His answer was muddled—because of the anesthetic?—but she didn't really need it. Her perception of him was clear: darkness and pressure, impatience, a slow Satanic anger ... and something else. Uncertainty? Dread?
"Two or three more ought to do it. Bear down."
Fear. Unmistakable now. And a desperate determination—
"Doctor, he doesn't want to be born!"
"Seems that way sometimes, doesn't it? Now bear down good and hard."
Tell him stop blurrrr too dangerrrr stop I feel worrrr stop I tellrrrr stop
"What, Leo? What?"
"Bear down," the doctor said abstractedly.
Faintly, like a voice under water, gasping before it drowns: Hurry I hate you tell him sealed incubator tenth oxygen nine-tenths inert gases hurry hurry hurry
"An incubator!" she panted. "He'll need an incubator ... to live ... won't he?"