About 12 hours before I gave birth to Jack, I got high.  Really, really high.  This is how it happened. 

All morning I had really strong contractions.  I had been having regular Braxton Hicks contractions for the last two months of pregnancy, but these were quite strong.  By lunch time, my husband decided to take me to the birth center to see if I was in labor.  On the ride over, the contractions started to weaken.  By the time we arrived, I knew in my heart it was a false alarm, but the midwives checked me anyway to see how far along I was.  My due date was the next day.  When I heard I was only 2 cm dilated, I cried.  I had been 2 cm for 2 weeks.  No change.

As I sat on the exam table, the midwives reminded me that prodromal labor is actually the beginning of the process of birth.  It’s not a big fake-out, rather the early stage of my body preparing for birth.  That’s when I got high. 

All of a sudden the room got dizzy; all my aches and pains dissolved; my body went limp and I felt good. G-O-O-D!  I felt happy-drowsy and it took me a few minutes to explain what was happening.  The midwives laughed.  A woman’s body doesn’t leave her stranded in agony during labor.  It releases a cascade of endorphins and other feel-good hormones to counteract the pain.  The few hours of strong contractions had signaled my brain to release these goodies, so I was left to enjoy them.  For about an hour I felt like I was at a rave.  Then I got really sleepy.

Andres went back to work, not wanting to take any extra time off before it was needed.  I was left at home with Max who had turned 16 months old a few days earlier.  Max was the biggest point of stress for me anticipating labor.  I didn’t want him to see me in pain.  I also didn’t want to have to deal with him at all during labor.  I knew I would need to focus inward.  Because his birth was relatively fast for a first time mother and second babies come quicker, I was worried about the timing.  Also, if you recall from Max’s birth story, my labor was really strong and intense from the start.  Throughout my whole pregnancy I worried about how to care for Max and be in labor by myself.  I created a binder with contingency plans for every possible scenario.

While preparing Max’s dinner, I felt an intense twisting pain.  It felt a lot like painfully trapped gas, so I kept shifting my body position to encourage its escape.  Nothing helped.  I barely managed to get Max’s meal in his bowl and his body in his high chair.  I looked at the clock: 5:45.  Andres got off at six o’clock.  It seemed silly to call.  Five breathless minutes more and I gave him a ring.  “I need you to come home now.”

“Are you in labor?”

“I’m not sure, but I can’t…I can’t…I can’t take care of Max right now.”  I was in the living room, watching Max silently eat his dinner alone in the dining room.

“I’m already on my way.”  Andres later explained that his phone rang, figuring I wouldn’t bother calling ten minutes before his scheduled departure unless it was serious.  When he arrived home, I directed him to just take care of Max and get him down as soon as possible.  I was wincing and trying to breathe, but I couldn’t focus on myself until I knew Max was fine.  Our pattern is dinner, bath, stories, bed, so Andres just rushed through the whole thing.  I remember kissing my baby knowing that the next time I would see him his family position would be usurped.  At 16 months he was elevated to the status of big brother.

I began using my hypno-birthing techniques.  After being completely overwhelmed and feeling incredibly unprepared for Max’s birth, I went in the opposite direction for Jack.  I enrolled in a hypno-birthing class that all but promised a painless birth.  The course consisted of six CDs and an enormous textbook.  For two and a half months, I devoted two hours a day to learning how to hypnotize myself.  I mastered very advanced relaxation techniques, built a strong visualization and followed instructions to create “mental anesthesia” which I could use during birth. 

With Max out of my arms, I turned on the special birth track and focused on what I had learned.  I laid down on my bed and brought myself into a state of deep relaxation.  Once Max was tucked in, Andres sat behind me, gently massaging my back.  The lights were low and it was a very calming environment.  I’m not sure how long it lasted, maybe an hour or so.  Eventually, my breath got short, my back got worse and my contractions fell into a long and fast pattern.

My response: I got mad.  The hypno-birthing technique I had spent so much effort learning wasn’t helping much.  I got out of bed and paced around my living room fuming with fear-turned-anger.  I moved quickly, trying to step out of my body.  Step out of the growing pain in my back.  This felt familiar.  It felt like the back labor that had nearly broken me with Max.  I didn’t honestly expect a painless birth, but I did expect some sense of pain relief and the ability to focus from my months of training.  Instead, my brain was seething in rage that I would have to go through this again.  Andres called a neighbor to sit on our couch while his sister drove over to watch Max.  

