Intense feelings emanated from a place within Gab she hadn’t known existed. Deep within her abdomen, they moved downwards, outwards—deepening with every moment, pulling in the entirety of her being, her mind, her self.

Lying in the exam room, the midwife checked the degree of Gab’s cervical dilation—an uncomfortable procedure that Gab got through with sheer grit. It was time to get to a birthing suite—and to hustle. Gab’s waters hadn’t yet broken, but they soon would.

Freya had been standing outside the exam room while the midwife checked Gab, but when the midwife asked Gab if she had anyone to support her, she called out to her friend. Freya came in, helped Gab up off the exam table and stepped into a role that she had never imagined would be part of her university experience. She was ready to grow into the space that the role demanded of her.

With Freya supporting one arm, the midwife the other, Gab walked, very slowly now, to the nearest birthing suite. There were no gaps between contractions anymore. The girls had arrived just in time.

In the birthing suite, Gab didn’t want to lie down. She needed to be on her hands and knees; she knew it deeply. Her focus was complete; that transition between cervical opening and the beginning passage of the baby out towards the world was one of entire intuition. She had to go with her body; to trust that she knew more than she knew. She also had to trust that the unbearable pain wouldn’t be the death of her. This was such an acute synchrony of opposites—surrender and agency, relinquishment and gain, letting go and being caught up—being the process itself.

The pain moved from a deep, gruelling push in the pit of her abdomen—when waters finally broke with a sudden burst of impact—to that intense burning pain that heralded the beginning of birth.

“I can’t do it!” Gab cried, in alarmed desperation.

“You’re nearly there,” said Felicity, a young, strong midwife. “You can do this. We know you can. Now, just rest for a moment; don’t push yet. We don’t want any tearing. The urge to push will come again in a moment, but I just want you to breathe, take it slow. I’ll tell you when.”

Freya was by Gab’s head and shoulders; Gab leaning on her own elbow’s, squeezing Freya’s hand like her life depended on it. The midwife sent affirming nods to Freya too:

“That’s it, hold her hands. Gab, you’re doing great.”

And then, the pain rose, and rose and rose and at that moment when it couldn’t possibly get any worse and Gab felt she was about to explode or disintegrate, there was a sudden whoosh of release.

“Your baby’s head is out!” cried Felicity warmly. “Oh, well done, Gab! Now, there’ll be one more big push in a moment, and … ”

Suddenly Gab was crying and Freya was crying and a new little, tiny voice was crying too.

There he was.

A little boy.

Felicity helped Gab roll over and pull off her shirt, and she laid this little, tiny boy on Gab’s naked chest; Gab didn’t care that she was naked because she was all new too.

The strange opposite feelings that had run through Gab for months and years suddenly weren’t parallel anymore—not in that moment. They became intwined in an explosion of warmth when Gab looked down at her son. Her real son. Smooth and tender, with the finest blonde hairs and already gingery little eyebrows. He was the most beautiful thing Gab had ever seen.

That is not to say that in the next moment, Gab didn’t look at the little pink lump in her arms and wonder what the heck to do with it and how this could possibly, possibly be true. She was galled by the overwhelming residual pain of her body, the after-pains of labour; her uterus contracted to half its size in an absurdly short time—wasn’t the pain meant to be over after birth? It certainly wasn’t. And she struggled too with helping her baby latch on to feed, because both were learning and it was strange, even if natural. These were things no one had told Gab to expect. It was as much a learning curve for her as for her baby.

But there was also wonder and delight—and newness, so much newness. The midwives allowed Freya to stay in hospital overnight with Gab, and she warmed Gab’s heat-pack countless times, propped up her pillows, helped Gab to the bathroom, and held the tiny, warm little bundle when Gab was desperate for sleep.

This was a beginning. This was Gab’s own family, to be more than what her own had been. And she took into it all she had learned, and all the ways in which she had been hurt, and a passion to do everything in her power to be different, not to repeat the cycle, not to pass on that emptiness, those gaps, that indignity, to her child. She didn’t know how she was going to manage this, but she was going to manage it.

This was tenacity.