“COME ON, MACY, ONEMORE PUSH.”
Sweat beaded along her hairline, her fingers curled around the bedrails in a white-knuckled grip. The fetal monitor kept up its steady rhythm beside us, the whoosh of the baby’s heartbeat filling the room like background music.
Her partner hovered at her side, pale and wide-eyed, whispering encouragement that came out more like prayers. Betsy, my favorite nurse, dabbed Macy’s forehead with a cool cloth, and another—Anthony—stood ready with instruments gleaming under the harsh hospital room lights.
I shifted my gaze, watching the progress. “That’s it, Macy. You’re crowning. You’re almost there.”
She bore down again, a raw scream pulling from somewhere deeper than her lungs, and then, in a rush of movement that never failed to steal my breath, her baby slid into my hands, warm, slippery and alive.
A girl.
The first cry split the air. I guided her onto Macy’s chest, her tiny body instinctively finding her mother’s warmth. Macy wept, joy and exhaustion braided together on her tear-streaked face, as she whispered, “My baby, my baby girl.”
I smiled, but there was a familiar pinch in my chest, a fleeting pang that burned before I could shove it away. The way Macy looked at her daughter—as though nothing else in the world mattered, as though every bruising kick and painful contraction had been worth this one small miracle—made me wonder: hadmy own mother looked at me like that once? Just for a second? Or had she already been cataloguing the ways I would disappoint her?
It was easier not to dwell on the answer.
Macy’s partner looked up at me, eyes shining, like I’d just handed them the entire world wrapped in a pink, wriggling package. “Thank you,” he said, his voice breaking. Macy echoed it, softer, half-buried in her daughter’s hair.
I tugged at my gloves. “You did all the work.”
Still, as I stepped back, I felt the faintest echo of warmth trailing after me, like sunlight catching on my shoulders. It was the part of the job I could never quite put into words: that little residue of awe, clinging long after the baby’s first cry had faded into coos.
Butawecouldn’t write charts.
I stripped off my gown and headed straight for the nurses’ station, already tapping into the electronic medical records. My fingers flew across the keyboard, documenting vitals, Apgar scores, estimated blood loss—facts and numbers and tidy sentences that could never capture the thunderclap of a birth. My gaze flicked to the clock above the desk. One hour to finish this, drive across town, and somehow transform myself into someone who didn’t smell faintly of amniotic fluid before dinner with both of our families.
No pressure.
By the time I pushed through the glass doors of the practice I worked at—Mountain View Obstetrics & Gynecology—the scent of antiseptic had given way to the citrus cleaner they overpaid a janitorial service for. And there, like some overeager golden retriever dressed in scrubs, was Kevin.
“Dr. T!” he said, beaming. In one hand, he held my coffee, extra shot, oat milk, precisely how I liked it. In the other, mydress was wrapped in crisp plastic, the paper tag from the dry cleaner swinging like a prize ribbon.
“Your cavalry has arrived,” he declared, handing both offerings over with a flourish.
I arched an eyebrow, already reaching for the cup. “Do I even want to know how you managed dry-cleaning pickup and coffee retrieval simultaneously?”
Kevin shrugged, pleased with himself. “Let’s just say multitasking is my love language.”
“You might want to dial down the love language talk,” I said, pushing my office door open with my hip. “I’m getting married.”
Kevin stopped in his tracks, coffee sleeve dangling like he’d just been handed divorce papers. “Wait—married? Like, vows and rings and an open bar married?”
“Yup.” I nodded, toeing off my shoes and sinking into the chair with a sigh. The coffee was still hot enough to sting as I swallowed, butGod, it was worth it.
He followed me in, hanging my dress on the hook behind the door. “Didn’t peg you for the settling-down type. More like the—what’s the word?—mysterious-aunt-who-brings-back-exotic-soaps-from-Turkey type.”
I snorted. “That’s...oddly specific.”
“I had a rich imagination as a kid,” he said, clearing his throat. “So, no invite, huh?”
I blinked at him, caught off guard. “My mom handled everything,” I said. “Trust me, you’re not missing out. If I had it my way, I’d have been left off the guest list, too.”
The door cracked open, and Robert—one of the senior partners, all salt-and-pepper confidence and inappropriate humor—popped his head in. “Wow. Miss. I-Don’t-Need-A-Man is getting married? If I’d known you were capable of changing your mind, I might’ve taken a shot.”
I laughed, mostly because he thrived on reactions. “Yeah, not only do I not do men, but I definitely don’t dowhitemen.”
He smirked. “Well, you’re getting married, so obviously you’re doingoneman.”
