And I lay there, my arms strapped down, the curtain blocking my view.

I saw some bloody latex gloves at one point, and the room seemed cavernous, despite the some 8 people who hovered over me.

Greg crouched over my head, protective, afraid.

Then suddenly I saw him straighten, and draw in a startled breath in the crisp bright flourescent light.

I can see the feet! he said, and he was standing now, leaning away from my head, It's peeing...

And the cry split the air, that birth cry like no other, that birth cry that followed precisely 11 months of the most excruciating silence I will ever know.

Amid cries of "It's a boy" and "does he have a name?" and "his name is Liam", and me saying, "Go to him," and pushing Greg towards the small, flailing infant who was on a lighted heat bed having his lungs sucked out, I was reborn.
I lay on my back, like Jesus Christ on the cross, my arms outstretched, immobile.
I lay on my back and tears poured down my cheeks.

I had been afraid of this, that at this moment of birth I wouldn't be able to hold my baby right away.

But when it happened, and that cry broke the air?

I could have waited five minutes, maybe even ten. Hell, maybe even an hour!
Patience reigned, because he lived, he lived.

My little boy who lived.

I still heave these huge sighs of relief, because I was saved by him.