29. Cassandra
— ? —
Cassandra
Labor is not what I expected.
I expected something dramatic - screaming, chaos, medical interventions requiring split-second decisions.
I expected it to feel like an emergency, like something requiring rescue.
What I get instead is something slower and more grinding, a marathon rather than a sprint.
Hours of contractions that build and fade, build and fade, each one a wave I have to ride to the crest before the slow descent.
Teresa, the midwife who’s been with me since we arrived, has a calm presence that I’m grateful for - different from Lidia, who handled my prenatal appointments with efficient warmth but isn’t on shift tonight.
Teresa explains everything as it happens, checks my progress at regular intervals, and treats this not as a crisis but as a natural process that my body knows how to handle.
I’m not entirely convinced my body knows what it’s doing, but I appreciate the confidence.
“How are we feeling?” Teresa asks, looking at the monitor.
“Like I’m being squeezed by a giant who hasn’t heard of labor laws.”
She laughs - a genuine laugh, not the polite kind. “That’s a good sign. Means you’re progressing well.”
Antonio is beside me, holding my hand with a grip that’s probably leaving bruises on both of us. He looks more terrified than I’ve ever seen him, which is saying something considering I’ve watched him face down hostile press junkets and industry executives who wanted to bury him.
“You should eat something,” I tell him during a lull between contractions.
“I’m fine.”
“You haven’t eaten since lunch. If you faint, Teresa’s going to have to choose between delivering a baby and scraping you off the floor, and I think we both know which one she’ll pick.”
“Your wife makes a good point,” Teresa says. “There are sandwiches in the family waiting area. Go get one. She’s at six centimeters - you have time.”
“I don’t want to leave her…”
“Antonio.” I squeeze his hand, then release it. “Go eat. I’ll still be here when you get back. The baby isn’t coming in the next ten minutes.”
He goes, reluctantly, casting looks back over his shoulder like I might disappear if he takes his eyes off me. It’s sweet, in an annoying way. I’ve spent so many months being invisible that being the center of this much attention feels almost overwhelming.
“He’s terrified,” I say to Teresa once he’s gone.
“Most first-time fathers are. The good ones, anyway.” She adjusts something on the monitor. “How long have you been married?”
“Almost seven years.”
“That’s a good stretch. You seem solid together.”
I think about how to answer that - about the cold year, the separation, the slow and painful work of rebuilding. “We are now. We weren’t always.”
“Marriage is like that. Seasons.” She shrugs philosophically. “The ones that survive learn to weather the winters.”
Antonio returns with a sandwich he’s already half-eaten, crumbs on his shirt, looking slightly less pale. He resumes his position beside me, takes my hand again, and we settle back into the rhythm of waiting.
The contractions intensify as the hours pass.
Teresa checks in periodically - vitals, comfort, general monitoring - announcing encouragement like a calm coach.
The pressure builds in waves, each one stronger than the last, and I find myself gripping Antonio’s hand hard enough that my knuckles go white.
“Tell me something,” I say, trying to distract myself during a brief plateau. “Something that isn’t about labor or babies or hospitals.”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Tell me about the first time you saw me. The real story, not the polished version you tell at parties.”
He’s quiet for a moment, remembering. “You were wearing red. A dress with these little flowers on it - I remember thinking it was the kind of dress that looked simple until you really looked at it. And you were arguing with someone about coffee.”
“I was not arguing.”
“You were absolutely arguing. The barista wanted to give you whole milk and you wanted oat milk and you were explaining, very patiently, why those two things were not interchangeable.”
“That’s not arguing. That’s educating.”
“You educated him so thoroughly that he gave you the oat milk for free just to make you stop.”
I laugh, and then a contraction hits and the laugh turns into something else - a groan, a focused exhale, the primal sound of a body doing hard work. Antonio’s hand is there, steady, and I hold on until the wave passes.
“Nine centimeters,” Teresa announces after the next check. “Almost there.”
