On Sunday, July 23, at the stroke of midnight, I felt a sharp band of pain across my lower abdomen. It was ten days after my official due date, and I’d been having “false alarms” for weeks. So I just called to my husband, William, “another maybe.” Within half an hour, though, I’d lost my mucus plug, and within an hour the pains were strong and regular, so I climbed into the bath. I encouraged William to get some rest before the long day ahead, but he was too excited, so he sat with me, timing my contractions.

During that period, I developed a strange obsession with time and numbers. Ordinarily I’m numerically hopeless—I can’t calculate a 15 percent tip—but in the bathtub, in labor, I needed to know precisely the length of each contraction, and precisely the interval between them. From everything I’d read, I thought my contractions would be irregular at first, that I’d be able to sleep, eat, and walk for a while, that I’d spend hours at home. By 2 a.m., though, my contractions were twenty seconds long but only three minutes apart. William called the Hackettstown Midwives, and the consensus was that we should begin the hour-and-a-half journey to where I’d chosen to give birth. Getting out of the tub, into clothes, and downstairs wasn’t easy, and I vomited in the driveway. Terrific, I thought. The neighbors are going to think I’m drunk. But on the drive over I was able to relax. A doe and fawn crossed the road, and I decided they were blessing the baby. William couldn’t use the stopwatch in the car, so he counted backwards from 60 with each contraction on the empty highway.

We got to Hackettstown at 3:40 a.m., and by then my pain was serious, official, real. In the birthing tub, I remembered what my friend Lee Erica had said. Lee Erica is a doula, and while she lives too far away to have been present at the birth, she had advised me to go ahead and be vocal, to make any sound I felt like making. I had hoped I wouldn’t feel like making any. I’m pretty shy, usually; I prefer to speak in long, complex sentences, softly. But there, in the birthing tub, I realized that the only reason not to scream was because of what other people might think. And if that ever mattered, it didn’t matter now. So I screamed. And through the peak of each contraction, it helped.

From all my reading and childbirth preparation, I had expected three emotional stages: excitement, seriousness, and self-doubt. But for me, there was about an hour of excitement, and hour of seriousness, and nine hours of self-doubt. What kept me going was the people around me. Melissa, the labor and delivery nurse, was with me from the moment we arrived and never left my side. Roxy, my midwife, was so wonderful, knowledgeable, and supportive. And most of all, William, my coach and my partner in all things, was with me every step of the way. When I said “I don’t think I can do this,” he said, “I know you can do this. You are the fiercest, most stubborn person I have ever met. You can absolutely do this.” And so I decided to get through one more contraction, one at a time. Not because I believed in myself but because William for some strange reason believed in me.

And with every contraction, William kept counting backwards from 60. Thanks to that, after a while, I didn’t need to scream any more. “48,” he would say, and I’d tell myself “47 is coming.” “47.” “46 is coming.”

Somehow, through this exchange, I was able to step deep within myself, to a place behind the pain. The contractions were as strong as ever, but I didn’t need to scream against them any more. I had found a quiet place within myself, where as long as I could concentrate on numbers I could observe the contractions and let them go. That worked until I felt something pop out of my body, and a stream of fluid shot behind it. If I had been a cartoon character I would have rocketed through space. My water had broken. I hadn’t realized it, but my water had buffered me against the worst of the pain. Now it was everywhere and overwhelming, throughout my abdomen and down my thighs. Roxy could tell I was at sea and suggested I try sterile water papules, which would stimulate my endorphin response. I agreed, and Roxy instructed William and me to stand up and hold onto each other, like we were dancing, so she could give me the injections. Shoot, William thought, we’re the worst dancers in the world. This’ll never work. But it did. The pain didn’t diminish, but I felt stronger and more in control.

There was a terrible blur of contractions, with no break in between, and then two strange convulsive contractions in which for one second I felt the urge to push and for the next second I didn’t.

And then I was pushing. I knew by then that I was making progress, and I began to set unrealistic goals.

“What time is it?”
“10:15.”
“I’m going to have this baby by 10:45.”
“What time is it?”
“10:40.”
“I’m going to have this baby by 11:20.”

More pushing, and then Roxy invited me to reach down and feel the baby’s head. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was, soft hair and solid skull. Still more pushing, painful stretching, and then, after a push I’d thought was nothing special, I felt the baby’s body slithering through mine. It’s probably impossible, since the whole thing took only a few seconds, but I swear I felt everything—shoulders, elbows, knees, and feet. Then my little boy swam to the surface like a fish—smiling—and Roxy put him in my arms.

The most important part of my story ends right there, but I want to tell the next part briefly because it shows what good medical care I received. After Noah was born, my placenta broke apart, and my body retained part of it. Roxy and Lisa tried a number of methods, including having me inhale pepper so I would sneeze, but it remained stubbornly in place. Mostly, though, they massaged my abdomen to stimulate contractions, and encouraged me to push. I tried, but these weren’t pushing contractions, and it was like shoving at string—there was nothing to push against. Though I knew they were there to help, but the contractions were so painful that in spite of my best efforts I struggled against those helping hands. Roxy suggested that under the circumstances I take Demerol, and under the circumstances I agreed. After that everything was a blur. Somebody—the anesthesiologist—was there, and then he was gone; I apparently said something about a trip to Madagascar. I remember knowing that I was surrounded by strong caring women, and feeling good about that. Most important, I remember seeing William holding Noah, seeing for the first time how alike they looked, and knowing Noah was safe in William’s arms. I know now that Dr. DeFalco was able to extract the placenta manually, and that she saved me from having major surgery that could have compromised my future fertility. I know too that had I given birth at a large teaching hospital, no one would have worked so hard to help me avoid surgery.

Noah Samson K____ is two and a half weeks old now. He looks just like his dad, except he has my eyes. Every time I look at him I’m filled with gratitude. To Sue and Subpadra, my yoga teachers, who helped me to prepare my body and my spirit. To April Larsen, my wonderful childbirth teacher, who gave me the gift of knowledge. To Dr. DeFalco, whose skilled hands helped me avoid major surgery. To all the nurses at Hackettstown, all of whom provided wonderful and much-needed lactation support; and especially Melissa, who was with us through every step of Noah’s birth. To all three of the Hackettstown Midwives, especially Roxy, who brought Noah into the world. Most of all to William, who counted through every second of all my contractions, who has been by my side for every second of our lives together, and who has been the most wonderful father I could ever dream of Noah’s having. And to my little Noah, who swam up through the water and into the world.

Thank you all.