Two days before

A regular checkup because I’m past my due date. The doctor looks at the CTG, frowns. She scribbles a note, picks up the phone, and sends me next door to the hospital maternity ward.

The midwife explains that I’m being admitted to be monitored. I ask if I should call my partner. She tells me there’s time and sends me downstairs to fill out the admission paperwork.

And then we begin. Every two hours, a pill to begin contractions. Every half hour after the pill, back up to the maternity ward for a CTG. In the meantime, I’m free to roam the grounds. I’m given a roommate and a late lunch. I call my partner to ask him to bring the suitcase. It dawns on me that when I leave the hospital, it will be with a baby.

Much later, I return to my room after the last CTG of the evening. Everything looks fine. “We’ll see what happens overnight,” the midwife says.

One day before

I’m woken early by nurses taking vitals and told to help myself to breakfast in the room across the hall. In the maternity ward, we begin the same procedure as the day before.

My partner arrives after work with extra clothes now that I am clearly staying longer than planned. We walk the grounds in between scans in the maternity ward. While some look fine, the midwives keep me longer than usual with others.

By the time night falls, there are no significant changes. “We’ll see what happens overnight,” the midwife says.

The day of

The day starts much the same way as the day before, but I feel tired. My roommate had her baby late in the night and I woke to his cries. I wonder when mine will decide it’s her time. The sun is shining and the weather is far too warm to be indoors.

I’ve spent enough time looking at the CTG printouts to know that something is different. I lie there a long time. The midwife gives me a tablet and reviews when to be back. I walk the hospital grounds, tell my baby it would be a beautiful day to be born.

Early afternoon, the midwife says I should plan to spend the night in the maternity ward for monitoring. “This is what happens when the CTG looks strange,” she says. “And in an emergency, you’ll need a C-section.” I ask if I should call my partner. She tells me there’s time and to tell him not to panic.

I call and am immediately in tears I didn’t know I’d been holding. I can hardly speak but partner understands enough. Minutes later he’s there and we talk with the midwife about the CTG. Same procedure. Tablet and come back.

My partner and I walk the grounds, share two pieces of cake. Early in the evening I begin to feel contractions. According to the next CTG, they’re not enough.

This time, it’s my midwife on duty and she tells me she’s preparing the necessary items for a C-section. My partner watches the CTG, brow furrowed. Something has changed. And according to the midwife, not for the better. The contractions are minimal, the baby’s heartbeat atypical.

The midwife calls a doctor, who explains what I intuitively already know. We can’t tell how the baby is doing. Maybe she’s fine and progressing with a regular birth would be fine. But if she’s not fine, the surest means of a healthy birth is a C-section, not without risks of its own.

Another doctor comes in. Agrees with the assessment of the first doctor and midwife.

There’s nothing to think about and no decision to be made. In all the uncertainty of the previous days, this is the one thing I know for sure.

Arrival

Minutes pass and a wail tears through the air. I have never been more afraid of a question and never more relieved by the answer: “Is she okay?”

Minutes pass and a midwife lays my daughter next to my head. My partner and I are in tears. In that moment, we become a family.

Minutes pass and I am wheeled into the maternity ward to recover. My partner and daughter are already there and the midwife lays the baby on my chest.

That night, my baby and I sleep skin-to-skin, a bonding top wrapping us together. It is the strangest, most beautiful night I have ever known.

After 41 weeks, my daughter has arrived.