Now

The blazing sunshine is melting the remains of last week's blizzard. It is suddenly March 1st. At home I'm sure the sap is running. And I have three children.

I feel a bit like the pebble drawn back in a little boy's slingshot. Last December, time stretched forward without me, held as I was in the tightening grip of an expectant little hand. Then all at once, he let go and here we are, flying forward at a dizzying, exhilarating speed.

But there was a moment of complete Now as time inverted on that day, December 8th. To place it in the flow, I'd say it was sometime around 3:45pm, though time is beside the point. It was above, beyond, outside of the clock. It was a place, or space, as much as a moment, and it was something I felt I'd known before but had forgotten. Like chocolate, I can't recreate the taste through memory alone, but I can recall that it was blissful. I suspect I knew it when I myself was born. I want to recall it when the moment comes for me to die.

But I need to back up. On December 8th I woke up around 6am to find my underpants wet. It wasn't urine; it smelled salty and clean like the ocean. My hard belly was not yet contracting, but I knew it wouldn't be long before our little dude would be riding the rhythmic waves toward our shore.

At 6:54am (according to my iPhone), I texted Ali & Maria: "Looks like my sack is leaking & I am having stronger braxton hicks to early contractions so I think i will be calling soon!" Ali back: "It's a great day to have a baby!! i'll be here!"

The sun peaked into the kitchen as we went about our routines. Shrek cereal (aka Mini-wheats) for Reeve, coffee for me and Jordy before Raisin Bran, honey cereal (Cheerios) for Duncan, fishie nugget lunches for school. By 8 o'clock, the waves were gathering every 15-20 minutes or so, nothing I couldn't breathe, shower, or walk the dog through. So I suited Wiley up to escort Jordy and the boys to the bus. Jordy would drop Duncan at Chai Tots, then Reeve at escuela. I would take Wiley to the park. We would meet back home by 10am.

The park was stunning. Clear crisp sunshine through bare trees. After Wiley did his business on the path above the baseball fields, I called our midwife Joan, whom I expected to be overjoyed at the civil hour of my call. She sounded exhausted; in the background–someone else's child. My heart sank. Though she didn't say so, it seemed she was with another laboring woman. She asked me to call again as the contractions got closer together. I resolved not to worry. As Jordy would say, Joan is someone you'd want in the trenches with you. She would work it out.

Wiley and I joined the other dog walkers in the Great Meadow. When the contractions came, I would pause and breathe, enjoying the feeling of enacting a great secret in public. Wiley lollopped about, sniffed new friends, rolled happily in the crispy grass. As we made an extra loop around the duck pond, I turned my face to the sun through the stark tree limbs, and remembered our yoga song: "May the longtime sun, shine upon you... and the pure light within you, guide your way on." I imagined gathering this sunlight to bring home with me for what lay ahead. They were getting closer. Time to head back.

9:45 - 30 secs. Jordy and I must have arrived home by then, as this was the first in his diligent log of contraction onset and duration. 10:04 - ditto. 10:14 - ditto. 10:27 - 50 sec. 10:39 - 1:10 sec. 10:46 - 40 sec. 10:50 - 30 sec. 10:56 - 1:12 sec...

Between contractions, we wandered about a little giddy, unsure what to do with ourselves, feeling a bit like we were playing hooky on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday. We went ahead and "bagged" our mattress. We discussed plans (A), (B), (C) and (D), depending on the timing of it all. I must have called Magdalena -- no text message on record. She would pick up Reeve at 12:30 as usual, then Duncan at 3, as usual. We texted our friend Cheri to ask if our kids could go to her house to play after school, depending. Should they be there at the moment of birth? Would my groaning worry them (even though Duncan had begun to explain to random third parties that, "My mom is going to sound like an animal at the zoo, because when you're having a baby, every time you yell it helps the baby come out")? Would Reeve need Mommy-ness?

11:29 - 1 min. 11:36 - 1:30. I remember putting my head on the dining room table and the kitchen counter, variously, as Jordy placed his hands firmly on my hips and exerted counter pressure. We got into an almost pleasant routine. 11:40 - 1 min (long tail). Jordy and I made lunch. I think he had a sandwich. I had leftover lasagna made by Duncan's friend Ava's mom Sunny. 11:48 - 1min. 11:55 - 1:10mins (more intense). 12:00 - 30 sec. 12:11 - 1:20mins. 12:15 - 1:05m. I was strangely fascinated to see what each one would be like, as each one was unique. At the hospital, a paper ticker would have graphed the contractions, but I could have drawn each one with greater accuracy -- the particular curves and spikes, the relative altitude of intensity. It turned out to be such a relief throughout this labor to focus inward to observe my "progress" rather than having intrusive internal "exams" and measurements (other than Joan's regular fetal heart rate checks) from technicians and devices.

Downstairs was beginning to feel like nothing but hardwood floors, metal chairs, and doorbells. I needed to retreat in my cocoon so I climbed the stairs with the feeling that I wouldn't descend them again until I had met our baby.

I found comfort on the birthing ball in the den. Knees on the floor, I draped my body over it, rolling. I played my iTunes birthing playlist softly on the computer. Sometime in here my cellphone rang: It was the plumber. Months earlier I had left him a message to call next time he was in the neighborhood to help with a loose sink leg in the bathroom. Of course it would be now! We let the call go, but then the house phone rang so Jordy took it. "Hey, Andrew... Actually, she's in labor... (What's that?) In labor -- we're about to have the baby. (WHAT! GET OUTTA HEYAH! GO HAVE FUN!)" This was our motto thereafter.

I moved to the bedroom for a while, riding the birthing ball on top of the bed while I stared out the window. Our neighbor's sweet gum tree had lost all but a few crimson leaves that blew in the bright air amidst the last of the hanging sweet gum balls ("soot gremlins," as Reeve calls them in reference to TOTORO when he collects them on the street). They held my gaze steady through a number of contractions as Jordy lovingly countered each one with a firm grip on my hips behind, then noted the contraction for the record. It was so quiet. Just a late fall day at home.

12:20 - 1:02mins. 12:26 - 1:20m. At 12:28 Maria texted: "Just in karate until 1:30p." Me back: "Great! Do you want to head over here between 3-4?" "Yes." 12:31 - 1:20m. 12:37 - 1:15pm. Somewhere in here, Joan called. She was on the sidewalk out front.

