By Rhonda Fitzgerald-Hunter
In the soft stillness of 2:30 a.m.,
a hum of contractions whispered—
a storm on the horizon.
Not yet due,
the calendar claimed weeks more.
But life doesn’t wait for clocks or calendars,
it arrives
like a sudden wave.
The house sighed, as I crept—
past blue-grey walls and carpets,
the hum of a dryer holding my clothes.
The pain came sharp and unrelenting,
doubling me over like a hinge unfastened.
Army-crawling,
I met my son’s sleepy eyes,
his innocence alight with confusion,
and a glimmer of joy.
A brother, he thought,
not knowing the cost.
The crawl to my clothes—
Tide and Downy rose to greet me,
their calm at odds with my chaos.
Each movement,
a wrestling with gravity,
a dance of limbs against time.
Pain spoke louder than words;
mom’s calm questions scraped my patience raw.
Dad’s humor bit—
barefoot and pregnant in January,
I almost growled.
The hospital loomed, its harsh light
a cruel shift from the womb-dark road.
Sanitizers stung the air;
sterile fingers prodded,
ignoring my breathless protests.
“Push,” they said,
as if my body were a machine
and I, its unwilling operator.
The doctor pulled
where no one should pull.
I pushed,
swearing vengeance
on the smug architect of this agony.
Eyebrows painted like cartoon strokes,
his face became my focus for wrath.
And then,
the cool release—
a body slipping free,
a small, screaming alien laid upon my chest.
Blue-gray and slimed,
his arrival felt like war and miracle
in equal measure.
James,
I whispered,
my love settling into his name.
Years from now,
we will sit and watch Alien.
The ripping, the shock,
the horror of birth reenacted
in science fiction’s grotesque.
I will tease him—
his little face twisted in mock guilt.
“That’s what you looked like,” I’ll say,
“bursting from me.
Crying like the world owed you softness.”
He will laugh,
and perhaps,
offer a small apology
for the gift of life given too fiercely.
Rhonda Fitzgerald-Hunter 