And Then I Found You by Patti Callahan Henry Page B

contraction, her body disobeying her commands to be still. Her body’s unrelenting
     defiance left her breathless.
    “I’ll call him as soon as I get there. Shhh … be still. Focus on your breathing.”
    Tears blurred Katie’s eyesight and as they drove, the Spanish moss hanging off the
     live oak trees blurred into winged birds.
    “Katie, I will take care of everything. Focus only on your body. On the birth. Let
     go of everything else.”
    And she did. Closing her eyes, Katie went inside her body, talking to the baby she
     had named Luna, moving with the pain and the stirrings and the shifting of her bones.
     When they arrived at the hospital, the nurse told Katie that she was five centimeters
     dilated and moving fast.
    In her last birthing class, Katie had decided she would not have a single medication,
     and she stuck with that choice. Using every technique she’d ever learned, she took
     control of her body, allowing the reckless spasms to move through her, crying when
     needed and screaming when something begged to be released.
    There was, she found, a tunnel of darkness that she willingly entered as she pushed
     Luna from her body and into the world. Only the two of them existed—the crush of body
     cooperating outside time and space, allowing life to endure. The doctor, the nurse,
     and her mom were all in the room, yet they seemed somehow outside the world, another
     dimension.
    Bearing down one final time, Katie was silent and resolute as Luna was born. For the
     briefest moment, the baby was simultaneously attached to Katie and in the world. The
     doctor cut the umbilical cord, releasing Luna from Katie’s body. It would be Katie
     who would have to release Luna from her life.
    The nurse walked around the bed and placed a wide-eyed Luna into Katie’s arms. Katie
     looked down into her daughter’s face. “Oh, she’s the most perfect. Most perfect.”
     Luna’s hair was dark and thick, poking out in wet clumps after her journey. Her eyes
     were green, clear: Jack’s eyes. If grief had a sound, it was the silence of that birthing
     room.
    Nicole walked over and took Luna from Katie’s arms, and the room filled with the deepest
     and most awful knowing: They would hold Luna this once and then she would be gone.
     Somewhere in the same hospital, a family waited to hold their new daughter.
    Nicole held Luna and stroked her face, staring into her eyes. “We love you, baby Luna.
     We will, from this day forward, pray for you every day.” Nicole handed Luna to Katie.
     Pictures were taken as if it was a normal birth—a day of celebration even—and then
     it was time to say good-bye.
    “How do I do this?” Katie looked to her mom.
    “I don’t know.”
    Katie held her daughter, her heart yielded to the good-bye she hadn’t yet spoken.
     “I can’t go through this pain if there isn’t peace at the end. I can’t. Please promise
     me there is peace at the end of this.”
    Nicole placed her hand on Katie’s forehead, but didn’t promise anything at all. The
     nurse entered the room with her own tears. The social worker stood at her side with
     papers and a sad smile. “Are you ready?”
    Katie pulled back the blanket, memorizing every bend and curve and sinew of Luna’s
     body. Touching her. Kissing her.
    Jack was there, at the hospital, waiting in a separate room to both meet and then
     say good-bye to his daughter. If a last living piece of Katie’s heart existed (which
     she wasn’t sure about) seeing Jack would have killed it.
    “You, Luna, are beautiful and special and you are going to have a wonderful mother
     and dad. I want you to grow up to know your God, and be surrounded in and by love.
     Be a good girl. I love you with every piece of me.” Katie kissed her daughter’s forehead
     as a tear dropped on Luna’s wild hair.
    In a motion she would have thought impossible, Katie handed her child to the social
     worker and then reached into her bag. “I have something I want to send