Nine
months,
nine
long months of
tiresome
doctor’s exams,
probing,
listening,
listening,
probing,
fetal
heartbeats
and
swollen ankles.
Life
grows and evolves
within
you, our home,
grows
and evolves in kind,
Christmas
construction,
new
walls created,
music
room transposition
from
piano and bench
to
a boyhood dormitory,
all
in anticipation
of
the life that squirms
and
kicks within you.
An
April Sunday evening,
water
surges forth,
blood
clots, hemorrhaging,
dot
the floor, like a
Pointillist’s
canvas.
Frantic
calls to neighbor,
doctor,
surgery awaits,
middle
of the night
whispered
consultations,
partial
placenta previa,
a
rapid fetal heartbeat,
our
own in accompaniment
by
the unknown
what
will be.
You
lay quietly, willing
life
to our child.
Labor
pains, my role
well
defined, time
and
wait, and watch,
and
time again, and
wait
and watch, as
women
in labor
come,
give birth,
the
labor room
a
Grand Central Station
of
anticipated birth,
and
you continue to
will
life to our child
over
whom the nurses
monitor,
brows creased
with
worry.
Sr.
Leo gives the signal,
the
culmination
of
an adventure that
was
conceived,
and
begun in Cloquet
moves
us from
labor
room
to
delivery room,
decked
out in gown and
mask,
I stand by your
side,
anxiously awaiting,
hand
softly caressing
yours
as you grip the
handles,
feet in stirrups,
and
begin to push.
“Look
into the mirror!
Look
into the mirror!”
My
gaze adjusting
from
you to the mirror,
“can
you see your child?”
The
image of a doctor’s
surgical
trousers slipping
down
the mirror,
a
moon sighting
never
anticipated in
a
delivery room.
“Can you see it?”
the
man and his moon
cries
out.
Again
my gaze
shifts
from mirror
to
your face,
intent
in beautiful focus,
your
hands, tightly grasping,
concentrating,
pushing,
the
flush of your effort
painting
your face.
“What
do you see?”
you
breathlessly ask.
And,
I, biting hard on
the
inside of my cheek,
choking
back tears
a
mix of laughter,
of
pain, solemnly answer,
“I
see everything!”
And,
then I see
our daughter Meg.
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