[𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟐] 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣

𝟐𝟏 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞, 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐦𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐲

[𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟐] 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 ⁣⁣⁣
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I’m in a birth room waiting for someone to have a baby. Time is slipping away smoothly. There is nothing unusual about this birth, it’s just a client in the water making a lot of noise. She says she can’t do it - I say I can’t comment because I haven’t had a kid, but this room has heard that said that many times, and then a baby emerged. Apart from the fact she can’t do it, she’s in good spirits. I look with a mirror and light and see vertex visible, so I push the buzzer for more company.⁣⁣⁣
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It’s only after the baby has been born and I’m out of the room that I realise I’ve got blood on my arm. It takes a good scrub to get it to wash away, as it’s a drop that has partially dried and then been wiped by something. It kind of looks like a comet. Blood spatter experts would call this pattern ‘skeletonised’. Midwives call this ‘Tuesday’. If it were my care I might want a photo of it for a birth album. ⁣⁣⁣
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It was a nice birth. There were four of us in the room including Dad, all in our twenties and thirties. No doctors or authority figures. It is miraculous but it’s an everyday miracle, just like everyone says. It didn’t require much thought, just surrender. I try to remember this for my writing days because it’s the same thing, but I forget and am terrified of the blank page every time. Just like my client can’t do it, I can’t do it - and yet we both do.⁣⁣⁣
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All my best,⁣⁣⁣
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Ellie.⁣⁣⁣