Nathan counts, and I push, teeth gritted and clenched, straining. Even through the epidural, the pressure is immense. Nathan gets to ten and I start to relax, catch my breath.

“Push again for me, mama! Don’t stop now; you’ve almost got it! I’ve got the head; one more good push and you’re done. Come on, push for me, now!”

I suck in my breath and set my teeth, tuck my chin to my chest and bear down as hard as I can, eyes clenched shut and sweat pouring down my face. Nathan is just holding my hand, now, squeezing back and watching.

Suddenly, abruptly, impossibly, the pressure is gone.

“Great job, mama!” The doctor, the resident OB/GYN rather than my personal doctor, is an older man, thin, lean, with small, nimble hands and a soothing presence. “Baby is out, I just have to…” A pause. “There we go.”

I can’t see, my eyes are blurry, and I’m dizzy from pushing, and I feel Nathan beside me, but he seems stunned. There’s a gasp, a tiny sound. And then a cry, thin and wavering and very, very angry.

“Come here, dad,” the doctor says. “Cut the cord for me, right there, between my fingers. Great. We’ll just clip it off…”

And then I see him bringing me a naked messy bundle, howling with outrage and indignation and shock, and I have my baby in my arms. Wriggling, slimy, and so, so beautiful. Pink flesh, a thick crown of jet-black hair, just like Nathan’s and mine.

“It’s a girl,” Nathan murmurs in my ear, choked up, awed. “It’s Leanne.”

I’m crying, but now I can see more clearly, and she’s beautiful and perfect, ten fingers and ten toes and a loud voice. My gown has slipped, and she’s against the bare skin of my chest, little tiny hands waving, pawing at me and the air. Nathan’s huge finger touches her hand, and for some reason the sight of his huge finger bigger than her whole hand just makes me sob.

“Mom, can dad hold her before we get her cleaned up?”

He crouches, and I extend the precious delicate bundle up to him, and he has never been so gentle as when he cradles her in his arms, and he stares down at her with tears in his eyes, a big strong manly man not afraid to cry with joy and being overwhelmed in a roomful of strangers.

I’m not done—I feel another contraction, and there’s another flurry of activity as I deliver the afterbirth and placenta, and the baby is being measured and weighed and tested and cleaned and I’m so exhausted—so thrilled, overwhelmed, joyful, grateful, but just bone tired. It was twelve hours of labor, getting to a dilation of six, and halfway effaced but not progressing past that for hours and hours, and then all of a sudden I was fully dilated and effaced and it was baby time.