The pain surged, eased up a bit then surged again. I yelped each time a contraction hit. Adam stood behind me as the pain rose and leaned his full body weight into my sacrum, as though he were trying to close and overly full suitecase. It was the only thing that brought relief. Katie, our Doula, entered through our front door and watched me quietly at first then stated matter-of-factly,  “You are in the late stages of labor”.

The contractions came crashing down on me like waves, one after another, and I leaped from the floor every time. She got down on the floor with me and coached me to channel the sound from high in my throat to deep in my pelvis and to be fierce “like a mama bear”. It worked. My voice broke open and became a deep moan. Suddenly I felt a surge of power I had not experienced before.

She whispered something to Adam. I heard him frantically running around the house. (He told me later it was “get the stuff ready for the car, now!”) We all knew what this meant. There was a moment of calm and then a moment of panic as we scrabbled down the steps of our apartment to the car.

Even Katie, despite her calm demeanor, appeared frazzled and accidentally locked her keys in the car just as we were about to leave. She was forced to ride with us, which was a godsend. I got on my hands and knees in the back seat and she pushed on my sacrum while I moaned as Adam drove. The contractions seemed fast and unpredictable.

Normally the hospital is a 20-minute drive from our house. But at 8:15am we found ourselves gridlocked in rush hour traffic. I moaned and breathed as we lurched along. At one point I felt the overwhelming urge to push. “Are you pushing?” Katie asked. She sounded almost accusatory. “Don’t push!” She held my bottom as though to keep the baby inside. Then her voice became composed and she spoke quietly as though to herself “It’s alright. I’ve never delivered a baby by myself before, but if it happens before we get to the hospital, we are going to be alright.” Adam leaned on the horn and I felt the car jump forward.

When we arrived at the hospital the on-call nurse took us into a back room instructed me strip, put on a robe and get on the table and push. I hopped on the bed on my hands and knees and gripped the metal rails. My OBGYN who was also caught in rush hour traffic arrived 2O minutes later and gave me a quick check.

“Fully dilated and I can see the head coming though. He’s got a full head of hair.”

She instructed me to lie on my back and I protested. I did not want to work against gravity. We compromised and I agreed to lie on my side so she could see. For the next hour and a half she and a chorus of nurses encouraged and applauded me while I tried to bear down. Medical staff came in and out of the room, chatting amongst themselves.

“what have we here?”

“A natural birth. She came in fully dilated. Says she doesn’t remember her water breaking. Her underwear was soaked when she got here.”

“Second child? No first, but it’s behaving like a second. Very exciting. Did you record the show last night?”

I felt the slippery head slide out an inch from my body with each push, and then frustratingly, slide back in once the contraction was over.

“Will you guys kindly shut up, I’m trying to concentrate here!” I snapped.

“One more push” My OBGYN whispered over and over again. She addressed my doula “She’s got an incredible amount of control, it’s as if she’s taken Pitocin.”

“She’s a yoga teacher” my doula answered by way of explanation. “She’s been practicing for more than ten years”. I chuckled to myself. Yes, yoga probably helps, but in a sense my whole life had been a practice for this moment: Long walks in the Santa Cruz Mountains, hours of drawing and dancing, authentic movement, years of therapy, and overcoming my fear of singing and speaking in public, and probably most importantly: the ability to trust the process and let the chips fall as they may, regardless of what life has in store for me.

At 10:58 am our baby “Z” emerged from my body and into this world, tiny, red and alarmed. He had the softest cry I had ever heard. They laid his slippery, wet body on my chest and covered him with a blanket. After a minute he grew quiet. His wide, grayish blue eyes surveyed the surroundings: the nurses, me and Adam, the room of bright florescent lights. Then he rested his weary, head back down on my chest and practiced breathing.