Joan and Jamie tiptoed in. Joan sat with me in the den, listening as much as watching, while Jamie set up their impressive kit -- from gauze to oxygen tank -- in our bedroom. Jordy presented the log to Joan, who smiled kindly. "I guess we don't need to keep this any more?" he surmised. She shook her head. The last entry was 12:42 - 1:20mins. Jordy brought coffee upstairs for Joan and Jamie; they had been with the other laboring woman since 5am, though she had not yet delivered. Joan had called in another midwife to stay with her, as the labor was very slow to sputtering, a VBAC. Not easy. Expected it to be long. Thought we would be done in plenty of time for her to go back. As Jordy and I tried to plan when to bring the boys home in relation to Baby's arrival, Joan said she guessed our baby could be here by 3-4 o'clock. Jordy couldn't believe it would be so soon. I tuned out the predictions, not wanting the pressure of estimated arrival times one way or the other. Always I felt aware that this would be my last labor and it felt so good to let it be what it would be.

Sometime between 1 and 2pm I decided to get in the bathtub. Jordy helped draw the water and we arranged the pillow I'd bought for the occasion. The aromatherapy candle went unlit but gave a subtle spicy smell. The rushes were getting stronger now, and my need to rest in between was greater. The warm water helped. When they came on, I lifted myself and put my head on a towel over the tub's side. They were growing more acute. Ali arrived, a gentle smile and warm eyes greeting me at the door. She whispered, "How you doing?" She took Jordy's place for sometime by my side -- don't know how long, can't really remember what we talked about. I just remember how quiet and gentle and comforting her presence was.

Then Jordy returned and I wanted to get out. He helped me put on the blue bathrobe that Gary Lehmann gave Kristin for Mother's Day before Katie was born. I wrapped my arms around Jordy's neck as a rush came on in the bathroom and hung from him, swaying, while he wrapped his arms around my lower back to give support. This felt very good. Throughout Jordy whispered words of encouragement -- that I was doing such a great job, that he would be here soon. Through the crack in the door I saw Joan come up the stairs. She poked her head in to ask if that one felt "pushy" -- my vocalization sounded different to her. That was Joan's Jedi moment. Yes, it was the first inkling of an urge to push. She monitored the fetal heart rate again as she did throughout. Steady at 115-120bpm, as he was throughout the whole pregnancy.

It must have been between 2 and 3pm now, and I wanted to go back to the den on the ball. The sun was behind us now and the room was bathed in gentle blue light. On my knees, gazing out at the wide blue sky, helped by the music, memories poured through me. As Annie Lenox sang, "What do you see, on the horizon? Why do the white gulls call?...And all will turn, to silver glass. A light on the water. All souls pass into the west..." I was brought back to Venice beach with baby Duncan, Jordy and mom on her 65th birthday, awestruck at the sunset over the Pacific before us, hearts heavy missing Gary. Sometime later: "Little darling, it's been a long hard lonely winter... Here comes the sun..." brought me back to the days after Reeve's birth, cozy early spring, toddler Duncan waving his hands with his Dad as they made "suns" rising over newborn son Reeve, that explosive first spring in New York after our long first winter without the California sun. I cried quietly at the improbable magnificence of being here.

Up to this point, the intensity had grown gradually, reaching a peak in the bathtub that was sustained now with each contraction. At some point, Jordy had to attend to something in the hallway; without his hands on my hips, I felt a flicker of panic. I called to him. He rushed to my haunches and it felt manageable again. When I felt my brow and shoulders tense, I imagined directing my breath into those places and could feel them let go. I drew on the images I'd stored up -- the full moon of December 1, the round open pendant of my necklace -- to imagine my cervix opening with each contraction. I talked to Baby, reassured him that there was nothing to fear, that we were all here to ease his passage and would greet him on the other side.

And that's when we reached escape velocity. It felt as if I rode a wave up and up and... Just didn't come down. There was no active pain, just a sense of my body, our bodies, in a firm hold, attaining orbit on our rubber birthing ball. Everything was round and open and quiet. Floating in space.

A midwife once referred to the moment before pushing as "the rock and the hard place," the scariest place Mama will go to on her journey, especially when she's given birth before and knows the fierceness that lies ahead. In my previous labors I had the irrational but tempting desire to stay right here, pregnant forever. This was the moment I specifically prepared for the third time around, the place I most wanted to go without fear...

Eyes open I saw bare trees dancing in an infinite blue sky. Eyes closed I saw colorful points of light suspended in darkness. It was so peaceful I thought the actual birth might never happen -- that I had prepared too well and had gone someplace so far beyond that we could never make our way back.

And it was just then that I felt a fullness in the birth canal and knew Baby's arrival was imminent.

I asked Jordy to ask Ali to call Magdalena. It was suddenly clear to me that I wanted the big boys with us. Jordy supported me standing again. Knowing now where the birth would happen, Joan and Jamie managed to transport the whole operation from our bedroom into the den, slipping a shower curtain under Jordy's and my feet with us hardly noticing. Wiley had stayed at my side all day, so I asked Joan if he could stay. Whatever we wanted. So Wiley kept his post on the couch.

I swayed with Jordy to the music, making infinity signs with my hips. He kept his hands always supporting my back as I rested my head on his chest, which felt so good. Over Jordy's shoulder, I noticed Maria in the corner with the video camera -- when did she slip in the room, that ninja girl? My groans rumbled from a deeper place in my body as Baby's head filled my lower body. I remember saying to Jordy, "I just want to open and let him go now."

Moments later, that's what happened, so quickly that I almost didn't get my underpants off in time. First came the SPLASH as my water broke and hit the shower curtain. We all laughed - amniotic fluid soaked Jordy's jeans! I asked for the boys and someone (Ali?) told me they were on their way, but I knew now I couldn't wait. Baby started to come down. Like a good quarterback Joan knelt down, ready to catch while Jordy remained standing to hold me up. Ali stood silently in the doorway. Maria was tucked in her corner. Joan encouraged me to slow down so as not to tear, but between my roars I said there was no way I could possibly slow this train now. I reached down between pushes and felt his warm hard head between my legs. Can you imagine? I still cannot. Incredible. Another push or two and out came his head. Joan carefully supported him. "Cord is clear." (Could he see my happy toes yet? At 37 weeks I had them painted bright red to be a cheerful welcome sign for him!) One more groan and out he slithered. 4:08pm, December 8, 2009. "You can reach down and hold your baby now," Joan said lifting him to my arms. The song playing at the moment of his birth was, by ridiculous chance, our prenatal yoga love song! May the longtime sun, shine upon you, and the pure light within you, guide your way on...

