It felt strange to walk into the hospital, sign in calmly, and be brought to the room where I would deliver our daughter.

Since Dr. Katz was inducing me at thirty-seven weeks, I wasn’t in labor when Theo and I began unpacking our small hospital bag to find the special socks I’d ordered. I’d had this idea about birth, that there would be panic and mania leading up to pain and then finally a baby being placed in my arms.

But honestly? It all felt very procedural up to this point.

“How are you feeling?” Theo came up behind me to rub my shoulders as I pulled on the hospital gown that had been provided.

“Happy to be out of that bed,” I joked.

I’d spent every single minute in our king-sized the last three weeks, and it had been torture. You’d think that lying down, eating, and watching movies was every person’s dream … but it was also maddeningly boring. Even though I was about to push a baby out of my body, I was somewhat happy to have been outside and in a car for a short period of time.

“All right, dressed? If you could get into bed, we’re going to get your IV in.”

Now came the pain part. Since I’d been fretting over the actual pregnancy part of carrying a baby for most of the last nine months, I hadn’t really thought about delivery. But, this had to happen, and there was no use fearing it now. I just kept picturing holding my baby in my arms, and that’s what was getting me through.

Theo follows as I climb into the hospital bed, my belly bumping everything as it gets in the way. My little girl and I had been together for the last nine months … it would be strange to not have her with me at all times now.

“All right, this is going to burn a bit.” The nurse took a can of what looked like WD-40 and sprayed it on my arm.

My teeth gritted together as the freezing spray numbed the skin of my forearm, and then I felt the painful pressure as she tried to worm the IV into my vein.

Burying my face in Theo’s shoulder, I held my breath until she finally said, “All right, got it. You were a good sport.”

I try to relax, moving back onto the pillows and taking in air slowly through my nose. The spot of the IV radiates pain, but I try to see past it.

“Do you want your phone? Or want me to turn on the TV?” Theo asks.

I shake my head. “Maybe just the playlist I made. But quietly.”

He nods, fishing out my phone and flipping through my apps. Soon, the first notes of Billy Joel’s “Vienna” fill the silence.

The nurse interjects, placing a needle in the line connected to my arm. “All right, so we’re going to start you on Pitocin. This will kick-start your contractions, so they may come on fairly quick in the next hour. We’re going to monitor you and baby both for signs of distress, and Dr. Katz is on her way into the hospital, so she’ll be rounding on you in the next half an hour.”

After the injection to my IV, she leaves, and Theo and I are alone.

“What do we do now?” I shrug, feeling exactly the same way I have for the last month now.

“Can I say it? This is really fucking weird.”

I don’t even cringe at his use of the f word, because he’s correct. “Right? When you watch this in the movies, it’s all screaming and pushing and husbands fainting.”

“Don’t worry about me, baby. You can squeeze my hand until it falls off.”

“Just don’t look down there, though.” I want my body to stay wholly sexy to him.

Theo cups my face. “Baby, no matter what you look like, I am always going to find you sexy, gorgeous, beautiful, and all of the other adjectives associated with attractiveness. You will always be the most beautiful woman to me.”

How could he read my mind like that? “Just hold my hand.”

“Holy crap!” I squeeze the rails of the hospital bed, riding out the contraction as it rips through my abdomen and around to my back.

Theo turns to the nurse. “She’s in a lot of pain if she’s cursing.” Turns back to me. “Honey, I think you want that epidural now.”

I shake my head, trying to stop the room from swimming in my vision. The pain is like a white hot sheet of agony laid over me, but I don’t want to give in to it.

Dr. Katz emerges from where she’s examining my cervix. “You’re nearly there now, Imogen. I’m going to let you start pushing.”

I’ve been in labor for almost twelve hours, and I just want to see my daughter now. I’ve broken down several times through the hardest of contractions, telling Theo through sobs that all I want to do is see our baby.

I hadn’t had a birthing plan. I’d been so wrapped up in the preeclampsia diagnosis that I was going to do whatever Dr. Katz told me to once it came time for the hospital. And up until now, the pain hadn’t been horribly bad.

But now, when the word push came out of her mouth, I panicked.

“Maybe I want the epidural.” I look frantically up at Theo.

His eyes are laser-focused on me, and he speaks to the nurses and doctor without his gaze leaving my face. “Can she have the drugs?”

“The baby will be here before we can get the anesthesiologist up here. You’ll be okay, Imogen.” Dr. Katz was nodding at me.

My heart rate increases tenfold. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Theo takes my face in his hands. “You are so strong, the strongest person I’ve ever known. You’re already doing this. In a few minutes, you’ll forget this was even happening. Our Dorian will be here. You can do this, Imogen. I love you.”

“I love you,” I sobbed on the start of a contraction.

Dr. Katz readied herself as the nurses helped to put my feet in stirrups. “Okay, Imogen, this contraction is about to crest. When I tell you to push, you need to bear down and give me all you’ve got.”

The pain rose to a nauseous point, and then my doctor was demanding I push. I grabbed Theo’s hand and latched around the bed rail with my other. The world tilted as agony burned low in my body, and I felt the oddest sensation, the bottom of my body was being sucked out like a drain.

The hardships we’ve been through, the things we lost, they were all behind us. Those were more difficult than anything I’d been through, even this. Even as it felt like my body was ripping itself in two, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I’d get through this. This wasn’t pain, this was the beginning. Sometimes beginnings hurt, and it was strange to get used to a new way of life. But what drowned that fear, that pain, was excitement. The knowledge that what was about to start was going to be the best chapter you’d come to thus far.

Theo never left my side, chanting affirmations in my ear, kissing my temple, and letting me turn his hand black and blue for the next half hour.

“I have the head, she’s almost here, Imogen. On my count, you’re going to give me one huge push.”

I nodded, sweat trickling down my entire body. It didn’t matter at this point. The pain was there, but I was almost numb to it. The end goal was the only thing I could see. Meeting my baby was the only thing I could see.

“One, two, three!” Dr. Katz instructed, and I tightened every muscle I had.

After what felt like an eternity of giving every ounce of energy, I heard a sharp cry.

“Hi, baby girl!” one of the nurses cried, taking our bloody baby from Dr. Katz’s arms.

“She’s so beautiful.” Theo is crying, tears openly falling down his face.

I keep looking, pain still racketing through me as Dr. Katz keeps prodding down below. I try to sit up, but the nurse holds me back, and I’m about to object when finally they put her on my chest.

My daughter.

Dorian.

She has a head full of black hair.

A tiny, pert nose that matches my own.

She has Theo’s cheekbones and brows, sharp and intelligent.

And when she opens her eyes to look up at me, they’re a brilliant green.

Love has never, in my life, burned so bright.