Almost there. The words feel surreal. In an hour - maybe less - I’m going to meet my daughter. The baby we tried for years to have, the one we’d given up hoping for, the one that came when we weren’t even trying anymore.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
“That’s normal,” Teresa says.
“Not of the pain. Of what comes after.” I look at Antonio. “What if I’m not good at this? What if I don’t know how to be a mother?”
“Then we’ll figure it out together,” he says. “The same way we’ve figured out everything else.”
“That’s not very reassuring. We’ve figured out most things by making terrible mistakes first.”
“And then learning from them. That’s how parenting works, I think.” He brushes hair from my forehead. “Nobody knows what they’re doing at first. We’ll mess up. But we’ll also love her. And that has to count for something.”
The transition hits about twenty minutes later - that phase Teresa warned me about, when everything intensifies and the urge to push becomes overwhelming.
The pain is unlike anything I’ve experienced, a full-body pressure that demands action.
I hear myself making sounds I’ve never made before, primal and raw, and I don’t even care that Antonio is seeing me like this.
He’s seen me broken. He’s seen me rebuilding.
This is just another kind of transformation.
“She’s crowning,” Teresa says. “On the next contraction, I need you to push.”
“Okay.” The word comes out steadier than I feel.
“You’ve got this, Cass.” Antonio’s face is close to mine, his voice a lifeline. “One more push.”
The contraction builds. I push with everything I have, feeling the pressure shift and change, feeling something give way-
And then a cry.
Small and fierce and absolutely, impossibly real.
“She’s here,” Teresa says, and there’s wonder in her voice - the kind that doesn’t fade even after thousands of deliveries. “Perfect. She’s perfect.”
They place her on my chest, this tiny squalling creature with dark hair and a face scrunched up in absolute outrage. She’s red and wet and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her fists clenched, her lungs clearly in excellent working order.
“Hi,” I whisper. “Hi, little one.”
Antonio is beside me, one arm around my shoulders, his face wet with tears he’s not bothering to hide. “She’s so small.”
“She’s strong. Listen to those lungs.”
Teresa is doing things - clinical things, checking and cleaning and recording - but I barely notice. My whole world has narrowed to this small warm weight on my chest, this person who didn’t exist outside my body until a few minutes ago.
“Do we have a name?” Teresa asks.
I look at Antonio. We’ve debated names for months, unable to agree on anything that felt right. But now, looking at her face, I know.
“Lucia,” I say. “After my grandmother.” I glance at Antonio. “And Maria. After your mother.”
His breath catches. His mother, Maria, who died in a car accident when he was nine. Who he visits in a cemetery outside Rome, standing alone in the rain. He told me once about those visits - the promises he makes to her about the family he’s building.
“Lucia Maria,” he repeats softly. “That’s perfect.”
Teresa takes her to do the official checks - weight, length, the mysterious calculations that turn a person into a set of numbers. Seven pounds, four ounces. Twenty inches long. All fingers, all toes, a healthy cry that suggests strong opinions about being handled by strangers.
When they bring her back, Antonio holds her for the first time.
His hands shake as he takes her, cradling her against his chest with exaggerated care, and the expression on his face is something I’ve never seen before.
Not joy exactly - something deeper than that.
Something that looks like a man meeting his future.
“She has your hair,” I say.
“She has your nose.”
“Poor thing.”
“Your nose is perfect.”
Lucia yawns - a tiny movement, her mouth opening and closing - and Antonio looks at me with such raw emotion that my throat tightens.
“We made this,” he says. “We actually made this.”
“We did.”
“I didn’t think - after everything - I didn’t know if we’d ever…”
“I know.” I reach out and touch his arm. “But we did. We’re here.”
He leans down and kisses me, gentle and brief, and then he goes back to staring at our daughter like she’s the most miraculous thing he’s ever seen.
The grief doesn’t disappear. I can feel it still, the shadow of those two years of trying, the disappointment and the loss and the way our marriage nearly broke under the weight of wanting something we couldn’t have. A baby doesn’t fix that. Lucia doesn’t exist to repair what was broken.
But she’s here. She’s ours. And that’s enough.