Tucker cried vigorously in my arms, instantly turning bright pink. His body was so beautiful and big -- we didn't need to scale to tell us he was bigger than his two brothers at birth. He blinked up at us, the soft twilight falling in the den still brighter than the world from which he had just arrived. Aunt Robin would later say it best -- he looked "familiar," but very much his own person. His crinkled brow gave him an air of seriousness, an age beyond his seconds of life. Joan wrapped his back with a receiving blanket my mother used to wrap me forty years ago. Jordy sat beside us and we embraced each other. I've never felt so close to another human being.

Moments later Duncan and Reeve arrived with Magdalena, who later told me they heard his first cry as they walked in the door downstairs. They had stopped off at Connecticut Muffin for a hot chocolate to await further instructions, then packed it up and came home as soon as they got word. Reeve came straight to our side. Duncan took in the situation, then joined us. It was a happy jumble of kids and baby and first efforts to breastfeed and dog. Ali and Magdalena then took the boys down to watch "Totoro" while I prepared to pass the after-birth. Duncan returned to see the placenta, which he had read about in a storybook about birth. Joan lifted the amniotic sack with her hands -- "This was the little tent where your brother lived for nine months." He was very interested in the strong rubbery umbilical cord.

My guardian angels delivered apples and pears sliced on a platter. Vitamin Water arrived by straw to my mouth. Night fell as we weighed him -- 8 pounds, 8 ounces -- and Joan checked all his parts. He smelled so good, earthy traces of vernix on his head. Joan put on his first diaper and a pair of zebra socks Aunt Robin had given Duncan as a baby. Jordy took him while Joan and Jamie gave me a few stitches in the bedroom and gave me a shower. Then, after a few instructions and plans for a follow-up visit, their gear all seemed to fly back into their bags, they opened their umbrellas, and like Mary Poppins, they disappeared with the wind. (I later learned they returned to their other laboring mom, who delivered the next morning at 5am.)

The guardian angels fed the big boys downstairs while Jordy and I made phone calls to family. Later Maria gave the boys a bath; I remember them all laughing -- what was she saying to them? In P.J.s with wet heads, we five gathered again on the couch in the den where Mama and Papa toasted with a Chimay Red beer (thank you, Leeanna Varga) while the big boys cooed over their new baby. At bedtime, Jordy took Tucker again so I could read the boys stories and we sang our goodnight songs. Another day in the life.

Once they were asleep I went to the kitchen where Ali and Maria had warmed the last of Sunny's lasagna for me. By 9 o'clock we said our goodbyes and they too flew away. When I went up to bed I found Maria had left a pitcher of water and a plate of fruit on my night stand. That night I drank and ate it all. I was so ecstatic I couldn't sleep a wink.

Today is April 28th, nearly five months later and two months since I began to record this story. Baby Tucker is napping in the crib. The cherry blossoms have nearly all fallen, the daffodils are long gone, and the leaves have returned to the sweet gum tree, gracing the sidewalk with shade as the sun gathers strength. Tucker smiles and giggles. On April 3 at 10 o'clock pm he flipped himself from back to tummy, a trick he now performs the instant you lay him anywhere. This week he discovered the jumpy seat where he can practice bipedalism and propel himself to thrilling heights. At his four-month appointment he shocked the pediatrician by "tripoding," sitting up -- a six-month milestone; we credit Duncan Green, Tucker's personal trainer. Reeve brings Tucker his little stuffed puppy dog "Douglas," which Tucker can now reach for and grab, and reads him "Dora" books. The babysitters affectionately call the Baby of Unusual Size "Baby Gordo" (chubby baby). The winter is a happy blur of snowstorms, visits from loved ones, trips to Arizona and New Hampshire, and Reeve's 3rd birthday party. Tucker and I find our way back to that timeless place when we sit quietly and nurse, but more often the lights of the universe stream past us in bright ribbons. We are back in Time. But everything is changed. Pieces of myself long broken are mended. I am grateful beyond measure for this little guy. Our family unit feels complete, as if the last passenger got on board and we are off...

A Few of the Ways This Pregnancy Has Changed Me

Since I'm still pregnant, I thought I'd take this moment to catalog just a few ways I've changed over these past 9 months.

(1) My main preoccupation these days is the Bloody Show. This isn't something out of "New Moon" (the teen vampire flick currently in theaters) but rather that hopeful little trace of blood-laced mucus that would indicate the onset of Labor sometime soon. This morning there was a hint of pink!

(2) Nine months ago I was a size 10 P (petite). Today I am a solid size 10 B (bulbous). Ditto for my bra size. As a consequence, Reeve, who gave up nursing last summer, has re-discovered my "mum-mums" as objects of curiosity. (I hope he doesn't re-discover a taste for Mama lattes once Baby shows up.)

(3) I've become an Oxytocin Devotee. My particular interest is the interaction and conflict between oxytocin (the love hormone) and adrenaline (the flight or fight hormone) during birth. I hadn't understood how the closely the cascade of birthing hormones follows the same sequence as the sexual response in women (isn't nature clever?), or how logical it is that an excess of fear hormones would counteract that process. How cool is it that the New York Times just reported on my favorite hormone?
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/24angier.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=oxytocin&st=cse

(4) My carbon footprint has more than doubled. Just as the Obama administration lured consumers to buy gas-saving vehicles, Jordy and I traded our Toyota Prius (45 mpg) in for a Volvo XC70 (18 mpg). By the government's formula for tax off-sets, we should have paid a $16,000 penalty for the exchange.

(5) I have received a promotion. My title has been C.O.O. (Chief Operating Officer) & co-C.E.O. (Jordy was my co-Executive, along with his other designation as C.F.O.). This morning Jordy and Duncan discussed my contributions to the creation of this family, and while they gave Jordy credit for Conceptual Contributions, they agreed that I deserved the rank of C.M.O.(Chief Manufacturing Officer), along with my aforementioned titles. Compensation will be in stock options.

(6) I have become a practitioner of Kundalini Yoga, without a clue what cosmic forces I am engaging. What it looks like, among other things, is a bunch of pregnant women squatting together in a circle moving our Kegel muscles in harmony to a woman's airy voice singing "Sa-ta-nam!" which means something about honoring my truth and my inner wisdom, etc. At the end, when we hold our bellies and join the woman in singing, "May the long time sun shine upon you, all light surround you, all love surround you... And the pure light within you, guide your way on!" to our babies, I find tears streaming down my face. I don't ask a lot of questions.

