Time collapses. There's nothing but this room, this moment, Jamie straining in my arms and the steady encouragement of the medical team and the overwhelming, impossible pressure of new life forcing its way into the world.
"I can see the head," she announces. "One more push, Jamie. One more."
Jamie screams. Actually screams, a sound I've never heard from him, raw and primal and utterly beyond control. His hand finds mine, crushes it, and I don't care, I don't care about anything except—
A cry.
Thin and reedy and absolutely perfect, cutting through the chaos like a knife.
"It's a girl," Dr. Reyes says, and there's a smile in her voice now. "A beautiful baby girl."
They place her on Jamie's chest. She's red and wrinkled and covered in fluids and she's the most incredible thing I've ever seen. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her tiny fists waving in outrage at the indignity of being born, and she's here, she's real, she's ours.
"Oh," Jamie breathes. His hands come up to cradle her, instinctive and sure. "Oh, hello."
She quiets at his touch, her cries softening to whimpers. Her eyes open and I could swear she's looking right at me.
"Hi," I manage. My voice is wrecked. There are tears on my face; I don't remember starting to cry. "Hi, sweetheart."
Jamie looks up at me, and his expression—exhausted, overwhelmed, incandescently happy—is something I will remember for the rest of my life.
"We made her," he says. "We actually made her."
"Yeah." I lean down, press my forehead to his, one hand reaching out to touch our daughter's tiny fingers. "We did."
She grips my finger with surprising strength. Holds on like she's never going to let go.
I know the feeling.
The next few hours are a blur. They take the baby to clean her up, check her vitals, do all the things that need doing. Jamiesleeps, finally, deeply, while I sit beside him and watch our daughter in her little bassinet and try to process the fact that my entire life has changed.
She's so small. I knew babies were small, intellectually, but knowing and seeing are different things. She fits in my two hands with room to spare. Her fingernails are perfect tiny crescents. Her hair is dark and soft, just a wisp of it, and when she yawns, I can see her gums, pink and bare.
"You can hold her," the nurse says, catching me staring. "She's all yours."
I pick her up carefully, terrified of doing something wrong. She squirms in my arms, makes a small sound of protest, then settles against my chest with a sigh that seems far too world-weary for someone who's only been alive for three hours.
"I'm your dad," I tell her quietly. I adjust my hold, supporting her head the way the nurses showed me. "I'm going to make a lot of mistakes. I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm going to love you so much, and I'm going to try so hard, and I hope that's enough."
She blinks up at me. Doesn't respond, obviously—she's a newborn—but something in her expression feels like acceptance.
"Carter?"
Jamie's voice, rough with sleep. I turn to find him watching us, his eyes soft.
"Hey," I say. "Look who's awake."
"Bring her here?"
I carry our daughter to the bed, settle her in Jamie's arms. He looks down at her with wonder, one finger tracing the curve of her cheek.
"She needs a name," he says.
"She does."
"I was thinking..." He pauses. "What about Maria? After my mother?"
My throat tightens. "Maria Dean-Crane."
