Her day drew nearer, and Ada worried. She remembered her mother's last labor, the stillbirth, Nora's near death, and the transfusions that had given her the hepatitis that eventually did kill her. She was at the end of an appointment with her doctor when she told him the story. "I don't want the same thing to happen to my child. I don't to be a burden. I want to see her -- "

The doctor was flipping through her paperwork. "Most births are trouble free," he said. "Routine."

"Fine," she replied, "from your end. You'll survive no matter what happens."

"Hmmm," he said, still flipping pages. "Everything's in good shape. Anything questions? No? Good. Stop at the front desk on your way out and schedule your next appointment." He was gone.

The baby wasn't due for a week and Owen was out of town when the contractions started. She knew immediately that these were different, that they were unlike what she had begun to think of as the "practice" contractions. Her water broke. She left a message at Owen's hotel and picked up the suitcase she'd pre-packed and drove herself to the hospital. A cab might have been a better idea, but the drive hadn't been bad. Then she wondered how long the car would be in the parking garage, and how much it would cost. She hated spending money for nothing. Too late for that. She picked up the suitcase and walked into the hospital.

She listened to the lectures on driving and walking and carrying suitcases and told them they weren't telling her anything she hadn't already thought of. They took her in a wheelchair to a room, as if she were an invalid, and gave her a gown. She let them wire her up and install an IV. She asked for the book she'd packed and settled in to read. Except during the contractions, she was bored and wanted it over with. A woman in the next room was laughing uncontrollably.

The labor, after the first few hours, was as interminable as the pregnancy had been. Apparently the body ran on a different kind of time than Ada did, or at least than Ada preferred. She dozed between the irregular contractions, waiting out the night. The laughing woman in the next room was long gone, replaced by a woman who moaned, stopped, and moaned again, occasional periods of silence followed at unpredictable intervals by periods of moaning. The nurse came around periodically to check Ada's dilation. A sign on the wall read, "A total score of ten indicates the infant is in optimum condition". Optimum, like a product not damaged in the manufacturing and shipping. Ada went back to reading.

Midnight. A nurse came round to draw blood. Another nurse checked her dilation. "You're still at two," she said.

"Remind me never to do this again," Ada told her.

"You'll change your mind after you have that baby in your arms."

She called Owen's hotel. The line was busy. A few minutes later, the phone rang.

"I just got a flight, but it doesn't leave until six," he said. "How are you?"

"I wish you were here."

"Is it bad?"

"No, just tedious."

"I'll be there around noon. Hang on."

"I don't think I have much choice in the matter, actually."

"Right. Of course."

After the call, she picked up her book and tried to read, but she couldn't concentrate. Henry Adams was beginning to seem like a pompous ass, especially his habit of referring to himself in the third person. She put down the book and dozed, waking when she heard the nurses in the hall talking:

"She's begging for a C section."

"Most of them do on a first delivery."

"But when you're closed?"

The doctor walked in the room.

"Who are they talking about?" she asked.

"No idea," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Bored."

He put on a rubber glove. "Good. At least you're brave." He put two fingers in her vagina and hummed to himself.

Rude and casual; he'd become too used to his job; he acted like a mechanic working on a car. "How much longer is this going to take?" she asked.

"No telling. I'd cancel any appointments, though. You're not very big yet." He took out his hand and removed the glove and left the room.

She dozed intermittently, between having her temperature and blood pressure taken, her dilation checked, and the fetal monitor read. The baby was active all night. Occasionally a kick, or the baby swimming, or a contraction, knocked Ada out of her waking dream. Around 4 a.m., she began dilating very quickly, and the contractions speeded up and grew more powerful. She remembered a roller-coaster ride, the moment when the chain had seized the train of cars and flung them forward and she knew she was committed, she couldn't escape, only this was much more so. She longed for Owen. She wanted to hold his hand and hear him reassure her. She picked up the phone and called Nina, but there was no answer; Nina was a heavy sleeper, and all her phones were downstairs. She tried to concentrate on the fetal heartbeat, watching the trace on the screen. She was completely alone.

"Somebody get in here!" she yelled.

A nurse was there before she had finished her sentence. "I was on my way. I was watching your contractions at the station." She pulled down the sheet and looked. "Any time now. I'll call the doctor."

"I'd like to run away from this," Ada said. "They teach you things in class but they don't prepare you. You just hang on for dear life and hope it -- aaah. Oh. You just -- try to hang on."

"I'll call the doctor."

The doctor arrived, and smiled. "I see it's started."

"Ahhh." She gritted her teeth.

"Where's your husband, anyway?"

"He has a flight at six."

"I think he's going to miss the excitement."

"He never is around when I need him. Could you massage my legs?" she asked the nurse. "They're killing me... Oh my God. Oh no. This is too real. This is too real. Make it stop. I never thought it would be like this... Am I making that horrible smell?"

"Do you want that epidural now?"

"What? Oh, yes. What was I thinking?"

It had barely taken effect by the time the baby arrived. The birth itself was quick, and less trouble than the labor had been, at least in the time it took. But she felt as if she would split open. It was the most difficult work she'd ever done, much harder than she'd ever thought she was capable of. She thought the effort would burst a blood vessel in her brain. The child was born at sunrise, crying indignantly.

The girl was small and red and blotchy, covered with slime, eyes shut and face screwed tight in protest, her head elongated, her nose covered with whiteheads. Her cheeks were like pouches, the nails on her hands long, the skin of her fingers as wrinkled as a nonagenarian's. She was perfect. The doctor handed her to Ada, and in that moment the world changed. There was nothing but this child now.

"Hello, baby," Ada said. The child started and turned its head. It recognized her voice, and the phrase she had been saying for months.

"What are you going to name her?" the nurse asked.

They had never agreed on a name. She hadn't liked his favorites, and he hadn't liked hers. What else was there? "Clover," she said impulsively, thinking of the book she was reading. Henry Adams' wife. And add her own mother's name. "Clover Nora," she said. She held the infant to her heart. The child looked around as if blind, unable to focus and decipher this new place. Ada watched her. Motherhood was going to be interesting. After a while she fell asleep.

When she woke her husband was sitting next to her.

"How are you feeling?"

"Sore. It's like giving birth to an elephant. But wonderful. Have you seen her?"

"Yes. They said you named her Clover."

"Is that all right? It's probably not too late to change it."

"I like it. It's a good name. Why didn't we think of it together?"

"I don't know. Where is she? Why isn't she here?"

Owen called a nurse, who brought the girl. Ada held out her arms for her child before the nurse was all the way through the door. Clover was asleep, and would remain so for most of the day, as did her mother. The father, who had nothing to do, spent his time watching television and wandering the hall, looking out the window, and browsing the gift store. The next day, the three of them went home. The three of them, no longer two.