(7) I have become a recluse. This is a relative term, given the general Green family tendency to extroversion, but for two weeks now it's fair to say I've not made a single play date. I find pick-ups and drop-offs at school, usually a nice brief encounter with other adults, to be socially taxing. My inner female animal tells me to walk the dog for hours on end in the park, then return home and curl up under a blanket. However, sine Baby didn't come as early as we thought he might, based on past experience, I'm finding that my self-imposed isolation is starting to make me weird. What to do now? Should I crawl out of my shell for a breather, even as each day brings D-day closer? Thank God for my dear friend Jeanne in Palo Alto, due 12 days after me, who has a knack for calling at the exact moment when I think I've gone over the edge. And to Ali and Maria, who keep closer tabs on me.

(8) I have joined the iTunes revolution. After resisting the whole thing, even mocking it, the idea of a "birthing" playlist hooked me and I'm a junky. I've cleared two bookshelves in the living room by filing our CDs in a binder. I digitized the ones I want to listen to. I, Samantha Jane, am "synching" my iPhone to my iTunes. I've started up "Smart Playlists." I've bought a battery-powered speaker set that can travel with me to whatever room I feel like laboring in. And at this moment, I am listening to "It's Raining Men," which I dowloaded easily at the iTunes store along with "May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You." My New Age playlist may do the trick, but I suspect the Weather Girls might give me the extra power I need to birth my third little man.

(9) The Good Girl has apparently given way to the Radical. I'm not sure when I drifted over the line, or who even drew the line. I was raised to believe women can birth babies, that it's a natural process that sometimes needs medical intervention. I gave birth to my first two in a hospital. I'm going to see if I can give birth to this guy at home. If we need to, we'll use the back-up of the hospitals nearby. Safe birth is the goal, and in my view, safety starts with my own preparation -- tackling my fears, or at least engaging them, so I don't set of the physiology of fear that comes with pain, as well as taking good care of myself physically and mentally these 9 months. It means lining up the right support, first and foremost my husband and our certified nurse midwife, then medical resources as needed, and wise women who've got my back. I've come to believe that the term "Home" Birth is most wisely taken as a metaphor. I care less where I give birth geographically than that I feel fully engaged in the doing of this. For me, anesthesia and continuous fetal monitors feel a bit like wiring up Tom Brady and sending him onto the field. If I get a serious body slam, I will be grateful for the support on the sidelines and will have no problem asking for their help. But I believe I'm the one who fundamentally has to do this thing, together with my little passenger.

(10) I have awakened to the cervical imagery that permeates the universe. I wear a necklace with a circular Polynesian nut pendant that is about 2 centimeters dilated. On December 1st the full moon rose over Prospect Park, a ripe, glowing, fully dilated cervix!

(11) I am learning how to live in the rubber time of the present moment. Day stretches after day, and here we are. Time to go check on the Bloody Show.

On the Run from the Piggie

I take it back. I am, or was, afraid of the swine flu, judging from my reflex to kick my husband not only out of the bedroom, but out of the house for a week. Lest I come off as the brute that I was, I need to back up and explain the circumstances.

Just before Halloween, my beloved husband flew to a resort in Palm Springs for the wedding of dear friends. Given that I was 35 weeks pregnant, it was Halloween weekend (the Brooklyn equivalent of Mardi Gras in New Orleans), and Duncan's 5th birthday, Jordy and I decided that I would stay home while he would represent us at the wedding. My mother intended to come to Brooklyn to help me with the kids and the multiple waves of festivities.

The Piggie first raised his head when my mother decided to cancel her Dartmouth coach bus reservation from New Hampshire to Manhattan. The Dartmouth College campus has been awash with swine flu; so, she reasoned, it probably wasn't a good idea to ride for five hours in closed quarters with a bunch of college students. She was awaiting knee surgery and feared the flu would set her surgery date back. By this logic, I asked, perhaps she should consider whether it was a good idea to visit on a weekend that involved two little kid birthday parties, not to mention the 400-500 vampires, Darth Vaders, mummies, and zombie brides we expected on our doorstep on Hallow's Eve? She slept on it, then awoke the next morning in appropriate epidemiological terror. Trip over. Score one for the Piggie.

The three days of Jordy's absence passed in a blur of sugar, spider webs, mummy wrappings, pumpkin innards, shrieking children, Chinese take-out, and musical chairs to the "Monster Mash." Jordy arrived Sunday morning after a red-eye flight, just in time to walk the dog before the arrival of the last and biggest wave: Duncan's twelve closest school friends, their siblings, their parents, and I believe even some grandparents. By two o'clock when the cake crumbs had settled, Jordy and Reeve collapsed on the couch downstairs. I drifted in and out of consciousness upstairs to the strains of "Viva, Mexico! Hey hey hey! Viva, turn up the radio!" while Duncan watched his new DVD, Scooby Doo and the Monster from Mexico. At bedtime, Jordy and I congratulated ourselves on pulling off the big weekend -- and germ-free, no less.

Monday morning, still exhausted from Saturday's lost night of sleep, Jordy went into the office to find a junior colleague "not feeling well" after a big Halloween weekend of drinking. By noon the junior colleague had gone home to sleep it off. By Tuesday the junior colleague had not returned to work.

Cross-cut: At school pick-up Tuesday, two other pregnant mothers and I commiserated about the daily New York Times coverage of pregnant women and swine flu. One nicely terrifying story told of a woman in Florida whose baby was removed by emergency c-section at 28 weeks while the mother was in the ICU; the baby had died, and the mother was hanging on by a thread. I had a vaccine shot scheduled for Friday, but our pediatrician had already run out of shots for the kids. One of the other pregnant moms had tracked down a clinic that had 500 doses. It was clear across Brooklyn, but would I like the contact information?

After school the next day I drove the kids an hour through coagulated rush-hour traffic to a clinic in Williamsburg. Orthodox Jewish mothers with far more -- and better behaved -- children watched my two boys tear around the waiting room as I filled out endless paper work. In the exam room, we only destroyed one blood pressure hose before the doctor appeared and gave the boys their shots. A tiny bead of clear liquid remained on Reeve's arm after the needle was withdrawn. Did he get the full dose? I wondered but decided not to ask. Did I need one? The doctor asked. No, I had an appointment at NYU on Friday with my own doctor. "See you in 30 days for the second dose, then!" the doctor said. Second dose? We have to go through this again?

On the drive home, weakened by traffic and children fighting in the back seat over whether to listen to Scooby Doo or MammaMia!, I let my petty angels whisper resentful thoughts. Three days at a resort in Palm Springs vs. three days of pregnant solo parenting in Brooklyn...?

