Jenna held out her hand. “I’m Jenna, Holly’s midwife.”
“Bless you, Jenna. How is our Holly?” Mama Andris asked, her accent strong.
Holly opened her eyes. “Hi, Mama.”
“Oh, my sweet girl.” Mama Andris hugged her. “How are you?”
“Much better since I got the epidural.”
Mama Andris rested her hand against Holly’s belly. “You are having a contraction now, I think, but you cannot feel this?”
“No pain at all.”
“You don’t know how I wish we had such things when you were born,” Mama Andris said to her son. “Do you know how I suffered to bring you into this world?”
Jenna fought to hide a smile.
Nick let out a breath, shook his head, looking overwhelmed by the thought now that he’d had a glimpse of what labor entailed. “Sorry.”
Twenty minutes later, Holly got a strange expression on her face. “Something feels different.”
Jenna put on a pair of sterile gloves and checked Holly’s cervix. “Guess what? You’re fully dilated. It’s time to have a baby.”
Holly and Nick looked at each other, the anticipation and nervousness on their faces universal to first-time parents.
Jenna told Holly what to expect and how best to push effectively even though the epidural limited her sensation. “You’ll need to listen to me. As long as the baby looks happy, we can keep going. If we have to, we can turn the epidural down so that—”
“No! No, no.” Holly looked horrified by that thought. “I’ll push. I promise.”
With the support of her husband and mother-in-law, Holly was true to her word, working hard, bringing the baby’s head farther down with each contraction.
“Good girl! Good!” Mama Andris said.
“Push, push, push!” Jenna coached. “Here’s the top of your baby’s head. Another few pushes like that, and you’ll be crowning. Give me your hand.”
Holly reached down between her legs, Jenna guiding her so that her fingers brushed the crown of her baby’s head.
Holly’s eyes went wide, and she smiled. “Oh, God! A baby.”
“Nick, do you want to feel?”
He nodded, steeled himself as if he were about to jump out of an airplane, and looked between his wife’s thighs, his fingers joining hers. He laughed. “Wow.”
Another push and another and another.
“The head is out. Reach down, Holly, and catch your baby.” Jenna guided Holly’s hands, supporting the baby’s shoulders as it slipped into the world with an indignant cry.
“My baby!” Tears of happiness spilled down Holly’s cheeks.
“Congratulations!” Jenna helped Holly lift the baby into her arms, rubbing it with a towel to stimulate it, leaving it to the nurse to wrap the baby in a warm blanket. “You did a great job, Holly. Good work, both of you.”
Nick leaned in to look at his newborn, an ear-to-ear smile on his face. “It’s a girl!”
Mama Andris crossed herself in the Orthodox way, her eyes bright. “She is beautiful, just like her mama.”
It didn’t matter how many babies Jenna had caught. Seeing the joy on parents’ faces as they got acquainted with their healthy newborn never got old.
* * *