“Eomma?” Soo Yeon’s sweet voice reached her mother’s ears as the girl stepped into the noblewoman’s bedchamber.
Lady Bit Na glanced up expectantly. But she froze when she saw the expression on her daughter’s face. “Is it time?”
Soo Yeon bobbed her head. “Well…probably not yet. But I think that it’s definitely started….”
Lady Bit Na’s countenance was flooded with pure joy. She jumped up and clapped her hands together. “My very first grandbaby!” she gasped. “Oh, Soo Yeon! I just can’t wait! Not a moment longer.”
“Well, Eomma, I’m pretty sure that you’re going to have to wait a moment longer. Probably several more moments. But, hopefully, before tomorrow this little beauty will arrive.”
“Do you want me to send for Ban Ryu?”
“Not yet. He’ll just be nervous. And I don’t want him to be. I just don’t know what to do with myself. I am decidedly uncomfortable, Eomma.”
Lady Bit Na laughed. “Well, of course you are! A human being is making his way out of your belly!”
Soo Yeon grimaced. “When you put it that way…”
She crossed the room and lay down on her mother’s bed. Right before another minor contraction made her bit her lip. “It gets worse than this, eh?”
Her mother studied her face. “Much worse. For most of us anyway. You look barely phased. If that was a birthing pain.”
“It was. It doesn’t feel like much right now. But they’re coming every five minutes. Just enough that I can’t relax.”
Lady Bit Na sighed. “I remember.” She tilted her head to the side. “Let’s take you to your room.”
Soo Yeon stood up. And a wave of alarm flowed across her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I needed the chamber pot,” the girl winced. Then she glanced down at the puddle on the floor.
“Oh! Darling! Your water broke!” her mother exclaimed as she moved towards Soo Yeon. “Come! Let’s get you to your room. You might not be waiting as long as I thought.”
But she did. She waited all night long. And tossed. And turned. And discomfited her husband to no end. At three in the morning, Ban Ryu finally lit a lamp and asked her if there was anything that he could do to make her more comfortable.
She glanced up at him. Clearly quite miserable now.
“No. There’s nothing you can do. I just have to wa—”
Her breath was snatched from her as an excruciating pain wracked her whole body. She wailed in distress. And the whites of Ban Ryu’s eyes showed as he stared down in horror at her. When he felt her body relax, he jumped from the bed.
“I’m going to get your mother!” He disappeared into the hallway.
A minute later, Lady Bit Na came dashing into the room.
“Is it time?” she echoed her question of yesterday.
But before Soo Yeon could respond, another horrid contraction gripped her. And her mother answered her own question.
“Yes. I do believe it is. I sent Ban Ryu to rouse the maids, but I’m going to check you myself,” she murmured as she approached her daughter.
“Check…me?” the girl queried.
“To see if – oh!” gasped her mother.
“What? What is i—”
Her question was cut off by a loud groan as her mother prepared to walk her through her delivery of her first child.
“Soo Yeon, your baby just crowned. That means that I can see his head. It’s time to start pushing.”
For a few minutes, it seemed to Lady Bit Na that her daughter would never get the hang of it. But after a little while, the girl began to apply pressure at the right moment, and her mother could see that they were making progress.
“Keep going, darling. You’re almost there,” she encouraged Soo Yeon sweetly.
Ten minutes later, Lady Bit Na and her maids watched in wonder as another tiny life slipped into the world. And the grand noblewoman caught her first grandchild in her own hands.
“He’s a boy, Soo Yeon!” she gasped cheerfully.
“A boy?” his mother beamed. “Oh! Ban Ryu will be delighted!”
––
But that new father hid his disappointment when he learned that his wife had given him a son. For months now, he had been dreaming about that precious, little girl. The one he had first seen in a vision of the night before he’d even married Soo Yeon. Ban Ryu had been waiting to meet that tiny daughter of his dreams. The one with the wide, obsidian eyes. And the adorable, raven pigtails. The spitting image of his beautiful wife.
But it seemed that he was going to have to wait some more for that blessed child to arrive. For today, Soo Yeon had blessed him with an heir. Every father’s dream.
So why was Ban Ryu still thinking about that wee girl?
