Generations

Though I was her labor nurse for three of her four children I do not know her well. I knew the set of her broad shoulders, the shine of her beautiful brown hair and the lilt in her voice but when I saw her walking down the hall to room 279 I did not know that her daughter was in labor.

I only knew her now-grown children through their medical care. First immunizations and well baby check ups. Later, appendicitis and pneumonia. And now, labor.

I went to greet her. She looked tired. Determined, but tired. And happy to see me. Mothering a laboring child is a tight rope walk. You must be strong but tender. Compassionate but not timid. And not a sissy. Being in labor yourself is easy compared to a tending a laboring daughter who is frightened and in tears.
Yes, she was happy to see a familiar face, the face of another mother.

I rubbed her shoulders as I smiled my hello. She smiled her beautiful smile back at me as she returned to her daughter and the labor nurse who would tend her.

It was a long day. Others gathered to wait. A woman, older than I, who would become a great grandmother this day, sat on a stool out side the hospital room door. She was fervently willing birth to come, and, finally, birth did come.

It is a beautiful sound, the sound of labor ending and a new life beginning.
I heard it from the hall. I went in to see a pink cherub of a baby lying in the crib surrounded by an exhausted mother and grandmother, a relieved great grandmother and a room full of siblings that I had seen come into the world.

Three generations standing at a bedside gazing at a baby. Happy. Life is good.