You Were Born

Your mother says she felt you coming just after midnight, and says she didn’t come to bed because she didn’t want to wake me. I hadn’t thought anything of it, because she slept on the couch as often as the bed those days, rarely comfortable, not least of all for the way you’d slump your body to one side in inside her belly, so you, too, could lay on the mattress.

Your mother went to work the next morning, though I'd asked if she really should. It would have been foolish to start her limited time away any sooner than she had to, though, and besides, in this time when the final exam period merged into the holidays, it was all parties and luncheons and half-day early releases. Who wants to use time off against days like that?

The woman at the dining hall said she looked like she should go the hospital.

Standing in the door frame, making conversation, seizing up with contractions, her co-workers told her the same.

So, your mother came back to me.

I drove.

I drove to downtown Atlanta, passing cars. I’d been a slow, careful driver that stretch of highway between our house and the doctor’s office all the while your mother was pregnant, but the game had changed. I was only going five-to-ten miles over the limit, but your mother still warned me against driving crazy for the contrast. But I knew the stakes of this drive. Take too long, get stuck in traffic, and I may well wind up the one delivering you in the backseat, craning over my phone to get direction from whatever nurse or EMT we could get on the speaker.

You know I’m no good with my hands.

I didn’t trust myself.

But we got to the hospital OK and got checked in and your mother got checked out. We went to a triage room where neither of us knew we’d spend the next ten hours while our go-bag waited in the trunk. We assumed we’d get proper warning about when to get it.

Ten hours and your mother ached with back labor, dilated to two centimeters. The doctor said you weren’t coming that day. The mid-wife and the nurse each said you might. They said your mother was too far along and the way your heart slowed during contractions gave her pause.

So we waited.

Time disappeared.

My phone was at ten percent when I warned your mother I wouldn’t be able to use it much anymore, when she told me she’d had a charger in her purse all the while.

We waited.

We hardly ate. Your mother knew she wasn’t supposed to eat past a certain point, particularly with the possibility of taking the drugs, which hadn’t been the plan, but felt as though it might become necessary.

Besides which, our carefully selected snacks were all in the trunk of our car.

I didn't dare leave your mother's side.

We waited.

Ten hours, and your mother dilated to four centimeters.

We were moved from triage down the hall to a delivery room.

Ten hours in triage, and it wasn’t ten minutes--just gathering our things and making our way down the hall, before your mother dilated to ten centimeters.

It was time.

Oxygen mask. Alternating positions. Finally, I held one of your mother’s legs in the air while a nurse held the other, the midwife poised down between us.

I could see the crescent of the top of your head. The first I’d ever seen of you. I wondered how you’d ever come through, when I could still see so little of you.

The midwife and the nurses--there was a whole team of them now--encouraged your mother. So I shouted along, the affirmations, the encouragements that you’re doing great and keep going.

The doctor was back, in a tracksuit, off the clock. We were told he’d only be there if there were a problem.

The doctor put a hand on your mother’s shoulder and counted down how long she needed to push to get the most from every window, to not waste effort in between.

Still that crescent--that fraction of the top of your head, covered in hair.

They call it the ring of fire--that moment when your mother's tissues stretched to their limit.

And your head popped out.

I teared up. Your mother remembers this.

I was embarrassed to think it, even in the moment aware that I was probably being absurd. But still, I wondered, Did his head just fall off?

Surely, there would have been more dismay from the medical staff if it had, but maybe they knew this possibility. Maybe I should have known that possibility. I’d read What to Expect When You’re Expecting and a book by Hypnobabies and thought I knew enough. I knew nothing. Were the nurses calm so as not to make us frantic and bereft sooner than we should have been? Maybe they thought I could see what had happened, too, and thought me a co-conspirator, or waited to follow my lead because I knew your mother better than they did.

I knew nothing.

We waited.

Your mother hadn’t realized your head was out yet.

I waited.

Your mother pushed.

And you were there.

I cut the cord, according to plan. Your mother held you skin to skin. We were back on a plan for the first time all day, for the last time I can remember.

The first time I held you, I got a palm full of meconium. I hadn’t read about that, and wondered if this was how your poop would look all the time—if this was what awaited me these days, these weeks, these months, these years to follow.

But your head was attached to your body.

I told your mother I loved her.

I told you I loved you more.

I left to, at last, fetch our go-bag, and to retrieve the cooler to collect the placenta we’d been informed we couldn’t transfer between the delivery and recovery floors.

I came back in time to hear your first screams after your first shots.

I had thought you might be quiet until then.

And then we were in our hospital room. After the nurses brought us food. After they’d swaddled you and left you in the bassinet. I didn’t sleep much. I knew you were supposed to sleep on your back, but your head was heavy. You turned yourself on your side time and again, and I didn’t know how close that might bring you to face down on your mattress.

We couldn’t lose you.

I righted your body, and when you turned again, tried to hold you in place, then settled for watching you from one eye to see how long you’d stay on your side, to see how long I could stay awake.

I didn’t trust myself.

I waited.

But then, the wait was over.

Your head was attached to your body. And in that room there was your mother, there was me, and there was you. Our family.

You were born.