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“Trust your body,” Sylvia said, squeezing my hand. “Trust yourself. You’re stronger than you know.”
“Say it out loud, Meg,” Frannie suggested. “You can do this.”
“I can do this,” I said, although I was nearly delirious with the pain. “I can do this. I can do this. I’m stronger than I know.”
“Meg, baby, I think you should push,” Noah said from somewhere between my thighs. “I can see the head.”
That’s when I remembered I didn’t really want him seeing the whole thing. “Don’t look!” I yelled, even as I began to bear down. “You’ll never want me again!”
“Meg McCormick, I will always want you,” he said firmly. “You are the light of my life, the only woman I have ever loved, and every day I wake up knowing I’m the luckiest man in the world because you chose me. Now stop talking and push!”
Noah’s words of love and encouragement plus my sisters’ presence and support gave me a burst of energy. I listened as they cheered me on, breathed when they reminded me, relaxed between contractions, pushed when Noah asked, and found strength in knowing that the room was so full of love. Maybe this baby wouldn’t be born in a brightly-lit hospital room with doctors and nurses in charge, but he’d be born into a family who knew how to be there for each other when times were tough.
In my delirium, memories of my childhood washed over me, vivid with colors and sound and smells and textures. I could feel the sun on my face as my sisters and I ran through the orchard on a summer day. I could taste the apples we’d pluck off the trees. I caught the fecund scent of the horse stalls as we mucked them out. I saw us as five giggling girls making snow angels in winter, then going inside for our mom’s hot chocolate, begging our dad to play a board game with us—and he always did. I saw my parents slow dancing in the kitchen as they cooked dinner together, knowing that was the kind of marriage I wanted some day.
And I saw my brave, beautiful Noah—as a teenage lifeguard pulling me from the water when I’d gotten caught in a current, as a small town K-9 officer giving presentations at schools, as a devoted husband who was so emotional when he learned I was pregnant that he pulled me into his arms and cried on my shoulder.
Our little boy would know that kind of love, the kind that grows stronger every day, lasts forever, and gets passed down through the generations.
With one final effort, I felt my son enter the world, and I burst into tears with the sheer joy of it.
“It’s a boy!” my mom cried. “Oh Meg, he’s just perfect!”
A second later, I heard a newborn’s high-pitched wail and felt a weight on my chest. My tears continued to fall as I touched my baby son for the first time.
That’s when the door to the room burst open. “They’re here!” a young, girlish voice yelled. “There coming up right now!”
Instantly the room grew chaotic as EMTs burst into the room just steps behind Whitney. They immediately attended to me and the baby, and Noah knelt down next to the bed.
“You did it,” he said, drying his eyes on his shoulder.
“We did it,” I said, fully exhausted but happier than I’d ever been.
“I’m so proud of you.” Noah rested his lips on my damp forehead.
“Thank you.” I was still trying to catch my breath. “But tell me the truth. Were you lying about knowing how to deliver a baby?”
Noah looked me right in the eye. “One hundred percent. Are you mad?”
“No. It was what I needed to hear to trust in fate. And myself.”
“I’m sorry I lied. I’ll never do it again.” His eyes filled with tears once more. “I’m so proud of you, Meg. You amaze me.”
The EMTs brought our baby to us, wrapped in a warm blanket, his face pinched and wrinkled like an old man’s. But he blinked at us, as if in recognition, and we wept with happiness and relief.
NOAH
“And then, Fletcher,” I said to my perfect baby boy, “I caught you with my own two hands.”
“You forgot the part where you put on the cape, Superdad.” From the hospital bed where she rested, Meg looked over at me with amused eyes the exact same deep caramel shade as our son’s.
“Hey, listen. I know you were the real superhero, but I can’t help it if I’m proud of the role I played. I know it wasn’t the starring role, but it was a very important supporting role.”
She laughed. “It was, and youshouldbe proud. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
I bent down and gave her a kiss. “You will never have to worry about it. But next time, we’re going to the hospitalearly.”
“Knock, knock.” Frannie poked her head in the door. “How’s everybody?”
