The soft ding of the text wakes me. If I am on call, I listen for it even in the deepest sleep. The message says “Multip here looking active. Please come.” The clock says 3:40, which is good, it means I’ve been asleep several hours.  I text back, “OK”, to let the midwife know she has reached me. I need to brush my teeth.

A few minutes later I let myself out into the dark. The neighborhood is silent, the moon is up in the east and Orion high in the west. It’s a fine night, with a soft breeze.

I’m in a hurry. A multip is a multipara, a woman who has given birth before. Active labor can be stunningly short and birth can take a single push. I’m needed to be a second pair of skilled hands, to ensure a safe birth, and I have a ways to travel. I don’t speed. There is major construction on my highway, with lane closures and bright work lights shining right into my eyes and distracting police lights flashing red and blue. I’m anxious, squeezing the steering wheel a little, but I just drive, hoping I am on birth’s time.

When I enter the birth center, I listen. It’s quiet. No screaming, but no sound of chatting and laughter, either. No baby crying yet.

The mother is reclining, eyes closed, in the tub in our largest birthing room. It’s dark, with a few candles. There is a bank of windows with open blinds showing scattered city lights, and that moon in the eastern sky. We are high up on the third floor. The dad and the midwife crouch by the tub. A contraction begins. The mother stays peaceful, breathing through it.The midwife and the dad whisper encouragement. When it’s over, I introduce myself and settle down to watch.

The mother’s breathing begins to sound a bit vocal. She groans, she exhales hard, but she stays still, floating. The dad moves behind her. Leaning over the edge of the tub, just at her ear, he murmurs to her through each contraction. It’s a very loving scene. I am witnessing something truly intimate.

She begins to flip positions, seeking comfort. I interpret that the baby has moved lower, and she is starting to feel a constant pressure. We move with her, offering towels as cushions, cool rags, sips of water. Her eyes are open. Finally, she settles on her knees, back upright, and just begins to holler. She screams and screams, and we all draw back a little. She is pretty awesome, an erect, screaming goddess about to give birth.

Women hold the silent, drifting image in their minds and they think that is how they will deliver. They apologize sometimes, if they think they have been less than stoic. But in truth, most of us give birth like trumpeting elephants.

There is a change in the pitch of my laboring mother’s screams. The midwife and I both react by reaching for gloves. The water has probably broken, but you can’t tell in the dark water of the tub. But right away, she curls her chin and, still kneeling, bears down.

The water birth, the kneeling position, its awkward. The midwife has to move to deliver her from behind. In the deep, guttural elephant screaming and awkwardness, the baby is born. I can’t see a thing in the water, but I watch the mother’s face as she takes a second to realize, then show the briefest relief before radiating what has got to be the purest joy there is as her baby is passed up between her legs and into her arms.

We let them have those minutes, the mother and father and the newborn. Then we help the momma settle back comfortably in the tub, her baby naked on her naked chest, the water, bloody, now still. The mother bends her head towards the newborn. The dad bends over them both. Behind them, in the bank of windows, the morning sky is turning pink.