I Wore Pink For My Daughter While His Mother Wished For A Boy...

My water broke at 3:17 in the morning on a Tuesday.

I woke to that strange, warm spill and sat straight up in bed, my hand going to my belly before my brain caught up. The sheets were wet. My heart started pounding so hard I could hear it. I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder.

He was awake in a second. He didn't do that slow blink and stare thing. He sat up, turned on the lamp, and said, "Okay. Okay, we're okay."

I was already breathing wrong, too fast and shallow. He got out of bed and pulled the hospital bag from the closet where we'd left it packed for three weeks. He'd put a checklist on the front pocket in his handwriting. He grabbed it now and started actually using it.

"The towels," I said. My voice was thin. "We need towels."

He was already putting one down on the bed for me to stand on, his other hand steady on my elbow. "I've got you. Slow. I've got you."

In the car, the streets were empty and wet from an earlier rain. He drove exactly the speed limit down the county road toward the hospital, one hand on the wheel, the other finding mine every time I had to breathe through a tightening. He didn't play music. He didn't try to fill the silence. When a contraction hit at the stoplight by the gas station, he just held my hand and counted with me out loud.

"Four, five, six. You're doing it. Breathe with me."

He'd never counted with me before.

The labor room was dim, the monitor ticking steady and green. A nurse named Jen checked me and said I was at five centimeters, doing great, this was it. She asked if I wanted the lights lower and I nodded. He took the chair by the bed and pulled it right up against me, not two feet back against the wall.

Hours blurred. I remember his voice more than the pain. He wasn't watching from the doorway the way he'd watched in the garden. He had his sleeves pushed up, his forehead damp. He held the ice chips to my lips, pressed his palm hard into my lower back when I said the pressure was breaking me, whispered "you're safe, you're safe" when I started to cry because I couldn't tell if I was doing it right.

I remember looking at him between contractions and seeing his eyes never left my face.

"Don't leave," I said at one point, gripping his hand so hard my nails dug in.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'm right here."

Pushing felt like everything in me narrowing down to one job. Jen said, "One more big one, mama, she's right there," and I bore down and heard myself make a sound I didn't recognize. And then there was a cry. A loud, angry, beautiful cry that filled the whole room.

"She's here," Jen said. "She's here, she's perfect."

They laid her on my chest, slippery and warm and screaming, her little fists curled. She had dark hair, a lot of it, plastered down. I put my hand on her back and couldn't stop shaking.

He was crying. He didn't wipe it away. He leaned over both of us, his hand covering her tiny head and my hand at the same time, and he said, "Hi, baby girl. Hi. You're here."

Later, after they'd weighed her — seven pounds, four ounces — and put her back in my arms wrapped tight, the room went quiet. The sun was coming up outside the window, pale light through the blinds. I was in the postpartum bed, sore and empty and full all at once. She was asleep on my chest, her mouth making little sucking motions.

He sat beside me and took my hand, careful, like I might break.

"Hey," he said softly. "Can I ask you something?"

I nodded.

"Who do you want to meet her first?" he asked. "Just tell me what you want. We don't have to decide anything you don't want."

I looked down at her face. I thought about the balloons and the frosting and the way he'd stood there and said nothing. And I thought about the way he'd counted with me all night.

"Just us," I said. My voice was hoarse. "For forty-eight hours. Just you and me and her. No one else."

He didn't pause. "Okay. Forty-eight hours, just us. I promise."

"Your mom will be upset," I said.

"I know," he said. "I'll handle it."

He stepped into the hall and I could hear him on his phone, his voice low but clear through the cracked door. I heard him say her name, say we had a girl, that she was healthy, that I was doing well.

"I sent you pictures," he said. "She looks just like her mom." There was a pause. I could imagine her on the other end. "Mom, listen to me. We love you, but we're going to have forty-eight hours as a family before any visits. It's what she needs to recover. I'll call you when she's ready to invite you. That's the agreement we made and I'm keeping it."

He came back in and slipped his phone into his pocket.