We arrived at the birth center a little after 11 pm.  An unfamiliar midwife helped me out of my car.  I was taken aback.  After being pregnant for two years, I knew all the midwives.  She introduced herself as Amanda and explained she was a nurse-midwife whom Shari had asked to help out at the center for a few months.  She had trained there years before, but now worked in hospitals.  That was her first night back at the center.  When she checked my dilation I was, you guessed it, 2 cm.  No change from the afternoon.

That baffled me beyond belief.  If this wasn’t labor, I didn’t know what was.  I didn’t want to back home even though the birth center couldn’t admit me until I was 4 cm.  Max’s babysitter had been called.  She would have to stay because we would need her soon.  We have a small home and I prefer a very private birth experience.  While these worries raced through my mind, I was in very intense labor.  Amanda didn’t say much, but she suggested that I stick around for an hour and see what happens.  She thought my labor was strong and I might make enough progress to be admitted.  I gladly accepted her offer, though I felt a lot of pressure to hurry up and dilate, because more than anything, I didn’t want to be sent home. 

Andres put my hypno-birthing CD on the stereo.  I tried my best to labor on both the toilet and the bed, but every time a contraction hit, I felt like I needed to crawl out of my body.  Max’s birth had completely overwhelmed me, but I never knew what was coming.  This second birth was terrifying because I knew what was coming, but refused to face it.  Rather than giving me the confidence that I could endure, I was shaking with anger at the repetition.  I felt like I had barely survived Max’s birth.  To do it again was just too much.  At one point I shouted, “I can’t do this for eight more hours!”

A student midwife answered, “Well, maybe you won’t have to.”

I liked that idea, but still, I seethed with undirected rage.  Part of me even wanted to go to a hospital for an epidural, but I knew that form of relief would take more than it would give.  At the birth center nobody takes a baby out of a mama’s arms, let alone out of her room.  The alertness of Max after birth was stunning.  Besides that, driving to the hospital and getting admitted would take time, so I would be suffering even more during the transfer.  I decided to stay, but something had to give.  I was spinning out of control and I knew I had to get a grip.

“I think this hypno-birthing is kind of bullshit, don’t you?” I asked Amanda.

She looked me dead in the eye and said, “I think you really need to let go of that.”  In that instant she reminded me of my Aunt Bridget.  There was a strong physical resemblance, but an even stronger energetic similarity.  Bridget is my atheist godmother who possesses the skill of a zen master at letting things go.  She genuinely moves through life with a graceful acceptance of whatever it brings.  I am the opposite.  I am passionate and controlling, but those qualities weren’t helping me with the task at hand.  The reminder of Bridget, who was a nurse who birthed four babies naturally and without the help of a doctor, was exactly what I needed. 

I closed my eyes, took a few breaths and went deep inside of myself.  I connected to my strength and my ability to control myself.  When the world is spinning, it’s easy to get caught up in the motion and forget that that we have the ability and responsibility to control ourselves.  I didn’t have to be in a state of perpetual reaction.  I accessed the deep part of me that is perpetually calm.  I made a decision to let go of my expectations and connect and cooperate with my body.  I opened my eyes, told Andres to change the music to the African lullabies I used during Max’s birth.  I undressed and stepped into the birth tub and got on my hands and knees. 

During my prenatal visits one of the student midwives warned me that because Max turned posterior during birth, Jack might as well.  She said that might simply be the exit route through my pelvis.  I shuddered at the idea and did everything I could to avoid it, but my back labor let me know that her prediction had come true.  This time around I knew to get on my hands and knees.  (Note: the midwives are not to blame for me not being in this position for Max. Every time I tried to move, I couldn’t handle it.) 

I decided to listen to my body completely at this point.  During Max’s labor I flailed around looking for help.  I followed directions not to push before I was fully dilated, even though every fiber in my being longed to.  The second time around, I decided to trust my instincts and it ended up being one of the most extraordinary births.

I used my ability to deeply relax my body during most of my contractions.  I muttered to myself my homemade birth mantra, allow, allow, allow.  I tried my best to get out of my body’s way.  It knew what it was doing.  My job was to try not to resist the process.  I relaxed and allowed my baby to move towards life.  

I held on to that state as long as I could, but invariably, at the end of each contraction, I gave a little jolt of a push and shouted out, “FUCK!”  I didn’t like the idea of cursing during birth, but it felt truly satisfying and oddly refreshing.  I kept up with this pattern on my hands and knees: relax, relax, relax, then a curse and an unauthorized push.  And then…

POP!

You should have heard that sound.  It sounded like a rocket shot out of me.  Felt like it too.  The room fell to stunned silence.  

