Delivery room, lit softly with the early dawn, clear bassinet lined with that ubiquitous green-on-white receiving blanket, new father leaning over, face suffused with happiness. And a baby, of course, tiny, velvet skin, perfect.

I sit on the bed, away from the glow of the moment, shaking.

“It’s a miracle you came in when you did,” a chatty nurse tells me, patting my arm. She doesn’t say any more, but I hear the rest of her sentence, unsaid words like knives of ice. A few minutes later, and it would’ve been over.

Nobody knows exactly what happened. But shortly after checking in, monitors were suddenly protesting, doctors converging. A few minutes of panic and agony. Then, a baby.

The baby’s heart rate was going down dramatically, they explain later, when the baby is already cute and pink in a blanket, warm with life. “Thank G-d, you were here on time. And she’s hale and hearty.” The midwife comes over, places the bundle in my trembling arms. “Awww now, isn’t she cute?”

Baby Girl yawns. The midwife laughs, my husband laughs. I laugh too, but something cold presses in on the hazy joy inside me. Tragedy had come too close, way too close.