Boiling the water for pasta, I prepared carefully how to express my condition to Jordy. He is not always sanguine when I reach Wits' End (a generous over-reaction on his part, like an allergy that makes him flare up in anger when I am discontented before being able to hear that it's not his fault). I was genuinely exhausted, but I knew the risk of letting resentment drive the conversation. I dispersed my petty angels and resolved to make a clean ask for help.

6:15. Jordy walked in the door. "Hi, Sweetie. I think I've hit the wall-" I began, but stopped. He looked wind-blown and flushed, as if he had run -- or been chased -- home. "I feel like crap," he said quietly.

My resolve vanished. A mob of petty angels rushed in. Was this a Man Cold? How dare he? In my moment of need, he turns up with a stuffy nose?

But I contained myself, and the chattering voices within, and encouraged him to take his temperature. 99 degrees. We carried on with dinner. He handled the bath and bedtime stories, while I did the dishes and walked the dog. He took out the trash. But by bedtime, he reported feeling worse. Since I hadn't had my shot, I asked if he would be willing to sleep in the TV room.

Thursday morning. I took the early shift with Reeve at six. When Jordy appeared in the kitchen doorway at seven o'clock, I had to admit, he looked bad. He was reading his iPhone and shaking his head. "Dylan tested positive for H1N1." Dylan, you might guess, is the aforementioned junior colleague.

"How do you feel?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"Like a train hit me," he said from the doorway. He took a step forward. I took a step back. He stopped.

The previous 15 hours played back in dizzying rewind: Shots. Effluence on Reeve's arm - did he get enough? "See you in 30 days for the second dose!" "No, thanks, I have an appointment at NYU with my own doctor on Friday." Duncan sharing Halloween candy with Jordy after dinner. Jordy giving baths and bedtime stories.

Vicious little piggies with wings were flying throughout our house! I knew my own body was defenseless. Would the boys' little bodies be able to hold?

"I don't know what to do," Jordy said, adrift.

A reptilian part of my brain took over. "I need you to go to your office apartment."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"But it take a week."

"I can't be the one to take care of you now."

"I understand. I'll just get some things together."

"Okay." He plodded up the stairs. "Oh, and Sweetie? While you are up there, can you open the windows of the TV room and put on the fan?"

Moments later, the boys and I waved through the window as he left. He waved back sadly. That would be the last we'd see of him for four days.

Score Two for the Piggie.

Thursday I filled a Tamiflu prescription my midwife had given me, "just in case," and began taking the prophylactic dosage. My doctor bumped me to the front of the line, so as soon as I dropped the kids at school I got on the subway to Manhattan where strangers seemed to cast swine-like shadows... Or was it I who was casting the shadow with a snout?

When I got to the doctor, I informed him proudly that I had already taken a Tamiflu pill that morning. He shook his head. "Then I'm not sure the shot will do you any good. Tamiflu changes the way your immune system reacts to the shot."

Panic. "But only the live denatured nasal spray, I believe?" I had read the pharmaceutical information cover to cover on the train. Had I misunderstood? I wanted to cry. He went to his computer. Eight long silent minutes while he double checked the medical literature. Not even NYU doctors, I realized, know everything about this flu.

At last he stood up. "Pull up your sleeve."

Every day I nearly worked up a fever watching the boys and myself for fever. It can take up to seven days for the immune system to build up the antibody reaction. We canceled all play dates. We said hello to neighbors from a distance. Although I took the kids to the Bronx Zoo on Saturday to avoid an even worse case of cabin fever, we spoke to no one and kept our distance, feeling safer among the Okapi animals than among other humans.

I discovered that one of the hardest side effects of plague is the isolation.

On Sunday we met Jordy in Prospect Park. I wanted to hug him. The boys wanted to climb on him. But we had decided on a no-touch visit. He had been free of fever for 12 hours but still felt like his muscles had been pulverized. Could he come home? He went back to the office for a nap, after which we would decide. By evening his fever had returned. Had we rushed it?

Jordy finally came home on Tuesday, six days after his first flush of fever and 36 hours after it had abated. I finished the 10-day course of Tamiflu four days later. So far, not a smidge of temperature.

I picture a Fellowship of the Antibodies, B-cells and T-cells, coursing through our four -- no, five -- little bodies, slaying evil micro-piggies left and right.

Score one, Green Beans.

My Run as a Mermaid

When I became a parent, I expected stinky diapers, tantrums, even - thanks to my sisters - a painful learning curve on breastfeeding. I didn't expect parenthood to give me my break as a Broadway star.

Most new parents share the experience of pushing air through rusty vocal chords, resurrecting the classics to ease a crying infant to sleep - "Twinkle Twinkle," "ABC," "Ba-Ba-Black-Sheep," eventually moving on to other tunes such as "Rock-a-Bye-Baby" or "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round." When those don't work, we rack our brains, dragging up Middle School choir tunes ("On Top of Old Smokey," anyone?) or "Jingle Bells" (the kid doesn't care that it's August - or that he's Jewish). Our oldest child, Duncan, was satisfied with whatever tunes we came up with, however in or out of tune they were, as long as we kept singing. We pulled out some Elvis ("Take my heart, take my whole life too") and Elton John ("How wonderful life is now you're in the world"), which seemed to capture our new reality as parents.

His younger brother, however, had more specific requirements.

It began one rainy weekend like any other when we rented a DVD from the movie store. Duncan had heard about a movie called "The Little Mermaid" from one of his friends at school. Duncan, who was 3 at the time, watched with rapt attention. We expected Reeve, who was 1, to watch for his usual span of five minutes, then wander off to unload the pots and pans from the cupboard or bang on his mini-piano. Not so. Reeve was transfixed.

Needless to say, we had to watch the movie as many times as possible before the midnight deadline at the movie store. Then, to put off the endless demands to rent it again, I had the great idea to buy the soundtrack. That way, I justified to myself, at least their little Disney-colonized imaginations would be exercised in conjuring the magical underwater world through the evocation of music. Of the ten hours driving from New York back and forth on our many trips to New Hampshire, at least five were spent looping mermaid Ariel's aria of longing, "Part of Your World". Desperate efforts by the parents to move on to another song -- or another CD? -- were met with roof-raising protests.

The season of The Little Mermaid corresponded with a major effort to get Reeve to sleep at night in his crib. He fought falling sleep like a tarpin fights the fishing line. His non-negotiable requirement before surrender: That I sing "Part of Your World," in its entirety.

At first I performed the task out of duty and desperation.

