Babycatcher

I am waiting with a family for their daughter. I found the mother tucked into a labor bed wearing a calm expression and breathing with quiet force through the pain; her husband sitting in the chair beside her. Their children he said, not allowed in the labor ward, waited just outside. Three girls 11, 8, 5, and 1 boy age 3. The children have been waiting for hours. It is now 10pm. I tell him the baby may still be hours away, the children should go home and sleep. They do not want to leave without their parents. When the baby is born they will go home together.

I pass by to meet them. They are not fighting, just quietly waiting; the oldest on a phone, the baby boy dipping french fries in ketchup. Their father says they never want to leave him. They traveled from Honduras to Mexico by bus. They would sleep sitting upright body against body. They stayed in Mexico for some time. When he would work clearing land and walk all day, they would follow. I imagine the little boy sometimes on his father’s shoulders, sometimes trailing behind, always watched by sisters. Moving as one. Love binds. The father says they live the life God gives. This is the first delivery in the US. I imagine another setting, her children around her, their baby tumbling out into the warmth of the family’s enkindled love.

I imagine my own small people snoring in quiet whispers, three beds in one small room, street light and tree shadows dancing over their forms; arms tossed across pillows, mouths softly open. My heart hurts with love.