“What happened?” I asked.

“Oh, my God,” someone said.  “I’ve never seen that before. You just pushed your water sac right out.”

Because I was in the tub, I didn’t feel it.  Two births and I never felt my water break.  Hmm… I guess the movies are wrong.  I continued with my pattern.  Mirabel, the midwife who helped me through my entire pregnancy arrived.  The midwives were fiddling around, checking my dilation.  I was terrified I would be sent home.  It had been about an hour. 

“OK,” Mirabel said. ”Go ahead and turn around and sit so Andres can sit behind you.”

“No, I like it like this.  Am I dilated to 4 yet?  I don’t want to go home.”

“You’re not going home,” she laughed.  “You’re having your baby right now.”

Shocking!  I guess I didn’t have to wait eight hours.  I sat down with Andres behind me.  His arms enveloped me in an embrace.  A few strong pushes and Jack tumbled out of me and immediately was placed in my arms, surrounded by his daddy’s arms.  His first moments of life were spent in both his parents’ embrace. 

Words are failing me here.  I can not describe how incredibly beautiful this birth was.  From the moment I decided to trust my instincts, it was absolutely exquisite.  The natural dance of mother and child brought a quiet to the bustling room.  This was deep in the middle of the night.  There was candlelight and soft lullabies from a far off land playing in the background.  The sacredness of life entering this world was honored by all.

After some time, we got out of the tub.  Andres cut the umbilical cord and Jack nursed right away.  His eyes were wide open taking in his family and his new blurry world.  When he was measured a few hours later and needed to be removed from my arms, he cried.  At the sound of my voice, he hushed, recognizing his mama from the start.

Later I learned three extraordinary facts about this birth.  One was that on subsequent births, a lot of women seize up at the whatever was the most difficult aspect of their first birth.  For me, that was the contractions.  I was told a story of a woman who had five children.  After the first birth, whenever she was told to push, she refused.  That was her hard part and she needed to be coaxed into it.  The second thing I learned was that there is some research that pushing early in labor when a baby is in a posterior position sometimes gives the baby the umph it needs to get through the pelvis and correct its position.  By following my instinct, I had done this.  In all, I went from 2 cm to a baby in my arms in one hour and thirty seven minutes.

The third thing I learned came when I asked about the actual moment of Jack’s birth.  If you recall, I used the verb, tumbled, out of me.  It was like he did a somersault into life.  Amanda explained that his umbilical cord was short and wrapped tightly around his neck.  This was unknowable until the actual moment of birth.  When she tried to reach it over Jack’s head, it wouldn’t budge.   She and Mirabel used an old midwife technique called a granny choke to move Jack’s head to the side and allow his body to exit mine.  Once he was out, the cord was easily uncoiled.  Because so few doctors ever witness normal, vaginal births these days, I wonder if a doctor would have known what to do.  I doubt it.  Jack could have died, or I could have been mutilated to save him had we gone with a medical birth.  The midwives’ vast experience, quick thinking and cool confidence kept my birth safe and natural.  As it was always meant to be.

We rested a bit at the birth center.  I nursed Jack five times.  I ate a meal and went to the bathroom a lot.  At dawn we left.  We were home in time to eat breakfast with Max, while I nursed his baby brother.  We were a family. 

Complete.

I have meant to write this since Max’s birth, nearly three years ago.  It should be easy to tell; I know the story so well, but each time I try to capture the moment I became a mother, words fail me.  This is when the limitations of language come into play.  Everything I write will sound like a cliche.  I am bound to use words like: amazing, miracle, awe, precious.  The writer in me winces at their banality, but the mother in me understands those overused, cliched words are the closest I could ever come to describing the (here goes) absolute miracle of birth.

8 Hours, 24 Minutes

That was the time it took for me to become a mother.  That plus, 39 weeks and 5 days of pregnancy, but hey, who’s counting?  Max was born at the Miami Maternity Center. My labor was all natural without even a tab of Tylenol to block the pain.  I am not a glutton for punishment.  I am a world-class whiner when it comes to even the slightest aches and pains of life.  I am a strong person as all women, particularly all mothers are, but it wasn’t until I brought a child to life that I realized the depth of my strength.