"Look at this stuff,
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl,
girl who has everything?

Look at this trove,
Treasures untold,
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you think, sure,
She's got everything?

I've got gadgets and gizmos a plenty,
I've got who-sits and whats-its galore,
You want thing-a-ma-bobs,
I got twenty,
But who cares? No big deal?
I want more......"

But soon I found something curious going on. As I watched Reeve's little eyes, wide open and fixed on the ceiling, I felt his longing for more. Could he already have figured out that the world is filled with useless gizmos and gadgets that distract us from what we really long for? What do I long for that I've lost track of?

"I want to be where the people are,
I want to see, want to see 'em dancing,
Strolling along on those, what's that word again?
Oh, feet...
Flipping your fins you don't get too far,
Legs are required for jumping, dancing,
Walking along on those, what's that word again?
Streets!"

Did I hear my little audience member sigh? My little wobbly walker just figuring out how to walk, jump, dance? My pre-verbal toddler longing for the power of words? The sincerity of his longing to be a part of this big human world, against his instinctual awareness of his limits, cracked my heart open.

"Up where they walk, up where they run,
Up where they stay all day in the sun,
Wandering free, wish I could be,
Part of that World!"

Childhood memories flooded me. Longing to be included in my older sister's Barbie games with her friends; longing to be one of the "big kids" allowed to go out to dinner at the Sail Loft with the cousins; longing to escape the chubby body that attracted Paul Appleton's taunts of "Miss Piggy" at the bus stop; longing to defy gravity by completing an axel jump on figure skates...

I was no longer a mother crouched on the carpet of her son's nursery. I was a mermaid, perched on a rock, singing from the depths of my soul.

"What would I give if I could live outta these waters?
What would it take to spend a day warm on the sand?
Betcha on land they understand that they don't reprimand their daughters!
Bright young women, sick of swimming,
Ready to Stand!"

Were those tears in my eyes as my mermaid self recalled all the dreams of my bright young woman self? To participate in the world? To lead a life that matters? To make art and tell stories that move people the way I was being moved by this song? My voice quivered now with emotion as the full import of the song penetrated and I wondered, did I ever Stand?

"I'm ready to know what the people know,
Asking my questions and get some answers,
What's a fire and why does it, what's the word, Burn?"

I was burning now. How many questions had I abandoned? Lost in the category of, "I don't have time" or "I'm too tired"? My voice soared with heart-felt emotion. A single spotlight held me in the darkness. My audience was spellbound by the power of the music, by the truth of my performance. Each note mattered. It must be exactly right. I was the voice of the universal desire that lives in each of our hearts, and which we must not let die!

"When's it my turn, wouldn't I love,
Love to explore the shore up above?"

Wait for it now. I took my time. I gave each word its deserved moment.

"Out of the sea, wish I could be,
Part of that world..."

The spotlight dimmed. I had so transported my audience they couldn't even muster applause.

I opened my eyes. My little audience looked at me through the bars of his crib, quiet, intent, and uttered a single word, "Again."

And so began my Broadway career. Digging into the depths of my soul, three performances a night, for months. Until one night, he didn't want it any more. And I realized, with a little sadness, that the show had closed.

The Big, Big Stick

Reeve found a big, big stick. It was twice as long as his whole body. It had two long prongs like giant witch's fingers. When Reeve swung it, he could stop traffic. Cool.

His older brother took notice. "Hey, give me that." Duncan made a grab for it.

"No, Gungcan, it MY 'tick!" Reeve whipped it away, nearly taking out a passing biker.

Duncan lunged again, but his brother hung tough, especially for a two-year old. Duncan let go and strolled away. "Who cares. It's not such a great stick anyway."

"It is a great 'tick!" Reeve protested.

"No, it's not."

"It IS!"

Duncan pretended not to care as he hunted among the fallen leaves. As last he found a little stick, more of a twig really. "Now, THIS is a great stick. Don't you want this one, Reeve? I'll trade you."

"No."

"Reeve! Give it to me!" Reeve shook his head. Duncan checked to see if his mom was looking. Nope. He snatched Reeve's stick.

"GUNGCAN! IT MINE!" Reeve howled. Now their mom was looking.

"Duncan, give it back," she said. He held firm as Reeve yanked the other end. "Duncan? Now." He let go.

"Aw! No fair!" Duncan plopped cross-legged in the middle of the path. Strollers and joggers swerved to avoid him. After a minute or so of good pouting, Duncan got up and ran across the grass to the edge of the woods.

Meanwhile, Reeve waved his stick in victory. Strollers and joggers swerved to avoid him.

"Reeve, you have to keep the stick down or I'll take it away," his mom warned, to no effect. "Reeve, do I need to take it?"

"No! My 'tick!" he shouted as he ran away, menacing dogs and their walkers.

His mother caught him and took the stick. "We can't hurt other people with our sticks." She snapped off the long prongs, leaving the stick no longer than Reeve's own little arm, then handed it back. Reeve looked at his maimed stick as if to say, what's the point?

"What happened to Reeve's stick?" Duncan was breathing hard. He had returned from the woods with the biggest stick ever. It was five times as long as his whole body. If you put it upright, it could almost be its own tree.

"Wow, Gungcan!" Reeve's eyes bulged. "Can I have it?"

"No. It's my stick," Duncan said.

"Please!" Reeve cried.

"That's yours!" Duncan took pleasure in pointing to the small remains of Reeve's stick.

"No, it not!" Reeve cast the useless thing aside.

Duncan wrapped both arms around his limb and dragged it with all his might. Reeve lifted the opposite end.

"Let go!" Duncan ordered his brother. "This is my stick!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

The problem with such a big stick, Duncan realized, was that he was only one person and he couldn't defend the whole thing. Much less move it. He sensed an opportunity.

"Okay, Reeve. You can help me. Go this way."

"Okay!"

Together they managed to drag it across the path. They stopped to catch their breath. Now bikers, strollers, and dog walkers had no way to pass.

"Boys, you have to move the stick back onto the grass," their mom demanded.

Duncan pulled one way. Reeve pulled the other.

"Reeve! You're going the wrong way!"

"No, I not! You go wrong way!"

"We have to bring it over here!"

"No, we don't!"

Duncan stomped his feet. Reeve dug in his heels.

"Quickly, boys!" their mom insisted. Traffic was building up.

Wearily Duncan looked at the heavy branch. All the fun was gone. He looked around for an escape.

Dandelions!

"Hey, Reeve, let's bring the stick over to those flowers!"

Intrigued, Reeve looked up. "Flowers?!"

