I know that because I had texted her one word—now—and she arrived in scrub pants, snow boots, and a sweatshirt that said TRAUMA IS MY CARDIO.
“Okay,” she said, already grabbing the hospital bag by the door. “Breathe, don’t panic, and if Nathan somehow appears I will handle it.”
“You sound excited.”
“I’m a little excited.”
My contractions were six minutes apart by the time we got in the car. The windshield wipers made that rubbery, urgent sound against sleet. The inside of Roz’s SUV smelled like peppermint gum and hand sanitizer and the French fries she swore she hadn’t eaten but definitely had.
“Did you tell him?” she asked as we merged onto the highway.
“Not yet.”
“Good. Let him hear about his daughter through the proper channels for once in his life.”
Even then, bent forward and breathing through another contraction, I laughed.
The hospital room was too bright, too warm, and full of noises I would later remember more vividly than faces. The blood pressure cuff inflating. Monitor beeps. The soft rip of Velcro. The squeak of sneakers in the hallway. Somebody wheeling a cart past my door at two in the morning.
Roz stayed for every minute.
She didn’t flood me with encouragement or tell me I was “made for this” or any of the other things people say when they want to turn suffering into poetry. She handed me ice chips. Rubbed my lower back. Counted breaths when I forgot how numbers worked. When I swore at a nurse, she did not apologize on my behalf.
At one point, somewhere around hour six, I grabbed her wrist and said, “If I die, burn his suits.”
She squeezed my hand. “If you die, I’m haunting him personally. But you’re not dying, so focus.”
The pain became the whole room for a while. Not dramatic. Just total. There is a point in labor where there is no marriage, no court, no history. There is only the next breath and the fact that the world is asking your body to open wider than fear.
Then, all at once and not all at once, she was there.
My daughter came into the world at 10:08 p.m., red-faced and furious and perfect.
Seven pounds, four ounces.
Dark eyes.
A serious little mouth.
The first time they laid her on my chest, she smelled like skin and milk and something clean and raw and impossible to describe unless you’ve held brand-new life against your own.
I cried so hard I couldn’t speak.
Not because I was sad.
Not even because I was relieved.