I chose to birth with midwives primarily because I needed emotional support during my pregnancy.  A new bride, my family lived 3,500 miles away and the only close friend I made in Miami moved away just before my wedding.  After a few visits with a nice, but aloof OB, it occurred to me that he might not even recognize me in a line at the grocery store, yet he was invited to be at the most important moment of my life.  It just didn’t feel right.  I decided to check out the Miami Maternity Center.  As I researched it I recalled Shari Daniels, the main midwife as the star of the show House of Babies on Discovery Heath.  I had watched some episodes years before and felt like she was the Dog Whisperer of babies.  She is one of the few people who are so intertwined in their unique niche that their single life enriches our entire society.  I was apprehensive at first, but after touring the facility and answering an hour’s worth of my what if questions, I decided to give birth not in a cold, sterile hospital, rather the warm, friendly House of Babies.

My pregnancy was normal and healthy.  I had every single symptom exactly when my pregnancy book said I would.  I attended childbirth classes with my husband and read countless birth stories in Ina May’s Guide to Natural Childbirth.  I even read about ecstatic birthing, learning that some women experience an orgasm during birth.  Sign me up!  I’m an optimist and thought I might be one of the lucky few.  My breathing and relaxation techniques were top notch from years of yogic training.  I felt confident that I would be able to relax my way through the pain.  I planned a water birth for pain relief and thought that would be enough.

I was wrong.

My labor started late in the evening.  I passed my bloody show, and within an hour I was in full-blown labor.  It came hard and fast.  My contractions started at 5 minutes apart.  I never had the chance to settle into them and focus on my breath.  I didn’t even have a chance to call my mom.  I was completely overwhelmed.  Full of so many powerful sensations, I labored on our toilet in case my water broke, but also because so much downward pressure made me feel like I wanted to pee, even though I wasn’t.  I winced and twisted on the toilet for about an hour.

Andres tried his best to be a great labor coach.  He spouted off loving cheers of encouragement, but he was also overwhelmed.  I felt guilty, but hearing his voice wasn’t all that helpful to me.  This was his first child too, so we were both clueless.  I was also surprised that hearing a man’s voice really bothered me.  I loved him; I wanted him there, but ultimately birth is a woman’s domain.  I needed the sisterhood of motherhood to guide me through labor.

After about an hour at home we knew we were in over our heads, so Andres drove me to the birth center.  That sounds so neat and tidy, but it wasn’t.  Because my contractions were so close together, he only had small pockets of time to prepare for us to leave.  All that needed to be done was take my meal out of the freezer.  Put our cell phones and chargers in the baby bag.  Put the baby bag into the car and prepare the front seat with towels and pillows for me.  My water still hadn’t broken.  This list was accomplished in racing 20 second intervals between my screams.  During my contractions, I needed him right there with me, looking me in the eye and allowing me to squeeze his hand.  When I felt the contraction let up, I dismissed him to run to the next task, only to call for him a few seconds later.

This is the part of my labor that could be twisted to make a sitcom.  Andres rushing around in 20 second intervals trying to get the car ready for our trip to the maternity center.  Me calling him back before he has a chance to get anything done, then getting upset that he’s taking so long.  Me digging my mitts as tight as I could into his hands during contractions as some outlet for pain.  It’s easy how this scene could be contorted into a canned laugh-a-minute. 

The funniest part would be when I got frustrated by his words of encouragement.  I knew he was trying really hard to say what I wanted to hear, but at that moment, nothing he could say could be right.  Then he stumbled on a sentence that drove me batty.  I let it go the first time, but the second time he beseeched me to, “think of our love,” I lost it.  I did not want to be one of those angry, cursing women in labor, but this phrase was a wet cat pet backwards to me.  Through grit teeth, I said as calmly as I could muster, “Stop talking about our love.”

That was as I was twisting in the car on our way to the birth center.  The open squat of sitting on the toilet was much more comfortable than any position I could find in the car.  It was a 20 minute agonizing ride up I 95 .  All I wanted was to be there, where I knew the midwives would take care of me and the warm water of the birthing tub would ease my pain.

When I arrived, I was at my complete wits end.  I was checked and much to my dismay, I was only 2 cm dilated.  I had been 1 1/2 cm for the previous 2 weeks, so that meant nothing had really happened.  The Maternity Center doesn’t admit anyone until they are 4 cm because they need women to be in active labor.  Also Florida State law requires a baby to be born within 24 of admission for non-medical births, so the midwives don’t want to start the clock too early and wind up transferring care to a hospital unnecessarily.  That was all fine and good and I knew those facts before I arrived, but I felt like I was barely hanging on as it was.  The knowledge that I hadn’t even quite begun shook my confidence to the core.

