Birth

What a long and frightening and exhilarating day.

Today, at Grace’s appointment, her doctor stepped out of the room for a moment to get test results and came back looking grave. “Grace,” he said as the smiles on Con and Grace’s faces disappeared, “I have bad news.”

What we feared has come to pass—Grace has preeclampsia, a severe condition that brings danger to both mother and child. To avoid any of the harsh consequences, she had to be induced right away.

“I think that immediate delivery is your best bet,” the doctor explained. He has had many such conversations before, but I could see that looking into the pale faces of the parents always makes his heart sink. “It is early, but not too early to be dangerous. Your son will need to spend at least a week in the NICU, but the survival rate for babies at this point is 98%, and most of them suffer no long-term effects from being premature. The risk of waiting is much greater.”

Grace swallowed. She reached up for Con’s hand, and he seized hers and pressed it against his heart.
“How—what will it be like?” Grace asked.

“We’ll get you to the maternity ward and put you on an IV drip of oxytocin. Your labor should start soon after that.”

Grace was shaking. She has read about induced labor—how it is often more painful than natural labor, how it can last longer, how it can affect the bond between mother and child. She set her free hand on her rounded belly, and all she could think about was that she was supposed to have a baby shower in two weeks.

“You wouldn’t be recommending this if it wasn’t the best option for both of them, right?” Con asked.

“That’s right,” the doctor replied immediately. “The sooner we deliver, the safer it will be for both of them.”

Con looked down at Grace, and unlike her, he could think of them both—the tiny life full of infinite possibilities, and the life whose possibilities he has shared for many years now.

“Gracie,” he whispered, bending close to her. I did the same, giving her as much warmth and strength as I could.

Grace took a breath and seized the iron in her spirit that made her want to go into the police force, made her want to protect people. She looked up at the doctor and said, “Okay.”

The next few hours went by with heart-pounding rapidity, though each second seemed to stretch to twice its length. Grace was given a hospital gown and taken to a small white room where a bag of fluid was hung by her side. There she waited, her hands on her stomach, while Con paced by her side and made no fewer than sixteen phone calls—her parents and his, Michael and Amanda, other friends and family members. He kept his voice calm, and Grace clung to the even tones, though she couldn’t make out a single word.

I had called Brid the moment I heard the frightening truth, but she did not answer me, something that frightened me as much as everything else—Brid has always been there for me. One of her sentries, however, carried the message to other healers, and two hours after Grace was admitted, Zaman appeared beside me, his wings spread wide.

“Brid—” I began.

“She is working for a patient and cannot spare any time. She heard your call and asked if I would come instead.” He looked down at Grace with eyes aglow.

“She is—”

“I can see,” Zaman said, and he reached out a hand and touched Grace’s forehead. Immediately she gasped, clutching her stomach.

It was something to behold. I thought that I knew how Healers did their work, from what I have seen Brid do—giving peace of mind and spirit, guiding the body back to wellness. I thought that it was gentle and soft and good.

This was not gentle, and it was not soft. It was primal and forceful. Zaman reached out and took hold of the energy in Grace’s body, her fear and her pain and her desperate hopes, and with that energy he brought his will into reality. His wings lifted high, gathering more and more power from Con, from her parents who were running into the hospital at that moment, from all those near and far who were praying for her. All of that power went back into Grace, who tipped her head back and screamed.

My wings were iron, my stomach lead. I stood dumb and terrified as the labor began, as Grace crushed Con’s fingers and writhed on the bed, as the voices of nurses and doctors chattered around her, as the blood began to flow and the pain filled the room. There was nothing I could do, and yet I stayed, absorbing the pain—such pain!—and the fear and giving back what courage and peace I had, which I confess was not much.

Zaman was still and silent, too, but he had no fear. His eyes were perfectly calm as he watched Grace, filled with knowledge and empathy. From time to time he reached down to touch her stomach, or his wing would sweep over her, doing I know not what. But he never slackened.

Then there was one final gasp, and a new voice filled the room, cutting through the red haze in Grace’s mind. She heaved for breath and craned her neck, looking for her son.

“Asa’el,” Zaman said as one of the nurses brought a tiny bundle to Grace.

I was surprised to hear him address me. It was a command, no question, but I did not know what he wanted me to do.

He turned his gaze away from Grace at last, a deep weariness in his eyes. “Help her,” he said. “Love is your trade, is it not?”

I looked at Grace, who took her impossibly small son into uncertain hands. Her mind was fogged with drugs and pain and fear, and she almost did not know what it was she was seeing.

I swept down to her, ignoring Con and the nurses and everyone else for a moment. I closed the world off from the two of them, and I cut through the fog with a wash of love as sharp as a sword. “You see?” I said to Grace, looking with her at the fragile eyelids, the hollow chest, the fingers so weak, but already moving, reaching, for her. “This is what it all was for.”

Grace sobbed, and a blissful smile came to her face. “Hello, little guy,” she whispered and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

She could not hold him long—after a few minutes a faint noise came with every breath the baby made, and the nurses whisked him away to the NICU. Zaman followed him, leaving me to comfort Grace and Con, who clung to one another and cried without really knowing why. I had no words—I still have no words. I just held them in my wings and wept with them. Nothing I have ever experienced was like this.

Much later, long after I should have been gone, I left both new parents sleeping and went down to the NICU to see the baby. Zaman was with him, one wing stretched over the incubator, and looked up at me with a smile. “He is a strong spirit,” he said, “like his mother. He will be well.”

Tears stung my eyes again. “Can you be sure of that?”

“There is nothing sure in this world,” Zaman answered, “but I believe it. And faith does wonders.”

I had seen that very truth in action in the birthing room. “Zaman,” I said, “I cannot thank you enough. To have given so much for one who is not your charge…Brid has told me how valuable your energies are—”

Zaman waved off my attempts at gratitude. He smiled down at the baby, and his wing dipped downward, brushing a light feather over that red forehead. “I am partial to the little ones,” was all he said.

So. I have somehow found a way to tell this day, and that is all I can do. Tomorrow I will think about the repercussions of this, and try to sort through the emotions of my charges, and go back to work with them. For now, however, all I can say, all I can think, is praise be to the Father—whose very identity is shaped by his children, who forms them and loves them and saves them. Thanks be to the King who stands guard over the cradle of the smallest child. Hallelujah!