Dakota + Tim + Jones
I got to the hospital in the early hours of the morning for Dakota’s induction, walking into a room with a Doja Cat inspo playlist in the background while Dakota was sitting on the birth ball, breaking it down and chatting up the nurse. From previous experience, she predicted that once things really started rolling, Jones would come fast, and of course she was absolutely right.
The nurses tell her it’s time to get out of the tub, but she’s not ready. I’m now crouched down outside the tub near her, too, and she looks at me briefly and just gently shakes her head. I move between helping get the space ready and back to Dakota, and as I do say to the nurse she’s not ready to get out of the tub yet. I return back to her and take her hand. I tether us together in this way, an action that gently tells the room - if you pull her out of the tub you’ll have to yank me along with her.
After a few moments it’s very, very clear that Jones will be born soon. Do you want to have her here? Dakota doesn’t answer, but she begins to pull herself out of the tub with the hazy kind of grace someone has to their movement at this moment in labor moving to the bed and grounding herself on her hands and knees. We’re not sure if the doctor will make it in time and one of the nurses simply says We can catch a baby in here if we need to with absolute ease and confidence and I personally love her for this. The doctor is in the room shortly afterwards; you can tell he hustled to get there, but his calm and unhurried presence doesn’t create an interruption - part of why Dakota has appreciated him as her provider so much.
It’s Tim who catches Jones after a short time of emotionally and physically intense pushing. This is the moment that we had talked about for months. Tim reassures her that her tissue is stretching, a way to say not tearing. I’m near her head, brushing her hair back and saying my own reassurances, and in between pushes Dakota looks into my eyes for a just a moment, her face lit by the morning sun, then back down into the pillow and into herself.
Then there she is. Dakota looks at me, exhausted, and I brush her hair back a final time, hold her face, kiss her on the head and say you did it, there she is. In one graceful movement she reaches underneath her as Tim puts Jones into her hands and turns her body to lay on her back with Jones in her arms. She waves the nurses hands out of the way and dries Jones off with a towel, talking to her with a unique lilt in her voice that everyone does the first time they hold their baby, a frequency that’s like a secret language between them.
The placenta comes after, the look-over of Jones is done, and then the room is quiet. Tim holds Jones - for the second time - washed in what was that morning light now stretching into afternoon.
There’s an especially magic kind of kismet when your clients become some of your closest friends and even a colleague, and this was that kind of magic.
Just a few weeks ago, I got a call from Dakota in the morning while I was still in bed. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Just woke up,” I replied and she said without missing a beat: “Well, wake the fuck up and come to Cloud Walking. What do you want to drink?”
