The induction was scheduled for 5:00am on a Tuesday. My husband Andy and I drove to the hospital before any of the new day’s light had cracked open the edges of night. We held hands walking to the check-in desk, nervous about the labor and excited to meet our daughter, Anthem. Our two-year-old son was at home with his grandparents, sleeping peacefully and not yet grokking how he was about to become a big brother to a little sister.

While pregnant, there are days when I am ravenous. I awake hungry and never seem to fill. I grow shaky before lunch and can’t suppress the need for a snack before bed. I run a hand along the curve of my belly, where my baby is growing steadily. My body is a vessel, and I am less in control of it than ever before. I cannot know why there are days my body demands more food, or feels sick, or leaves me exhausted. I can only trust the signals it sends me for rest or nourishment, understanding that miraculously, though I have no conscious part in it, my body is developing and sustaining a human being.

Lightning trembles across the night sky

White punches which glaze the deep blue darkness

in shades of purple

(a bit of royalty, a bit of a bruise).