We went to see the perinatologist in the middle of week thirty-six. Sure enough, our baby girl had wiggled, and she was head-down for our final ultrasound. The peri’s parting words were: “Get up. You can’t swim enough! We need you to get strong so you can look after your baby.”

On Saturday, March 2^nd (thirty-seven weeks, two days), I got out of bed to another glorious day. We went to the YMCA pool and the grocery store where we stocked up on fruit and vegetables. When we got home a package was on our doorstep: a birthing ball. I proceeded to sit on it for most of the afternoon, and we received a visit from our little goddaughter and her father. My first time sitting up all day in many moons.

I went to bed about ten o’clock. At midnight my water broke. My cervical stitch was scheduled to be removed in two days. Panic. Leaving the cats extra food and water, we jumped in the car and departed for the hospital. The streets of Los Angeles were deserted. Zipping on and off some of the biggest freeways in the world—past the place where I pulled over in crisis, unknowingly in premature labor—it felt like we were living a movie of our own making.

For much of the eighteen hours I was in labor, I felt a shadow on my shoulder. Would our daughter be born safely? Could my body handle it? I had managed six hours of unmedicated labor to birth our boy, but at that point I was in decent physical shape.

My muscles had atrophied after over half a year of strict bedrest. Before labor even got rolling, I experienced crazy pain when the obstetrician-on-call cut my cervix trying to remove the stitches. I struggled to cope with early contractions. My hope to forego medication rapidly slipped away, and after almost seven hours, I received an epidural for pain with the required Pitocin to hasten contractions. These eased my body’s distress, but my mind was not appeased. Watching the computer screen monitoring our two heartbeats, we could see that every time I had a contraction, G’s heart rate dropped precipitously. I began to cry. How many days, weeks, months, years of waiting? By this point, twelve hours of active labor. What now?

After some furtive discussions, they pumped some saline solution into my uterus, allowing the baby to move, loosening the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and her heart rate evened out.

Fear. Love. The unknown. I tried hard to monitor my hopes. At any point throughout the past nine months up to the minute, I expected the second shoe to drop—another loss, another setback—but instead, someone walked into my room and gave me instructions on how to push. I asked for a little lavender sachet from my childhood I had packed away for this moment. Breathing in its peace, I bore down for my first push.

One of the labor nurses asked if I wanted the mirror above my bed to work. Yes! I asked her to yell when our daughter’s head appeared so I could open my eyes. Pushing with all of my might, I watched colorful guides dance beneath my eyelids. I felt the presence of all the women throughout time and space who had been to this place—the sacred dividing line between the life and death of two souls. I sensed the company of my loved ones on the other side: my father and our son.

“OPEN YOUR EYES!” brought me to the exquisite present. Above me was a reflection of my body with a dark little head completing her journey to us. The feeling of release. The awe-inspiring wonder. The two of us, separate but together. A cord connecting us. Complete new life. Where I ended and she began.

Within seconds, G was in my arms. Her dad came to my side, and she looked straight at him. Then she looked up where music speakers were playing country music to welcome my dad’s spirit. In that moment of startling alertness, she seemed to acknowledge all of the Greater Energies that brought her safely to us. Her grandparents waiting down the hall came into the room, bursting with joy.

While we were waiting for the lactation consultant, I remembered a birthing book I skimmed a few days prior and decided to offer my breast to her between my thumb and index finger. To my enormous surprise, our littlest girl—six and a half pounds, hardly bigger than a bag of sugar—latched on.

Something in my body actually worked! I was no longer incompetent. A pinprick moment of eternal light. My body was welcome at this party, and I felt a seismic change down to my deepest roots.

The breakthrough of my mother-self.