It’s a Girl
Miren Leora Ibarra was born at high noon on November eleventh. The joy of her birth eclipses the fear, anxiety and sorrow that moved in with us in October. Roger has been to the store and come home with pink Champagne, pink balloons, pink crepe paper, pink ribbon and two bouquets of pink roses, one for me and one for Valerie. We drive out to Palo Alto - Stanford Hospital to meet the lusty lady at early evening visiting hours.
“Mom, you should have heard her yell. She was outraged!”
“You were awake?”
“She was.” Andy sits on the bed next to Valerie. “She was magnificent!” He pulls her into a hug, like tucking a tiny bird under his impressive wing. “She screamed and cussed me something awful!”
Valerie shoves her elbow into his side. “I did not!”
“You were there when your daughter was born?” Roger looks at Andy, then Valerie, then me with the expression of a man trying to make sense of car parts that don’t fit together.
“Sure was.” The well-schooled attorney part of Andy has receded and the farm boy in love with the land, the loam, and all forms of productivity emerges. “Not the first time I’ve seen birth, you know.”
Valerie flashes a triumphant smile.
A nurse wheels a hospital bassinet around the corner into the room and pauses in front of where Roger and I stand at the foot of Valerie’s bed. She reaches down and scoops up a bundle of baby swaddled in a pink blanket decorated with tiny dancing elephants holding pastel colored parasols. The nurse looks at Valerie, receives a nod, and delivers the bundle into my arms.
“Here you go, Grandma.” I feel my granddaughter’s warmth against my chest, breathe in her new powdery smell, and I stop breathing. Roger leans in over my shoulder as I draw the blanket away from Miren’s face with one finger. I touch her cheek and she moves her head toward me, eyes squinched shut, rosy lips coming to life. Valerie sees her baby’s movement and holds her arms out.
“Better hand her over, Mom. I think she wants to eat.”
I move quickly to the side of the bed and transfer Miren into her mother’s arms. Then I look around for a bottle to hand Valerie. Surely the nurse has prepared formula. When I turn back, all I see is a fat pair of legs and a fan of tiny toes stretching out from underneath the blanket that now tents the baby. Roger had skedaddled from the room but the proud papa remains, gently cradling one little leg in the palm of his hand, exploring the heel and arch of his new daughter’s foot.
“I thought...”
“The nurse convinced me I should try to breast feed. It seems to be going pretty well. She says I’m a natural.” Valerie looks proud of herself.
I compose my face in a mask of polite interest. I thought only women in third world countries breast fed babies. Why did we buy a boatload of bottles and formula? Wasn’t the bottle an innovation to free women? What happened to Valerie the modern mama?
Miren eats quickly and passes out.
R
It would be a few days before I would see her open her eyes, large and dark, like mine and Alaya’s. The olive toned skin could have come from either the Moraga or Ibarra side of the family, but she has one feature that surprises me. Those rosy lips curled into a sweet smile punctuated by a tiny dimple are pure Henry Carter. One day I will take Miren out to Golden Gate Cemetery and tell her about her grandfather and the sacrifices he made so she could be born into our family.