Busy footsteps in the distance, the occasional beeping of some device, otherwise silence. And a hint of promise in the air. It's Sunday afternoon, the delivery room area has changed from a beehive to a peaceful place: almost all delivery rooms are empty and ready for use again, only one is expected to have a newcomer.
To the author
Agnes Maier, 26, is a midwife, writer and became a mother herself at the age of 15. "I was thrown in there. For me that meant: fight or go under!" She decided to fight and now shares her experiences with the world in the form of texts.
I have to sigh before opening the door to the delivery room. Because only I seem to really perceive the mentioned promise in the air.
A young woman is lying in bed in the room with the child's father sitting next to her in the armchair. It is quiet. Neither of them seem to notice I walk into the room and take a look at the child's heart rate graph.
The birth is in full swing, but the recently installed PDA works so well that the woman is barely aware of the contractions. I don't want to be able to really enjoy it - because although I naturally wish and allow the woman the most pleasant birth possible, unfortunately her interest in it seems to have died together with the pain.
Both mother and father hang around - I almost want to say bored - and stare into their smartphones as if this were the waiting area of a train station, not the arrival room of new life.
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