What happened next is one of the greatest reasons I love midwives.  My midwife went in the other room and asked a mother who had just given birth if I could see her baby.  She was just a few hours old.  The new mom allowed me to meet her and her daughter.  She gave me a few words of encouragement which could not have come from a better source as she had literally just experienced what I was going through.  My visit was brief, but gave me a strong reminder of the reason for my pain: the baby that was coming at the end.  After talking to the new mom, I felt a jolt in my body and I bolted to the toilet where I threw up.  My contractions, which had eased, came back.  My midwife checked me again.  In about a half an hour I had dilated another centimeter.  Progress, but not enough.  We were sent home.

Pretty much as soon as we got home, labor kicked into yet another level of the most intense experience.  Even before I adjusted to what seemed like maximum intensity possible, it doubled.  I just couldn’t get on top of my experience.  At home, I went straight to the toilet.  My contractions were now about 4 minutes apart, but they also never really felt like they let up.  My back started to ache.  The contractions got longer in duration.  And here is where a sitcom would steal material from me once again.

There I was, sitting, rather gyrating, on the toilet.  Each contraction put me over the edge and all I could think to do was flail my arms around, grab whatever was in reach and throw it.  I could not help myself.  Andres was the gold star hero in this scene, calmly guiding me through the craziness by allowing me to mangle one of his hands while he stealthily moved any breakables out of reach.  I think I even chuckled once at the absurdity, but another contraction hit and I started throwing stuff again.  I guess a primordial part of me thought if I’m going down, I’m taking whatever I can with me.

We weren’t home even an hour before we headed back out.  This was a huge relief to me because the sun was rising.  I was terrified of being caught in rush hour traffic during labor.  Being in the car was Hell for me.  I gripped the lever on top of the car ceiling with both hands and hung on like I was on a subway train blasting through a tunnel at rocket speed in one of those blockbuster summer movies. 

This is where I lose a little time.  I remember a few midwives helping me walk inside, but it’s all very blurry.  At this point I was completely out of control and out of my mind.  My water broke at some point, but I never even felt it.  The midwives asked me when it happened, but I was simply shocked that it had.  How did I miss that?  They checked me.  I was at seven cm.  Ten minutes later I was at 8 1/2 cm.  The water was run for my birth.  I was convinced that it would be the pain relief I needed.

The birthing tub ended up being a mixed bag for me.  The heat of the water did alleviate some pain, but the water pressure fet like added pressure to my contractions.  The tub was large and I got in naked.  Andres wore swim trunks and got behind me.  His job was to press as hard as he could into my lower back at all times.  The second he would relax his hands, the pain became unbearable and I would call for him to keep the pressure.  His hands were raw by the time Max was born.

In Andres’ version of this story, his hands would cramp and he’d take just a few seconds to adjust and get some relief.  Every time he did this, he would get hollered at.  Finally it dawned on him that no one in the room cared about his pain and he wouldn’t be entitled to a break until the end of my labor.  Daunting as that realization was, he bucked up and trooped through.

After maybe a half an hour in the water I was already at 9 cm.  Officially, it was the stage of labor called transition.  For me, it was just labor.  After all that rapid dilation, I got stuck in transition for 5 hours.

5 HOURS OF 9 CM TRANSITION LABOR!

Ouch is an understatement.

Topping it all off, it was back labor.  This is what back labor feels like: being set on fire and stabbed at the same time.  Although Max had been in the correct position all the way through my pregnancy, he flipped over during labor so he was in a posterior position.  That meant that in between my very close together contractions, the pain NEVER let up.  It was constant and I feared it would consume me.

Actually the pain wasn’t the worst part.  The hardest thing was dealing with the intensity of the moment.  This is also what made it completely amazing.  It was all electricity.  My body was electricity.  The shock, power and awe of the very essence of life embodied me.  I was the conduit of creation.  As common as it is for life to enter the world, each individual entrance into life carries the full force of divinity and chasm side by side.  I, and my baby, dangled on the tightrope of life and death.  It was just as when the world was created and an explosion occurred as something burst out of nothing    Every cell, every neuron and electron, were supercharged and I felt suddenly very small.  A tiny, unprepared girl being swallowed by the universe.

That’s when I met Pam.  Pam was a gentle midwife student who was just about to graduate.  Her shift began just as I was losing myself.  Her calm voice and knowing eyes guided me back from the edge.  She used the analogy of surfing a wave to teach me how to pull myself up and out of the crushing intensity I was experiencing.  When she sensed me faltering, she would gently tell me to, “Stay on top of your wave.  Don’t let it take you down. Stay on top of it.  Ride it.  You can do it.”

