It's not like the movies.

I remember that day clearly. I remember I was writing poetry in my room while my former boyfriend sat in the living room angry at me. The fight I cannot call to mind, but it caused us to flee from wherever we were and find shelter in opposite spaces of one another.

I got the call. The important call that I would have to drop everything for, because it was about to be one of the most important moments in my life.  I remember staring at the pieces of paper with my words scattered on them, my confused thoughts, when my cell phone rang. Seeing the name flash across the screen, I had already perceived what was about to occur.
"It's time." She said.
My apathy tempered.  I left the space of indifference behind, and quickly walked out the door with the my words trailing.
"It's time. I have to go."
He knew what it meant, and I left him with the residue of whatever we hadn't worked out. It wasn't the time or place for it.

And so, there I found myself minutes later, plopped down in a hospital room, nervous.  I was unsettled and unsure. If I knew one thing about comforting someone it definitely included confidence, and not revealing any uncertainties that you might have.

You have certain expectations of situations from what you've observed. You gather all those pieces, those snippets of perception, and you string them together into puzzle pieces until they fit inside your head. My expectations were completely off. First of all, I had only witnessed the birth room drama via TV sitcoms, or when it was mentioned briefly in movies like Father of the Bride part 2. I had no idea that Heather wasn't going to be biting my head off, yelling, screaming, maybe even breaking my phalanges via tight grip.

Lesson one, the movies always makes everything way more dramatic. (I witnessed one other labor, and it was also very mild compared to the movie experience.)

I knew she was in pain by way she couldn't get comfortable. We were alone in her hospital room for quite awhile. This was before my college days, and the labor and delivery nurse taught me how to read the monitor to tell when contractions were coming on so I could be prepared to help and coach.
But I was not prepared. I had no idea what in the world I was even doing there, but I knew my friend, and someone I had come to know as a sister needed me there, and I was going to give her the best that I could.

Her words grieved of pain, and all I knew to do was to pray (and of course try and get her to breathe like they do the in movies, apparently that's somewhat realistic)
I prayed aloud to her through her contractions.
We were there all night long, and I felt the morning creeping in. Through pain, sleep, slight convincing of an epidural, arrival of a grandmother to add to make our duo a trio, and then finally when the dawn peaked through the shades of the hospital windows, Olivia Anne made her debut.

I watched quietly and encouraged her when pushing. People always make the birth of a child seem like such an amazing miracle, and until I witnessed it myself,  I didn't realize how much of an understatement this was.
I felt the ache of the night, the fights, and the hopelessness all diminish into nothing.
The joy, hope, and love at the miraculousness of her birth overwhelmed me so that I could feel nothing but warmth inside. I knew nothing else mattered in that minute, but what God had done in that hospital room, in the labor and delivery unit of Saint Luke's Hospital.

I held her in my arms, breathing in her newborn baby likeness while she was swaddled in a blanket. She was a matter of minutes old, and she was the newest baby I'd ever held.