“. . . I see a heart; can you
see it? And on the grey
display of the ultrasound
there you were as you were,
our nugget, in that moment
becoming a shrimp
or a comma punctuating
the whole of my life, separating
its parts—before and after—, . . .”

Excerpt from “Hello,” by Sean Hill

Or listen to the entire poem on The Slow Down podcast, read by Tracy K. Smith

First thing: wake up and remember, this is the day my third baby was born. This was the day she came into the world. This was the day I spent busy with errands and baking and waiting. This was a day of ease and excitement, gratitude and grace. She is in the house, and she is still sleeping. I will make her favorite breakfast before walking. Crepes and fresh strawberries, hot tea, maple syrup, whipped cream and I wake her and surprise her with this treat. It will be a day of treats. On my walk, the sun is shining–surprise! There’s some wind and spectacular clouds. I take a hearty walk, full of energy. Yes, hearty, I find a heart shaped on an old log in the skin of the tree, a heart for my daughter’s birthday. In the afternoon, we take to the river, my husband, both daughters and the birthday girl’s boyfriend in the kayaks and canoe under a gray sky, rain coming soon, and into a hearty wind and even some whitecaps. We just want to be outdoors, and this is what she wants to have with all of us. Later, there is hail! And I have planned her favorite dinner too: so I am in the kitchen much of the day, making it special. She wants Julia Child’s chicken in wine sauce, a recipe I learned to make with my mother as a teen. Her sister cooks the rice, and I am a little stressed as I am also trying to make dessert at the same time as the chicken dish, so they will both be ready together. Frank sets the table in the dining room, the good china. For dessert, I am surprising her with a chocolate fudge pudding cake. In the morning, she made homemade ice cream with her boyfriend, my idea. Dinner is splendid, the cake is perfection with the ice cream. We linger and linger at the table, Frank takes the night off from his nightly AA meeting that he runs on Zoom, so we have long conversations about what it’s like to live together in this pandemic, and we also have our special focus on the birthday girl. Much gratitude all around, and then I clean up, because I want to. Because I have fallen in love with feeding my family and being in my kitchen. We watch Knives Out and my daughter’s boyfriend shouts in the middle of the movie-'That’s Hospital Road!” And it is! The car chase is filmed a quarter mile down the street, we can see up the street towards our own driveway! Hers was a beautiful birth. Ease and joy. Here is the recipe for cake. Try it for someone’s birthday, or just because.