Together they hauled the branch to a grassy knoll where some dandelions had gone to seed. Duncan abandoned the branch and plucked a fuzzy white orb.

"I wish for... chocolate cake for my birthday!" Duncan said and blew. The seeds drifted up into the evening sky.

Reeve picked a dandelion for himself. "I wish for... chocolate cake!" Reeve yelled and blew, missing. He pulled the seeds off and threw them in the air.

Duncan ran to the next dandelion. "I wish for... a pizza parlor and a toy store right across the street from my house that I can go to any time I want!"

Reeve picked another. "I wish for... chocolate cake!"

A pseudo-metaphysics of birth

I believe it was Jungian psychologist James Hillman in Healing Fiction who gave me a helpful way to think about dreams: Treat their images, characters, and stories -- however nonsensical -- "As If" they were true. They can give voice to the realities of the soul silenced by the ego chatter box of the waking brain.

I probably like the As If approach because it gives me a way in and a way out at the same time. In other words, I'm not accountable for the implied metaphysics.

As I get ready to give birth to this child, a lot of As Ifs are popping up in both my sleeping and day dreams, which grow daily with my swelling belly. The dreams center around a single question: Where do these children come from?

In August, 2003 I became pregnant for the first time. We had been trying. I'd learned how to chart my temperature and look for changes in discharge, etc. and yet it had taken more than six months. I was between two film shoots when I discovered the source of my utter exhaustion. At five weeks an ultrasound detected the first flutter of a heart beat. We were thrilled. Jordy and I took a weekend trip to Sequoia National Park, where we forwent air-conditioning in our cabin in favor of open windows to smell and be one with nature. That night I learned the advantages of being two with nature when a bear came to the window behind our bed, sniffing for treats. "THIS IS WHEN WE'RE SUPPOSED TO TALK LOUDLY!" I yelled at sleeping Jordy, who thought I had decided to take up some issue in our relationship at two in the morning. "Huh?" he mumbled as I switched on lights. "There's a bear on the porch! The National Park flyer said we should talk loudly!" Jordy looked out the window in time to catch a glimpse of the beast's round rear as he (or she) schlumped off the porch into the blackness. In the morning, Jordy and I toyed with the idea that the bear was a spirit guide to our baby, who from then on we called "Baby Bear."

Soon after I flew back east for a film festival and quick visit to family in New England. It was too early to tell anyone I was pregnant, so when I began to bleed, I had no one to tell of my grief. I retreated to my mother's garden to cry privately, and I remember the petals of her black-eyed susans reaching to me like a child's fingers. I was almost 34 and already getting the "Advanced Maternal Age" treatment from doctors. I menstruated late as a teenager and never had regular cycles. It was easy to slide into the despair that I wasn't destined to be a mom.

But miraculously, the bleed-throughs stopped. When I went to my doctor back in Los Angeles, she said everything looked fine. By Halloween, we were confident enough to tell friends and family of Baby Bear's expected arrival in April. The next day I went to a routine check-up. Dr. Lau kept a poker face as she reported something odd on the ultrasound. Baby Bear had developed a cyst in his abdomen. We would give it until Monday to see if it resolved itself.

Over the weekend, Jordy was anxious but I was strangely cool. I said I trusted Baby Bear. I don't even know what I meant by that. Monday I went back alone, confident it would have resolved as the earlier bleeding had. But the cyst was bigger. In a matter of minutes, second and third opinions were collected from the heads of UCLA Obstetrics and Neonatalogy. This baby was not viable, I was informed. He had a rare developmental problem; he couldn't pass fluids, making his bladder a cyst as big as the rest of his body. His other internal organs were already compromised and soon his heart would stop beating. For my health and safety, I needed to terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible.

On November 6, Jordy and I elected to induce premature labor, rather than follow the more aggressive procedure the doctors recommended. It was slow and painful, but we got to hold Baby Bear in our hands and say goodbye. We had his body cremated and placed in a tiny box that has traveled with us ever since.

Every Friday night for months afterwards, we lit a candle As If to guide him back to us. I don't know what to believe about where we come from or go, but I had a strong instinct to light the candle and tell him, again and again, how much we wanted him, how we hoped to give him a healthy body next time.

In February, I got pregnant again. This little guy's pregnancy was robust from the start. Never a bleed-through, never an alarming ultrasound. April 30, Baby Bear's due date, passed with the comfort of hope and the bittersweet realization that these two beings could never have co-existed. Duncan Ira Green was born November 1, 2004, almost exactly one year from the day we said goodbye to Baby Bear. It felt almost As If he followed the light of the candle and heard our voices. But what do I know about how any of this stuff works?

July 14, 2006. Jordy, Baby Duncan and I were driving up the coast of California to Santa Cruz for a visit with sister Annie and college friends at Stanford. Somewhere in the blinding sunshine of Monterey County we pulled into a gas station to fill up and change a diaper when my cellphone rang. It was my mother. My beloved grandfather Bob Reeve, known as "Gar" to the grandkids, would probably not survive the weekend. Two weeks earlier he had celebrated the 4th of July by bone fishing on Long Island Sound, but the next night, thanks to a blown-out night light, he had hit his head on his bathroom door jam. He was on blood-thinners; the internal bleeding was impossible to stem. Day by day he'd grown more remote and the pain had worsened. He was unconscious. My grandmother had finally made the excruciating decision to stop hydrating him.

I almost got on a plane back to Connecticut, but I knew Gar would have swatted his hand at me and said, "Be with your friends, have a ball." He never had time for death. His own mother died in the Spanish flu epidemic when he was two, and as far as I could tell, his mother had given him a double dose of vitality that super-powered his 89 years on earth. I addressed my gratitude and goodbyes to the Pacific Ocean instead, where sea and air merged in waves of mist suffused with late afternoon sunlight. That night I said to Jordy, Let's make a baby.

I like to imagine the meeting of that child, who shot into the world exactly nine months later, with his great-grandfather at the crossroads of infinity. I like to imagine that Gar gave Baby Reeve a specific gift -- the twinkle in his eye, and all the powers that come with it.

When Reeve was conceived, we had a vague plan to move back to New York. When we were evicted from our rental in Los Angeles, we asked ourselves if this wasn't the universe telling us it was time to go "home." We'd heard Brooklyn was a good place to raise kids while close enough to family in New England, finance work for Jordy, and independent film for me. We followed the baby stroller stampede to Park Slope where we found a nice house on a tree-lined street and made an offer. When I emailed my mom the address, she mapped it and wrote back: "That's right down the street from the cemetery where the Reeve family is buried!"

