I showed my friend how to wrap her newborn securely onto her chest, and we ventured out on a slow walk around the block, her first trip outside the condo since returning from the hospital. There were blossoms on the trees and the sunlight was sweet. My friend seemed newly born herself. She looked at everything like she’d never seen any of it before. She moved like she’d just learned how to walk. We stopped in at a used bookshop for ten minutes, then headed slowly back home. She cried the whole time and shit her pants a little.

Again, we proceeded to the hospital. This time she was admitted at seven centimeters, and the bitchy midwife’s shift had ended, hurrah. The new midwife was a rad old battle-axe. The gymnast wanted to be in the tub, so into the tub she went, and stayed. She had zero body hair. I tried not to let this bother me, by which I mean, with apology, it bothered me. She was very far away, very far gone in her own rhythm, lost to the world. She was another person entirely, or no person. Having been an athlete, she had incredible focus: not once did she complain or whine. Not Why me, not I can’t, not It’s too hard, not Oh god no please no, none of the usual pleading, the usual begging for mercy. She didn’t seem to need anything. She was doing it all by herself. We kept the lights off. Outside, the sun was getting lower in the sky, and the room filled with a stunning orange glow. The midwife sat quietly in a rocking chair on the other side of the tub, and a nurse stood far back in the corner of the room, watchful and waiting. The husband sat right by the edge of the tub, pale and silent and choked up, holding both of her hands and trying not to cry. The midwife must have noticed some subtle change, because she reached into the water and felt the baby’s head and said You can push this baby out whenever you’re ready.

The nurse in the corner took this as her cue to turn on a portable lamp and shine it directly at the water so the midwife was able to see. The gymnast gave a mighty roar and delivered her baby into her own hands, then intuitively lifted him up out of the water onto her chest, where he looked calmly into her eyes and she into his. Face to face after having just met and known each other for all time.