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Jing-Mei is certain that her life is nothing but one long string of bad decisions. First there was pursuing medicine despite her parents’ wishes. Then as a med student she let herself get caught up in her own competitiveness and jealousy and almost killed a patient by performing a procedure she wasn’t qualified to do with no supervision. So then she’d left medicine for a while until a chance encounter with a man having a medical emergency led her back to medicine and New York.
New York had been good to her, a fresh start and a chance to put her mistakes in Chicago behind her. Until her program closed and she was left without a job right in the middle of her residency and her father decided to worm her way back into County General. Which is where she ended up crossing paths with an extremely handsome and charming ICU nurse named Frank. And well. A couple of other poor decisions later and here she is, December 24th, 2000 and according to the OB nurse currently examining her, she’s 6 centimeters dilated.
Which means it’s time for her next bad decision: Call John.
She’d been putting it off ever since her labor started. Mostly because she knows he was working and that means his options were either A.) be distracted all shift and potentially make a mistake with a patient or B.) leave early and risk pissing off Weaver. Jing-Mei isn’t sure which one he’d hate more. But at this point, she doesn’t have much of a choice. And to be fair, he offered.
It’s early morning now, so she’s got a decent chance of catching him at the tail end of his shift. She’s still hesitating. Once he’s here and this baby comes it all becomes really real. There’s no backing out. She couldn’t change her mind. She doesn’t want to change her mind. It’s still insane.
But at this stage she can't really delay anymore, not unless she wants to run the risk of having this baby alone. So she leans back on the bed after the latest contraction and gives a nurse John’s pager number and asks her to please page him because she needs him to be here. The nurse smiles pleasantly and assures her that she’ll call.
The nurse leaves to make that call and Jing-Mei presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing herself not to start crying from stress. What on Earth is she doing? Up until a month ago she’d been certain that her only option had been to give up the baby, since she dithered far too long for an abortion to be a solution. On Thanksgiving she had done what she thought was her last ditch effort: talking to her mother. But her mother had made it clear to her that she wouldn't be supportive and she’d figured that was it. Her last chance had gone up in flames with her mother’s chilly silence. And she’d accepted this reality, she truly had, until she commiserated it with John two days later.
“I want this baby, but I just don’t think I can do it by myself, John.”
“You don’t have to do it alone. You’ve got me.” John replies, hand on her shoulder, comforting, grounding.
Jing-Mei laughs slightly and shakes her head. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do. That’s why I offered.”
Jing-Mei locks eyes with him, looking for any hint of a joke. She finds only sincerity. “What, exactly, are you offering?” she says.
“I’m saying that if you want we can raise this baby together.”
It had been a hell of a Hail Mary. And somewhere in that conversation Jing-Mei must have lost her mind because she said yes. She’d said ‘yes’ to co-parenting her illegitimate child during her emergency medicine residency with her best friend in a strictly platonic relationship. Who does that? She loves John Carter, always has, but not in a romantic way. And she knows he feels the same. But for some reason they're now currently renting a three bedroom townhouse that they moved into two weeks ago and they spent the last week decorating a nursery for this baby that they're planning on raising together.
Maybe Jing-Mei’s problem isn't that she makes poor decisions. Maybe it’s that being around John Carter makes her make bad decisions. That would explain everything, she thinks. It’s a comforting thought. It’s not her, it’s him. Every bad decision that led her to this moment is actually the weird influence of her closest friend.
It might explain why a pretty big part of her really, really wants to do this.
Before she can really start unpacking all of that and start convincing herself that wanting to continue this plan is insane, the nurse reenters the room, and she’s not alone. John’s right behind her. Must have been a rough shift last night because he looks awful.
“You look awful,” she says.
“Good morning to you too, Deb.” he says, stifling a yawn. He perches next to her on the edge of the bed and puts his arm around her shoulders. “How’re you doing?”
“Right now? Fine. Ask me again after I push out a baby the size of a watermelon.”
Before he can reply, the nurse speaks up from the foot of the bed: “Well, he’ll be able to ask again real soon because we are at 9 centimeters. Almost there!” This information is delivered with a smile and excitement in the tone and it sets a new wave of anxiety through Jing-Mei. No turning back.
