The pulsating wail of an ambulance pierced the early morning solitude and the rhythmic flash of the red lights illuminated our car. I glanced across the front seat at my husband, his face tight, lips taut, his hands knuckle-white and gripping the steering wheel. No doubt he thought it a stroke of good luck that an ambulance came screaming by just as we pulled onto the freeway.

He turned on the flashers, slammed his foot to the gas pedal and we sped down the highway, tagging along behind an ER vehicle and being escorted to the hospital for the birth of our baby by an emergency that didn't belong to us. Between pains, I managed to worry aloud that I hoped the ambulance was going to County General. Apparently that thought hadn't occurred to my less-than-calm husband and I saw his mouth fall open in a surprised, "Oh." Had I not been consumed with the pain of hard labor I would have laughed at him.

Luckily, the ambulance was indeed headed to our hospital, and as it pulled into the long drive at the emergency room, our car screeched to a halt right behind it. A blue-clad, muscle-bound replica of the Hulk ran toward our car, gurney in tow. "No, no," I cried as he yanked open the car door. "Not me. In there!"

And then, like a strike of lightening from an unsuspecting sky, it hit me without warning: Transition!

Now, any woman who's ever given birth knows about transition - that moment when a sweet-natured, radiant mother-to-be morphs into a red-eyed monster that possesses the strength of Goliath and the temperament Satan. Labor is hard and fast and the monster has but one goal: Make it stop. "Get-Me-The-Gurney!" Was that really my voice, menacing and threatening and at least fifty decibels deeper than normal? Let the ambulance rider fend for himself!

No sooner had they gotten me into one of the cubicles than I heard someone yell, "Okay, bear down!" I needed to hold onto something so I reached out blindly for my husband's hand. Mindlessly, I connected with his flesh and squeezed hard. For the second time that night I saw my husband's mouth fly wide open. This time, his eyes bulged and a strangled, desperate yelp escaped his throat.

Unfortunately for him, it wasn't his hand that was scrunched up in my fist.

Amid shouts of "let go, let go, let go!" someone, probably the Hulk, tried to pry my fingers away. Ah, but the strength of a woman in childbirth could be harnessed as power and marketed as energy. I had a death-grip. I was, after all, transitioning.

Barely an hour later, I lay in my hospital room, my beautiful new baby son nestled in my arms. Gone and forgotten was the transition monster and I smiled over at my husband who was lying prone on the hospital chaise beside my bed. Thinking about the fast and furious delivery of our son I said, "You know, Honey, childbirth is the hardest pain to bear, but the easiest to forget. It was definitely worth every moment of pain."

"Speak for yourself," he grumbled sourly, then readjusted the heating pad on his lap.

Learn more about this author, Meggie Hardy.
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