Birth Fireworks

Two days of cramps culminated
in twenty four hours of
sixty minute increments of
mamabear groans and mental jake-brakes,
slowing the mack truck progress of labor.

My fetal vessel was taut
and shiny for weeks while
the rest of my body battled
a head cold and my mind
staved off boredom with jigsaw puzzles
and the intentions of inundating the kitchen
with the welcoming whiff of nutmeg,
cinnamon, oven-fresh bread.

Far from home for the holidays,
soon-to-be grammie and I watched
my little bun in the oven rise
while we stayed warm walking
in malls & department stores,
urging the baby to drop before the ball
in Times Square. A Consumer Christmas
spent together and alone.

While party-goers put on their
Blue Moon New Year's dancing shoes,
my midwife checked my cervix:
"The birthing room is ready when you are."
Daddy, Grandpa, and Auntie made
the mad rush
13 minute flight and 90 mile drive
in 2 hours flat, downing Xanax on the way.

The lights were as low as my moaning
and the soaking tub was brimming
with warm water and a promise of
relaxation and progress.
I heard the countdown to the new year
as a contraction
gripped my uterus in an ecstasy
so intense my midwife reminded me
to keep on top of it. I thought of
a freight train, heard the humming rails
groaning under its weight.
Steady, chugging slow and low.

A New Year's kiss,
no Blue Moon baby,
retreat to the work of birth.
Up until this point I had thought of child-rearing
as a cooperative project between woman and midwife,
mother and father.
But as the evening drugged the others with sleepiness,
my oxytocin flowed, and like a lone wolf
I slunk off to my lair of womanwork.

Left to my animalistic self, I crooned to the unborn.
I sat on the toilet and wanted to push.
The urge is so utterly primal,
so imminent, so base.
Daddy guffawed.
Are we gonna have this baby on the john?
Relieving pressure, my midwife breaks my water.
As if the relief made room for common sense,
I move to a smooth wooden birthing chair,
pausing for a contraction in the arms of my man,
my sleepy strong man made timid
with anticipation.

Fireworks. Clenching bursts of light behind eyelids.
More tension loosened as birthcanal widens and burns.
In the darkness of the birthroom, our new light
announced his arrival with a wholesome wail.
"My baby, my baby, finally my baby"
I held his head to mine,
rocking, weeping.
A cloak of calm enshrouded us
as a new snowfall lit on the winter ground.