The nurse excuses herself with a promise that she’ll be back very soon with the OB resident and they’ll be ready to welcome her baby into the world and Jing-Mei feels like she cannot breathe. She’s pretty sure the combination of her anxiety and contractions are going to kill her. John squeezes her shoulders, grounding her for a moment. A reminder she isn't alone in this.
But she is who she is and she can’t resist looking for one final escape hatch. “Are we sure we can do this? Do we honestly think we can be decent parents to this kid?”
“Little late for second thoughts, don’t you think?” John says, his tone is light but she can hear the concern under the surface. He moves off the bed to stand slightly in front of her. He grabs her hand and gives it a squeeze.“You change your mind?”
She takes a deep breath before answering. “I don't know. I just… I don’t think I can be a good mother.” She’s been circling around the issue for months now. It almost feels… freeing to actually say it. Now that she's said it, the emotions are bubbling up and spilling over. She wipes away the stray tears and lets the words fall out. “What if I make a mistake with this kid? You know as well as I do that my decision making track record isn’t exactly spotless. What if I’m making the wrong decision and I ruin this kid’s life?”
John squeezes her hand again. “It’s going to be okay. I don't think there's anyone who’s never made a mistake with their kid. That doesn't make them bad parents. You know as well as I do that we see it in the ER all the time. You’re going to be a great mom, I know it.”
He hands her a tissue from the box beside her bed. She wipes her eyes and moves her hand so she’s grasping his hand. “Thank you, John. For being here. For everything.”
He smiles, but before he can say anything else, the nurse and OB resident enter the room and announce it’s time. He moves back into position at her side, one arm around her shoulders and the other holding her hand. I can do this. We can do this. I want to do this. Jing-Mei takes a deep, steadying breath, feels John press a soft kiss to the side of her head, and prepares to meet her baby.
In the end, it happens faster than either one of them has prepared for. One second Jing-Mei is in the middle of yet another round of pushing, and the next second the loudest sound in the room is a baby's cry and she can hear the resident tell the nurse that the baby’s good. APGAR 9 she hears them say and she releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Next to her she can feel more than hear John do the same before he takes a step back. The baby’s good. The baby’s healthy.
The nurse looks at Jing-Mei and John, a big smile on her face and the baby swaddled in her arms, and says “Congratulations, it’s a girl!”
A girl. A daughter. Jing-Mei has a daughter. She’s a mom to a little girl.
The nurse hands her her daughter for the first time and Jing-Mei thinks she’s crying again. She holds her baby tight and with one finger traces her daughter’s face. She’s got light brown skin, and a light feathering of jet black hair on her head. Big brown eyes. Her nose looks like Frank’s and she thinks she has her mouth and Jing-Mei realizes that she’s never loved anyone like she does this little girl. “Hi baby, “ she whispers, more affection packed into those two words than she’s ever expressed before. Her daughter. She’s a mother. It feels almost like a dream and yet nothing has ever felt more real.
She tears her eyes away from her daughter’s perfect face and looks at John. He’s smiling, soft and easy, just watching the two of them. She smiles back and says “Would you like to hold her?” He nods, and she knows that’s been eagerly awaiting for her to ask. She hands him the baby and she knows what she must have looked like moments ago. The second the baby is handed over and is secure in his arms his smile widens and he looks lighter, somehow. As if the events of the past year have simply melted away for this moment.
He looks up at Jing-Mei, happier than she’s seen him in a long time, and he breathes out “She’s so beautiful, Deb. She’s got your eyes.” He looks back down at the baby and traces the outline of her face with one finger. “Hi sweetheart,” he says, voice thick with emotion, “We’re so happy to meet you.”
Jing-Mei Chen has made a lot of poor decisions in her life, she knows. She’s made dangerous mistakes and stupid mistakes and foolish mistakes. She’s acted without thinking more than once, and gotten herself into trouble more than that. Every bad decision she’s ever made has led her to this moment right here: the morning of December 24th, 2000, where she is currently sitting on a bed in OB and watching her best friend in the entire world hold her daughter that they are going to raise together. And as she leans back slightly on her pillow, she realizes that of all the poor decisions she’s made in her life, this isn’t one of them.