“I was just thinking,” Gloria said. “I’m perfectly comfortable letting Mother Nature take her course with your birth, but to the core of my being, I wish she’d quit taking her course with this storm outside. I just want it to be over. The good news is you’ve progressed more quickly than I expected you to, so Mother Nature will be through with you shortly, in all likelihood. You can push whenever you feel ready, Tanna. I won’t hold you back.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Tanna breathed low and slow through a contraction, then looked up when it passed. “I guess I don’t get my water birth, after all?”
Tanna had wanted to use the deep-water birth tub at the birthing center since her first appointment. “I’m afraid not in that way. We’re surrounded by a totally different type of water, but as for us, Inez filled the upstairs bathtub earlier today and it’s only for drinking and emergencies.”
“Peace.” Inez wiped Tanna’s head with a wet washcloth. “Breathe deeply and think of peace.”
The next contraction started. Tanna bore down, gripping Inez’s bony hand, but Rigo’s aunt never flinched. Gloria was amazed at her strength and her demeanor. She wondered if she could bring Inez to attend all her births.
Tanna made instinctive reaching motions with her hand. The birthing waves were taking over, bringing her closer to motherhood.
Rigo stood just outside the doorway, and Gloria called to him. “Rigo. Grab her hand. She needs something to push against.”
The man, who’d stared down criminals in the line of fire and who’d already saved grown adults and children alike from the clutches of near drowning tonight, hesitated. In addition to being a certified peace officer, she knew he had to be a certified EMT for his job at the beach. Surely he’d had some training for this. Gloria looked up from where she’d been focusing, monitoring the baby’s progress. “Go on. She needs you. Just stand back by her head. You’re not going to see anything from there.”
Gloria hastily threw a towel over Tanna’s knees and belly to preserve her modesty. Rigo stood by the headboard and looked toward the doorway, but reached out his hand and provided more than enough support to give Tanna the leverage she needed.
She’d prayed for strength for everyone earlier tonight, and this was the second time she was seeing it in action. Tanna’s focus amazed Gloria, even as the world ran out of control and the wind battered the house, causing it to sway gently on the pilings. She’d attended more than a thousand births in her career, and thought she’d worked in every kind of condition possible—highly advanced labor-and-delivery suites, standing by in cesarian sections, working the past two years at an independent out-of-hospital birthing center at the edge of Provident Medical Center’s footprint. She’d even been present for a few planned home births.
But until today, she’d never supervised a birth in a candlelit room with not even the most basic of equipment or running water—she’d never been crazy enough to rationally consider such a thing. Tanna, the young nineteen-year-old who, nine months ago, Gloria had initially judged as a good candidate to ask middelivery for a transfer to a hospital to get an epidural, was showing strength through adversity tonight.
With one last forceful push and a punctuating explosion of breath, another refugee from the hurricane’s fury shot into the world. Gloria picked up another towel from her box of supplies with one hand as she held the little squealing baby with the other.
It was a triumphant moment, made all the more incredible not just because of the amazing nature of birth, but because of how amazing it was to have this birth in the middle of this particular storm.
The hurricane may have been merely named Hope, but as Gloria lifted the mewling baby and handed it to the euphoric, exhausted mother on the bed, she knew she was holding in her arms literal hope in the form of brand-new life.
“Congratulations, Tanna. It’s a boy! And a strong one, too. Do you want to cut the cord?”
Tanna shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from the tiny stranger that she already knew so well. “No. I couldn’t have done this without you and Rigo. I’d be alone in that awful apartment if you hadn’t come to check on me, and who knows what would have happened if Rigo wasn’t there to protect us.”
Gloria met Rigo’s eyes and felt something chip at the heavy cement that had poured in her heart hours before when he walked back into her life. Tanna saw Rigo as a hero. And maybe she was right.
She handed Rigo the scissors she’d found in a downstairs drawer upon their arrival. She’d sanitized them in some boiling water before they’d lost all the utilities. They were just common household scissors, but they’d have to do. She had one plastic cord clamp in her box of tools but couldn’t find another at the bottom of the box with the dim half-light. Instead, she tied a length of twine tightly, using it as a makeshift clamp. “Do you want to do the honors?”
It felt so strange to be standing over a baby, sharing in a cord-cutting ceremony with Rigo. All those foolish teenage dreams and plans she’d once had for the future popped in her mind like kernels of corn.
“Sure. Wow.” Rigo took the scissors, and with one steady press, snipped the baby’s last physical tie with Tanna. Rigo stared at the little infant as though he was seeing one for the first time. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Not even with any of your training?” Gloria took the baby and towel-dried him. His hair stuck up in ten different directions.
“No. I don’t think I’ve really done much past treating things like puncture wounds and doing CPR and chest compressions. That’s most of what you see on the street and on the beach. Not a lot of babies being born in the sand dunes.”
He intently watched every move Gloria made. “What are you doing with that? That’s my sock.”
His curiosity was so intense it made Gloria chuckle, a welcome feeling. This day needed some comic relief. It was now almost one in the morning. Today had been too long and too life-changing.
“I don’t have a hat. An old tube sock seemed like the next best thing to keep his head warm. Is this one of your favorites?”
Rigo shook his head. “Not anymore.”
Inez slid off the bed and walked out to the hallway. “I’ll find something for her to eat in that box I packed. There’s some peanut butter and a bottle of coconut water. We need to keep her strength up and the coconut water is full of electrolytes.”
Gloria finished bundling the baby tightly in a blanket. It seemed to have once had Winnie the Pooh scenes all over it, and had probably belonged to one of Inez’s children or grandchildren. Now it was soft and faded from wear and love. The baby settled and made a smacking sound.
“Here, Rigo, hold him while I check Tanna quickly.” Rigo held his arms out. “Not like that. He won’t bite. He doesn’t have teeth. Haven’t you ever held a baby before?”
“Well, no. Not really.” Rigo’s eyebrows raised slightly in a position that seemed to say, What did you expect? without uttering a single word.
“Bend your arms. Here, like mine. You need to cradle him. He’s completely floppy. You have to support his head.”
Gingerly, she laid the baby in Rigo’s arms. It felt strangely powerful.
In just a few minutes, all the stages of labor were completely finished, and Gloria wanted to give Tanna the chance to rest and cuddle with her baby.
Gloria tried to keep the visual of Rigo holding the baby from being burned in her mind. Tanna wasn’t the only one who needed rest. So did Gloria’s swirling mind.
“Rigo, you can hand the little man back to his mama. Tanna, why don’t you start to try and feed him? I’m sure he’ll appreciate the comfort and it’s important to start a good nursing relationship early.”
Inez came back in,