Baby Reeve was born in a room with a view of the Statue of Liberty and spent the first two hours of his life eating. He came out in 5 hours start to finish, and I haven't stopped chasing him since. At age two, he has strong opinions on music, loves hockey sticks and soccer balls, derives great glee from making "hooting" echoes in tunnels, and sleeps with legs and arms out bolt straight. Anyone who knew my grandfather might say it's almost As If... But I don't know how any of this stuff works.

My husband, who moonlights as an amateur epidemiologist, has been following the recent outbreak of swine flu closely. The timing is not great for me to be pregnant, given the higher risk profile, and it's hard to brush off given the family history. So, if one were to give any credence to the above "As If," could it follow that... it's As If I am Gar's mother, Camilla? Following my baby boy through incarnations? There are enough parallels to pause. But then I laugh at the ludicrousness of such thinking. (I pride myself on being more scientific than not.) But, against my will, a little narrative spins off, imagining what if. So here's something strange I just thought of this week when it snowed in New England on my 40th birthday.

In 1918 Camilla Reeve took her two-year old sledding, where it's believed she contracted the flu that took her life. I was born on October 13, 1969 when a fluke early snow storm hit Boulder, Colorado. My mom took my older sister sledding that day, the gravitational force of which she muses precipitated my birth. Coincidence, I'm sure. But what if?

I am not afraid of the swine flu. I am not Camilla, and Reeve is not Gar, and I have no idea if Duncan is Baby Bear, or who this little guy is who pogo-jumps on my ribs all night long. I really don't know where we come from or go to, and mostly I'd rather let the mystery be. But if I allow myself to think As If we were all these people before and again, what do I see?

A powerful web of determined and personal love. Second chances to learn how to live and love better. A will to keep trying, even when our bodies fail us. An immortality that requires no cushy clouds or harps, but exists in a persistent pattern of life.

It is As If I am a character in an on-going story, As If my life matters, As If I'm part of something much bigger than myself of which I occasionally catch glimpses.

The Thought Train Derails

I imagine this is a preview of senility. I find myself in a nether zone between the "order" I had made for myself and a mental chaos that is overtaking me, where I am both aware that I'm not making sense but I can't seem to get it back on track. I used to start my day with a plan, goals on a to-do list that I attacked methodically. (1) Get kids to school. (2) Write in journal. (3) Call contractors. (4) Research documentary film festivals and funding sources. (5) Fold laundry. Etc. Not a very exciting list, but reassuring. But these days, I can't get anything straight.

The bedroom MUST be painted, and it must be Hawthorne Yellow, and I can't think about anything else until it's done. But then again, the brick in the kitchen is crumbling, and we can't hang the kitchen lights or plaster the holes in the wall until we get that done, but the mason can't get here until maybe next week, and the brand new back door is leaking, and oh my god, I never paid September's pre-school bill, not to mention October's, which is due today, and I haven't read my writer's group pieces, and how did my video camera get specks of Hawthorne Yellow on it? And I haven't called CBS construction about the cover for the bathroom radiator, where of course Reeve burned his hand this morning -- only the second day the boiler has even kicked on, and why didn't I just take care of this in July when I first started worrying about it? And I need to order the rug for the bedroom. Should I be pursuing the H1N1 vaccine more aggressively? The pediatrician tells me it's going to be chaos when it's released, even though I'm supposed to be the top-priority group, but this is New York where you have to fight to get anything -- which reminds me to ask Memar whether it's possible Gar's mom was pregnant when she died of the flu in 1918 -- this possibility raised by Jordy, given the greater mortality rate of pregnant women, adding a whole new level of tragedy to that situation -- but really, do I need to be thinking about this right now?

The thing is, I've got those wiggles in my fingers again, the electric pulses I only get when I stand before something that truly terrifies or excites me or both, and I suppose that Thing would be Giving Birth. As I said to Jordy, chat chat chat, at 10 pm last night while the poor man's eyes were at quarter mast, I am reminded, There Is Only One Way Out of This Situation. I've gone along with the pleasant hormonal high of pregnancy for some months now, just big enough to be visibly With Child, not too big to be uncomfortable or have to contemplate the Big Event. But this week I declare myself 7 months pregnant, because suddenly the urgency to paint my bedroom a cozy yellow that I imagine will welcome my baby as if in California sunshine, despite the New York winter solstice that will actually greet him, has overtaken all other rational thoughts. (In truth, he'd probably prefer a dark chocolate room, like the one he has inhabited these months, but tough luck, kid, it's Hawthorne Yellow or bust.)

So I guess my disordered mental condition might be called Nesting Syndrome. It does not, however, feel serene like the little robin who sings while gathering her sticks and twigs in Mary Poppins. It feels more like frantically trying to build a sand castle while wave after wave washes over my efforts. (Today I opened the Hawthorne Yellow to discover it had been improperly mixed -- not only did the can almost explode from over-filling, but the yellow was so light, it was practically Weston Flax, heaven forfend!)

Waves brings me to this summer, while on Fire Island, I had just gotten Reeve to sleep under our sun umbrella, the gentle waves lulling boy and pregnant momma into a happy afternoon slumber, when not two minutes later a rogue wave, exactly 8 feet wide and vicious, overtook the embankment and doused us in cold waking reality. Not a single other person at our same latitude on the beach got hit. Waves have an agenda of their own.

Which brings me to, of course, labor. I remember now how quickly the waves came with Reeve, and even at this safe distance the memory constricts my breath. The first two contractions were 5 minutes apart, and they only got closer from there. His labor was so much faster than Duncan's that I felt like a marathon runner who found herself thrown into the 100m sprint. I now know how different each labor can be, so I approach the third time with humility and, to be honest, a little more fear.

I know fear is the enemy. It will make me tense and obstruct Baby's passage rather than ease it. It will shred the last remnant of order from my thoughts. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and so on. Yes! I chant the mantra. But I just noticed that this latter bit of oft-quoted wisdom leaves off at a diagnosis without a prescription for getting OVER it. Clearly a statement made by a man who never gave birth. (Ok, so the man had polio, but still?)

So I will turn to Jodi (as in Foster) who tells me, "Go toward your fear." Deep breath. Okay, I've done this before. Some woman did it for every person walking the earth; so too can I. Maybe it will even be a "beautiful experience." And now it's time to go pick Reeve up from school already, a track for this train to grab hold of. And then we will make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, and then we'll have a nap, and then it will be time to pick up Duncan...