Counting down

This is the famous ME who occasionally comments -- Anne's mom. I'm a few feet away from the end of the birthing bed, and I'm very omfortable thank you, in a rocking chair with my coffee at hand, and Anne's computer for light-hearted entertainment.
Matt is in another soft, pleasant chair, typing fiendishly on his computer. Anne is counting her way through intensifying contractions, and the baby's heartbeat is adding a soft undertone to the quiet hum of this birthing room.
So nice. So different from the day Anne was born to me in "The Shrubbery" (a maternity home in High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire). So different because then, I could hear another woman wailing down the hall, and the midwife kept stepping out for a cigarette. Here, all is quiet and peaceful. We're only waiting for the wail of a baby.
When I heard the first wail of tiny baby Anne, all other crying stopped, and the August wind stirred the curtains at the windows, and all the roses bloomed brighter in the garden outside. "One lump of sugar, or two?" asked the lady with the teacart.
On the way over to the hospital this morning, I caught the tail end of "The Writer's Almanac". "It's the birthday," said Garrison Keillor, "of P.G. Wodehouse.
Oh! We have moved from four to seven centimeters in a very short space of time!
ME