Eleven years earlier I had leaned to surf of the shores of Waikiki Beach where a man named Eddie Spaghetti had taught me to do just that. 

It wasn’t just her words, but also her quiet confidence that made me trust her when she told me I had deep reservoirs of strength.  Labor was not what I had expected it to be.  As one midwife so aptly told me later, “Labor is harder than the hardest thing you think it could be.”  Because mine came on so strong and fast, I lost myself in the rush.  Just as a drowning person reaches out for a savior, so did I flail about hoping the midwives would carry me up and out of my experience.  In a way they did that.  They guided me through it, but they also taught me to dig deep within myself.

By mid-morning, I was exhausted.  Labor at night made sense to me, but as the sun’s brightness streamed through the drawn curtains, it felt like it should be over.  At this time Shari came into the room to check on me.  She felt that my cervix had a lip, so she offered to guide the baby’s head around it while also turning the baby’s head so my little sunshine wouldn’t be born sunny-side up.

That was exactly what I wanted to hear.  From almost the moment I had entered the tub, my body had wanted to push.  Every fiber in my being told me to do so, but the midwives cautioned me against it until I was fully dilated.  If you push too early, you can swell your cervix, delaying delivery even longer.  But ignoring my every instinct was hard.  I kept pursing my lips like I was blowing out a candle to prevent myself from bearing down.  The moment I was finally given the green light to go, I was ready.

I roared like a lion and pushed with all my might!

Seriously, it was a full-on jungle lion roar.  I was genuinely shocked that I didn’t have a baby in my arms by the end of it because there was that much force behind it.  Fun fact: did you know that a woman uses 4 tons of force to push a baby out?  I felt it!

The midwives quickly corrected my technique.  Who knew?  I was directed to crunch inward rather than arch my back.  They added that roaring wasted energy that could better be put into the push.  I gladly followed their suggestions.  That one gigantic roar had been powerful enough to wipe away my pain and fatigue from labor.  I was starting fresh at the end. 

It took me a few tries to really get the hang of effective pushing, but I loved it.  I felt strong, capable and productive.  For some reason, I knew pushing would be easy for me and not take very long.  At one point, Pam told me to reach down to feel my baby’s hair.  Well, that stopped labor for a moment.

Hair?  I was shocked.  All babies in my family are bald, sometimes for a whole year after birth.  It took another contraction to pull me back into the task at hand.  It was getting closer.  Hair, already tangible.  My heart fluttered.  A really real baby was almost here.  My really real baby was almost here.  That, in itself, felt unreal.

After a few more pushes, I was casually told that my baby’s heartbeat had slowed a bit.  Shari would be better able to manipulate me if I was out of the water.  I was not in the least bit afraid.  The  midwives’ calm assurance and my trust in their abilities was absolute.  Getting me out of the tub and onto the bed a few feet away was quite a challenge.  My contractions were still fast and furious so we had to move quickly in between them.  Just out of the water I felt one coming.  Angela told me to put my arms around her.  I warned her that I was going to take her down, and she told me that was fine.

That’s just what I did in my one upright push.  We bent our legs and pushed into a deep squat.  After that I was suddenly on the bed, ready to have my baby.

But where was Andres?

I didn’t know what happened to him.  There were a lot of people in the room at the time and I was pretty much out of my mind.  I thought maybe he was toweling off and getting dressed which annoyed me.  I later learned that a midwife had pulled him out of the room to explain that the baby was in distress, but would be fine and not to worry.  He wasn’t worried, but he was eager to be with me.  I felt a contraction coming.  I called for him, but also said I wasn’t going to wait.  This needed to be over.

And it was.  Angela got on top of the bed and helped me push down with her hands.  Pam maintained her eye-contact and calm directions. One big push and my Maximilian Felipe Cofiño began his life on Earth right in his father’s arms.  Andres was honored to catch his first born son.  At that moment I didn’t know it was Max.  It could have been Luciana Francesca Cofiño.  We had wanted a surprise.  This was how I learned I had a son.

After pushing with all my might, I heard a cry and looked up.  It was just like (I kid you not) the scene in the Lion King where Mufasa holds up baby Simba for everyone to see.  Of course Max couldn’t have been held up above everyone’s head, but from my vantage point he was held up high to Heaven.  His genitals were swollen from the hormones of birth and I announced my son’s arrival myself.  This is the first thing I shouted in uproarious, spontaneous joy:

It’s a boy!  I have a boy!  I love my baby boy!

And ever thereafter,  I was a mother.