Right on Time

I had always pictured "due date" as a deadline—a definitive, tangible one, like the deadlines on school assignments that came with red pen and stern lecture. But pregnancy isn't tangible, and nothing on my journey to motherhood went according to plan.

I had circled May 17 on the calendar with pink, added a heart-shaped sticker to it, and made it my mantra. That was when I was to arrive. That was when everything was going to be changed, when I would be somebody's mother. It was to be the day that I marched ahead like a beacon in the dark waters of morning sickness, puffy ankles, and midnight cravings for cold pickles and mango sorbet.

But the baby had other ideas.

The one thing that no one tells you is that 5% of babies are born on their due date. All the rest come early, or late, or in between, and they don't give a hoot about how many apps you've counted your contractions with or how many prenatal yoga classes you've taken. The baby does not care about your timetable.

By May 10th, I was all packed. The nursery smelled of fresh cotton and lavender. The bassinet was assembled. The onesies were neatly folded by color. And I was ready—at least I believe so.

May 17 came with blue skies and quiet. I awoke, half-hoping for something—something that would signal a sign: a spasm, a cramp, something worthy of the movies. There was nothing. The morning dragged slowly on, punctuated by messages from family and friends inquiring, "Any news?" I wanted to scream. The only news was that my body was still and my mind was rabid.

Each minute was a question I was unable to answer. Had I done something bad? Was the baby okay? Why was I not giving birth?

By the 20th of May, I was still pregnant, and my doctor told me to be induced. "It's nothing to worry about," she explained gently. "Some babies just need a little push." But I did not want to be induced. I wanted it all to work on its own. I wanted the movie moment—the water breaking in the kitchen, the hectic dash to the hospital, the clammy forehead kisses, and dramatic contractions.

Instead, I was assigned a fluorescent light-filled hospital room, monitors strapped around my waist, and a bag of Pitocin slowly dripping into my arm.

The contractions were intense and consecutive. The fantasy had shattered in a moment.

I labored 14 hours. My body trembled, and I cried more than I ever had in my entire life. I felt like I was dissolving, coming apart at the seams.

When the nurse told me it was time to push, I panicked. I wasn't prepared. How do you prepare to lay eyes on the person you've never seen but love more than anything in the world?

Three pushes in, and the pain faded into something else—something otherworldly. There was silence in the room, and then, a wail. Loud, raw, beautiful. I was crying, too, even before they placed her on my chest.

She'd had a thick head of dark hair and eyes that had appeared, somehow, wise. As if she'd known me years before I had ever seen her. I held her in my chest, and all the missed deadlines, all the delays, all the pain—none mattered.

She wasn'trn on her due date.

She was born on her right day.

There's a kind of poetic ugliness to that, I believe. Life teaches us to stick to timetables, to count down to events, and to gauge ourselves in benchmarks. But birth—and maybe motherhood too—does not play along. It does not wait for demand. It does not play along with rules. It comes when it's ready and not when we are.

Seven days later, I was dancing her through the dead of night, exhausted but brimming with love, and I caught sight of the pink circle on the calendar. May 17. It had looked so huge, so imminent. My daughter had no date. She was a person. And no sticker, no app, no estimate could have ever predicted her.

Now when somebody asks about her arrival, I don't say she was "late." I say that she arrived right on schedule.

Because some arrivals do not follow the schedule, they rewrite it.

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