My last pregnant picture, 5 days before Sabina arrived. And that's it. The chapter on pregnancy is officially over, the milestone passed. No more contemplation about whether to have kids, whether to have two, whether I will be able to get pregnant, what will it be like, how will I handle the last uncomfortable month etc. I am no longer a mother-to-be, nor will I ever be again. I am now the mother of two children. I have kids. "The kids are at home", "the kids are at school", "the kids are doing well thanks"...Really, I'm not sure how this all happened. I never thought I would be so domestic. I accept the role lovingly, but I'll also fight it my whole life, that you can count on.

I went to the hospital around 11pm on Saturday night. I was having contractions while my parents were over for dinner, but around 11p, I realized they were getting more painful so the midwife suggested we head to the hospital. At my Thursday appointment she had told me she was on call Saturday (she's my favorite midwife in the group - Lisa - she delivered Luca), she said she could make a case to induce me if I wanted her to deliver baby girl. Of course she was partly joking, but all I could think about was how Saturday was so soon, I was still working after all, I needed a little break, at least another week. But when I got there, they didn't send me home as I thought they might. Turns out I was already 4-5 cm dilated.

So we set out to make our rounds through the halls of the maternity wing of Providence Portland. My midwife didn't have any other patients so she would wait for us at one end of the hall and tell us to make another lap. I would stop every 8 minutes or so to breathe deeply while Lorenzo wrapped me with a tight hug. He knew just how to comfort me through every contraction. At one point he asked, in all seriousness, "so what's a male midwife called, a midman?" For some reason, it cracked me up and brought on another contraction, but I couldn't stop laughing through it. I'm not sure if girl hormones are different than boy hormones, but I did a lot of laughing through labor and up until the end when Lisa said I was going to laugh the baby out.

As we walked, I couldn't get my head to realize what was happening to my body. I kept trying to explain to Lorenzo how distant I felt from the imminent sounds of a baby crying. I've never felt so mentally disconnected from an experience. For 9 months I lived as a pregnant woman, adapting to everything that means, while forgetting the part about the baby being born. I just went about my daily life, with this thing that made me different and more uncomfortable but that I just took in stride as part of my everyday. I worked hard to get my "head in the game" as my dad used to say during my sports heyday.

At just about 7 cm, when I felt the burst of my water breaking, the separation of mind and body was over. It was all I could do to turn off the part of my brain that didn't want to run another lap and to just focus on my breathing. Once I hit 8cm with contractions coming every 2 minutes, writhing with pain, I wondered why I was competing with myself and not allowing myself pain relief. I asked Lorenzo to tell me what to do. Knowing me, he took my concerns to Lisa, who entered the bathroom while I was showering, and told me I should get an epidural. It was what I needed hear, permission.

The worst contractions are the ones that come once you've decided you don't want to feel them anymore. The sensation of feeling pain for 1 minute and then absolutely nothing for 2 minutes, it's a mind fuck. You really think for a minute that the pain won't come back, and then it knocks the wind out of you like a steam train at full speed.

Next thing I knew, the room was dark, Lorenzo was snoring, the nurse was putting a blanket over me, and I'm preparing for the next contraction that doesn't come. The relief was so great that I passed out, or almost. I flashed back to Luca's birth where once I laid down, all movement stopped and a c-section became a close call. So I put my bed up a bit and started trying to move myself around. After feeling the movement was adequate, I passed out.

I woke an hour later worried that my nurse and Lisa would be changing shifts. It was 6:20am (2 hours after the epidural) and they were scheduled to leave at 7. Remembering that I pushed for 3 hours with Luca, I was sure I'd be giving birth to this baby with all new people around me. I was disappointed. But when Wendy came in to check my cervix, she saw hair and started running around confused. "I have to get Lisa. There's a baby right there." I groggily told her to wake Lorenzo. Lisa came in sleep-eyed as well. Here was our baby, ready to be born while we were all sleeping.

And literally, once we all rubbed the sleep out of our eyes, while I was laughing, Sabina was making her way out. Just like that. No pushing, just laughing. I did do one push just to move things along, but by 6:39a she was laying on my chest, warm and soft. I finally met the little girl who'd I'd been carrying around for close to a year. All the wondering and worrying, anticipation and preparation, it all ended in that moment, when I was holding this new little person in my arms.

And now, I am trying to relive those 7 hours, each of those important moments, the way one re-lives the experience of meeting their life partner for the first time. The exciting moment of realizing you have met the love of your life. And in my case, the third in a series of true loves.