I’m sitting on the edge of the king size bed where I labored through the birth of my one and only son.  It’s seven years later and the same comforter covers its frame, though its mandala of colors are faded and the bed is now housed in the converted garage my son’s father calls home.  Years ago when we divvied up possessions, he inherited the bed and its linens.

It’s days before Jeb’s birthday and Rex and I are recounting the night my water broke as Jeb sits back, in a rare chance to play video games and listen to his parents reminisce.

“You would not wake up.  Do you remember that?”

“I woke up.”  He’s smiling.

“Rex.  It was crazy how hard it was to wake you.  It was 1am, my water had broken and I just remember nudging you again and again, telling you, ‘wake up’ and you just wouldn’t.  It was like you knew that once you woke up, it was on.  Everything would change.  And you just wanted to stay asleep.”

Rex smiles and chuckles the way he does when exposed.  “Yes, well, once I did get up I was there for you as much as I could be.”

“You were.  Would have been nice if the midwife would have been.  How crazy was that?”

A home birth.  Water breaks at 1am.  Midwife is off-island.  By 3am I’m fully in labor but she won’t catch the first plane to till 6.  Rex is apprehensive.  Birthing support is absent.  I’m in a banana patch in a school bus/house standing at life’s gateway feeling just a little bit alone in it all.

Seven years later with a healthy, growing boy, Rex and I can now laugh and marvel.

“Birth is really intense,” he says.  “You know in the old days, I don’t know if you guys would have made it.  At least one of you might not have survived.”

“It’s true.  I’m not sure what would have happened if we were in a different time.  We were lucky.”

“We sure are.”  He looks over to Jeb who is pushing game buttons while smiling at our words.

“Your experience of the whole thing, must have been so different from mine,” I say.  “In that, you saw me and what I was going through.  I was just so in it.  I have no idea what it was like for you.”

“I was just trying to be there for you.  Let you feel my support.”

“I don’t know where I was.  You know, I think when a woman gives birth she’s like this doorway.  On one side is life and one side is death.  And she is the threshold through which either may pass through.  It can go either way.  She’s just right there, the gateway between worlds.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

I glance to the wall and notice a calendar hanging, the top two corners curling and folding in upon themselves.

“Rex,” I smile.  “Your calendar says September 2009.”

“Yes.”  He’s revealing that exposed smile again.

“Rex, it’s almost 2011,”  I tease.  These qualities about him are nearly humorous now that we no longer share a life together.

“I won!”  Jeb beams from his video game.

“Ok.  It’s time to go,” I say, rising from the corner of that historic king size bed.

Days later and thousands of miles away, I am under stars in warm water on an isolated coastline, all alone.  It’s day one of my solo retreat and the official date that commemorates my passage into motherhood.  Seven years ago my pregnant belly was immersed in a kiddie pool laboring with Rex and my tardy midwife.

Seven years ago I was the threshold through which a child passed into Life.  Seven years ago that birth pushed me beyond my own inner threshold, transforming me forever.

Alone with the stars, I send Jeb a quiet birthday wish.  Give thanks for his precious presence in my life.  Float my body in the healing waters and wonder at the female form’s capacity to serve as a portal to this world.