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.
Because after months of lies and maneuvering and rooms full of strategy, here was something utterly honest.
I named her Nora.