The Omaha streets were dark and empty as my husband sped through the night to the hospital. I gripped his hand and howled in pain, succumbing to another body-jarring contraction. They were getting closer together and more intense. I began to wonder if, after coming this far, we would even make the final few miles to the delivery room.
“This is like a movie, isn’t it?” my husband said, trying to distract me.
I laughed, remembering how anti-cinematic the lead-up to the births of our other children had been. He and I had sauntered into the hospital, midafternoon, as if we were checking into a hotel for a weekend getaway. Both times a baby arrived — eventually.
This felt different. We were hurdling ahead on fast-forward to our new normal. I had planned and pushed and arranged and advocated to get us here and now we were going full speed toward the edge of my realm of control and turning it over to the baby’s. Things were going exactly as we had hoped, though not without a few surprises.
Contractions had begun several days ahead of my due date. And they came on fast. In only a few hours they had built to such intensity I had to drop to my hands and knees to breathe through them. I called to speak to the midwife on duty and found out she was one of the four who I had not even met yet. I was scheduled to meet her in two days. I would not make that appointment. I was lucky to make it to the hospital.
The emergency room was entirely empty when we arrived, except for a smiling woman in pink sitting behind a desk. Within minutes I was in the delivery room with my midwife, who despite being roused in the middle of the night by me — a perfect stranger — was serene and welcoming, giving me a hug and a tight squeeze of my hand before setting about her work.
She and the three other nurses in the room calmly coached me through the rocking waves of pain and, in between, we talked through my birth plan. Labor was progressing so quickly I didn’t make use of the whirlpool tub they had for me. But I was able to move around to help the baby drop down. And that’s all it took. After two excruciating pushes, I saw her.
“It’s a girl!” my husband yelled.
The room lit up like fireworks bursting across the dark sky with the arrival of our kicking and cooing little girl, a burst of energy finally here with us. Everyone in the room was laughing or crying; my husband and I were doing both. He cut the umbilical cord and the nurses lifted her immediately to my chest. I held her skin to skin, running my hands over her thick moptop of dark hair in disbelief.
A girl? With dark hair? It was 2:10 a.m. and I was holding a baby. We had only left the house at 1:10 a.m. It was overwhelming and a little dizzying to realize (despite the many ways the decision to have our baby in Omaha could have fallen apart) it actually happened as we had hoped. I was holding a beautiful, healthy 8-pound-8-ounce baby, after a quick delivery, and we were in a comfortable place where I could breathe.
I could see a full horizon view of the sky as the sun rose on our ample postpartum room. I spent those early morning hours shifting my gaze from her upturned nose and rosy cheeks to the opening sky that seemed infinitesimal compared with the wonder of her.
The whole wing was quiet – except when my sons bounded down the hall for their exuberant visit, bringing balloons and flowers and lots of questions.
We settled comfortably into our room, all of us piling on the big bed to cuddle with the baby, calling for food that was made to order and brought to us any time we wanted to eat and enjoying the company of friends and relatives who came and went. There was no spa (alas!), but my husband and I were treated to a celebratory three-course steak dinner – a perfectly Nebraska thing. This is not to say you couldn’t find something similar at many other hospitals in the country, but I found it here and it was just as I had hoped.
In her first week, my daughter (my daughter!) explored Nebraska as we latched in the new car seat, loaded her into the Ergo and jumped into our new normal as a party of five.
By the time she was 6 days old she had ridden a train, a tractor and in a pickup truck. She had already been to the local pumpkin patch amusement park, the zoo and even the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football game against Rutgers in Lincoln. Will she be infused with a lifetime love of the Plains? Probably not.
I can’t make her love the place the way I do. But my journey to have her in Omaha will always be part of her life story. No matter where she goes or who she becomes, every time she fills out a form or puts together a bio, until someone writes her obituary, Omaha will be there: her birthplace.
Chances are good Omaha won’t matter to her. I know that. It may even be an annoyance she will take pains to avoid having to explain. Ultimately, Omaha could be anywhere that a mother chooses to give birth. What I hope will matter to her is the narrative of her empowered mother who advocated for the birth experience she wanted. And got it.
Today, as I sit with my family on the deck watching my sons run through leaves in the backyard, I am celebrating my 40th birthday. No big bashes here. Just us, being together. I’m holding my little girl, with her fingers wrapped tightly around mine, feeling grateful. I find all the wishes I have are for her.
Perhaps she will see how I worked to find my own personal Omaha – not just for her birth, but in terms of work and family, too. It takes gumption to go for the choice that is out of the way and a little hard to get to, but is right for you. I hope that, when she needs to, she has the strength and support to find her own personal Omaha, too.