It's New Year's, Baby

Groans and screams rip through the hallway. Anxious fear and dread grip me and threaten my confidence. “I don’t want to do that,” I whisper wide-eyed to my husband, Dan.

“I’m afraid there’s no other way out of this.” His words don’t give any comfort. And I really need comfort and encouragement right now.

New Year’s Eve started well enough; friends over, Chinese food, and oh did I mention labor pains? An overdue baby now ready to come see this wide world, and I, ready to walk like normal again. We’re filled with hopeful anticipation. Maybe ours will be The New Year’s Baby.

I’ve seen babies born before. Expecting to witness a tidy little miracle, I saw pain and blood, then a wrinkled little body emerge from the birth canal, fill its lungs, and go to hollering.

Why shouldn’t miracles come through messes and struggles? New beginnings start as revolutions, souls hitting rock bottom, seedlings pushing up through moist dirt.

From down the hall come cries of joy, congratulations, and happy voices in The New Year’s baby birthing suite. My child won’t be the first one out this year, but surely this will be the day of its birth. I am relieved by another woman’s success, but I still don’t want to go through what she did.

We get sent home in the wee hours of the morning to walk and try to get things moving along in the comfort of our home. This might be the first January first no one asks me about my resolutions. Yet I am about to be greatly changed, have an instant makeover to become Momma, life’s greatest calling, resolved or not.

I reflect on all the new beginnings I’ve made over the 29 years of my life, a few successful, but most forgotten. I wonder if I am capable of true resolve. Perhaps I should resolutely answer New Year’s queries with a vague smile and the words Paul Hooper wrote for his Life’s Ambition in our Senior Yearbook; “To fulfill a dream known only to myself.” (Brilliant, Paul. You’ve still got me curious.) But self-honesty would demand I admit those dreams to myself and be true to such a resolution.

After almost 24 hours of sleeplessness and pain, we are back in a birthing suite, “Please God, don’t let me do or say anything that will embarrass you!” I squeeze Dan’s hand tighter than a death grip. This gripping and praying goes on countless times.

I can’t do this anymore. I have no strength left after what feels like hours of pushing. Not. One. More. Contraction. “Hold out a little longer. . . One more push. . .” It’s New Year’s, Baby!

My 9-pound 11 oz daughter is finally in the wide world and I desperately need her in my arms. Dr. Ginwalla lifts her above the drape. I get a quick look at masses of dark curls over a precious round face before she’s handed off, not into my longing arms or Dan’s. I make him leave my side and put on the new mantle of offspring guarding he will never discard.

It takes considerable work from the neonatologist, suctioning to clear a tiny set of lungs, but finally my tears of worry turn to joy when at last a breathing baby is placed into my arms. “Hello, Baby Girl. You are so loved.” Her dark eyes quietly take me in. So many dreams known only to myself come true in this first meeting, so many resolutions made in those early miraculous moments of life. I am to fail at most of them, but maybe grace will be my ally.

“You are Emelyn. Emelyn Michal Cutts.”