The nurse counted. Dr. Harrison coached Ava. Somebody told me to breathe. Somebody else told me not to waste my energy screaming. I wanted all of them to shut the hell up, but Reek’s voice cut through all of it. “You got this. Come on, Ava. That’s my BB.”
“I can’t,” I sobbed again.
“Yes, you can.” He brushed the sweaty hair off my forehead and made me look at him. “Who are you?”
I let out a broken laugh in the middle of tears because he was really doing this to me right now.
“Tell me,” he urged.
“I’m a bad bitch,” I cried again.
“Louder.”
“I’m a bad bitch!”
“That’s right,” he said. “Now push like one.”
That actually made me dig down and do it.
Another contraction came, and I pushed with everything in me. My whole body shook with the effort. I screamed, cried, and thought I was going to split apart for real. But the pressure changed in that way women talk about after and never fully explain.
Dr. Harrison looked up and said, “I see his head.”
Reek sucked in a breath so hard I heard it over my own crying. Then he called out, wrecked and full of wonder, “Ava.”
I pushed again.
And again.
And then suddenly the pressure shifted in a way that made me feel like something real was happening outside of pain.
One more push.
One more scream.
Then Cairo was out. For half a second, everything in the room felt suspended. Then my son cried. That soundtore my heart fully open. I started sobbing immediately, too overwhelmed to even catch the tears as they rolled into my ears and down my cheeks. Dr. Harrison lifted him just enough for me to see him before the nurse started wiping him off and checking him.
“Oh my God,” I whispered through tears. “Oh my God.”
But as overwhelming as it was to meet my baby, what took me out even more was looking at Reek. I turned my head toward him, and the sight of him nearly made me cry harder. He had tears in his eyes. His mouth was parted slightly like he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Awe and disbelief sat all over him. He looked like the world had stopped and started over right there in front of him, and maybe for him it had.
“That’s my son,” he said, voice cracking so bad it almost didn’t sound like him. “That’s my son.”
Hearing that from Reek, from this man who had spent so much time terrified of fatherhood, love, and family, made my tears flow even more. I was watching him fully surrender to something beautiful he had previously been running from.
The nurse brought Cairo closer, and I reached for him with shaking hands. The second they laid him on my chest, I started sobbing
He was beautiful, tiny, red, despite the back of his ears, loud, and perfect.
Reek put one hand on the baby and one hand on my head, and I could feel his fingers trembling.
“He’s here,” I whispered, still staring at Cairo like he might disappear if I blinked too long.
I looked up at Reek then, and he bent down and kissed me with tears still in his eyes.
When he pulled back, he touched Cairo’s little head like he was scared to do it too rough.
“I love y’all,” he said.
