noortje screeched again and Vic held out his hand for her to squeeze, “the head’s coming out!”

Jaime finally realised what was happening, “ok, we’re going to take our time. We’ll see you at the hospital.”

With that he hung up and the only sound in the car were Noortje’s pants and whimpers of pain. I was starting to freak out myself, but I couldn’t show it. What if she was going to give birth in the car? We didn’t know what to do. There might even be complications that we couldn’t deal with in the car.

“Oh my god, oh my god. I swear the head’s coming out,” Noortje was breathing in and out rapidly and was bracing herself for the next contractions.

“Do you need to take off your pants?” I asked her. She nodded and I reached over to help take them down far enough while keeping my eyes on the road.

I started going faster after Noortje confirmed that she could feels the baby’s head and hair. She wailed out again and I just hoped we were going to arrive at the hospital in time. But I sped right past two cop cars.

“Please don’t pull me over, please don’t pull me over,” I mumbled under my breath. Of course we weren’t lucky enough. They both turned on their lights and we had to slow down before coming to a stop on the side of the road.

Luckily, though, the police officer didn’t take ages to come out of his car and walk up to the car. I rolled down the window and prayed for him to let us go as fast as possible. He leaned down and looked inside the car, “you were going pretty fast, weren’t you?”

I was going to try to defend myself, “She’s in-” but I was cut off my Noortje yelling out in pain again, but this time it seemed to be a lot more painful than any other contraction she had.

“Oh, I see. I’ll see what I can do,” the police officer took a step back and starting talking over his walkie-talkie while we were left with Noortje who looked like she was about to pass out.

“Can’t they just hurry up! We have to go!” Vic said angrily.

“Vic, shut the fuck up! Your voice is fucking annoying me!” Noortje burst out. I wasn’t going to blame her. If I were in the same pain as her, I probably also would have gotten mad at anybody talking. Luckily she hadn’t gotten mad at me… yet.

The police officer came back, “we are going to escort you to the hospital. I will be behind you and my colleagues will be in front of you. We’ll try to go as fast as possible. We’ve also notified the hospital of our arrival, they should be ready when we get there.”

“Thank you,” I breathed out in relief while Noortje was still screaming.

We soon were back on the road, going much faster than what I was going before. I was determined to bring Noortje to the hospital in time for the baby to be born. Being pulled over by the cops really wasn’t a bad thing, especially when we passed a pretty long traffic jam. Rushing to the hospital without sirens at this time would have been terrible. We managed to do what was supposed to take us 20 minutes in 10. Now we just had to get through the traffic lights, but that wasn’t going to be difficult with the police escorting us. Just two more minutes to go.

“Tony!” Noortje screeched while she squinted her eyes shut and tensed up.

“Shh, it’s ok, we’re almost there,” I held her hand and ran my thumb over her knuckles.

“Oh my god! The head’s out!”

We took the turn to the hospital and stopped in front of the front entrance. Nurses knew exactly who we were because of the cop cars. They rushed out with a wheelchair and I jumped out of the car to help Noortje out. It took a while, but eventually Noortje managed to sit down on the wheelchair without hurting herself or the baby. I could see the head, just like Noortje had screamed out a couple of seconds prior. The baby’s eyes were still closed, but looked so perfect already. I followed Noortje and the nurses while Vic told me he would park the car somewhere and wait for Jaime and Mike.

We got some looks as we passed the waiting room, but the looks weren’t judging, they were only concerned. Noortje was just placed on the bed when the baby came out. We were just on time. She looked so relieved, the pressure and pain gone. The midwifes fumbled around with the umbilical chord and cleared the baby’s airway, but there was no crying. Something was wrong.

“Give the baby to the mother!” one of them urged, “give the baby to the mother!”

A nurse helped Noortje take off her shirt, leaving her completely naked. The baby was handed to her and I could see it was a little baby girl. But she wasn’t breathing. Noortje tried her best and rubbed the small back, but nothing happened.

“Tony,” she mumbled and I heard her voice crack.

I tried helping as well, and put my hand close to the baby, “come on, babygirl. You have to breathe.”

The baby grabbed my pointer finger and started wailing. She was breathing. We all sighed and laughed in relief. Our baby girl was fine. Somebody cleaned off the baby on Noortje’s stomach and wrapped her in a blanket. I gave one of the hats we had packed in the bag and gave her back to Noortje.

“It’s our little Kalila Emilia Perry,” I looked down as she squirmed around, and gave Noortje a kiss.

Kalila immediately started breastfeeding. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Noortje and I had created this and it was perfect. My two girls were the most amazing things in the world, even better than music.

After some bonding and cooing, Kalila was taken away from us for some medical examination. It was sad seeing her leave the room for a bit, but it was necessary. They had to check whether everything was ok. When it was confirmed that everything was fine, Kalila came back to us and I got to hold her.

She was to most precious and fragile baby ever. Her mouth opened and closed slowly and her little arms reached out. The hair on her head was a deep black, yet very wispy, and her eyes were a pure green. Even though this was probably going the change as she grew up, I thought she was perfect.

Everything was perfect.

Notes

So the baby is finally here and it's a girl! Tony and Noortje now have an addition. Pretty exciting, right?

Well, maybe here's some less exciting news. There will only be two more chapters left :( . I've finished writing both of them. And that will be all for this story. Well, that's a lie. I'm hoping to write two epilogues. There will be at least one.

Why does this story barely have any chapters? Well, as you probably know, I couldn't get inspired to write any more. So, I squeezed the last bit of creativity into this chapter and the next two, and hope they are written better than the last couple of shitty ones. Originally when I started this sequel, I was planning on making it just as long as The New Member, but that didn't exactly happen. I hope you guys will enjoy the last couple of chapters. I actually spent some time on them.